Home » What the Heck Does Metabolism Really Mean?

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I know you have heard of the word "metabolism". Who hasn't among those of us that are trying to lose weight? Have you ever wondered what metabolism is all about? Have you ever wondered what metabolism is? In my quest to understand my ability to lose weight I kept reading about metabolism in exercise and about what happens to it if I skip breakfast and about how I needed to speed it up. Then one day I decided enough was enough and researched it myself. So...In my non-technical, non-scientific explanation way, I have deduced the following easy to read information.

"Metabolism is the process of transforming our food into energy. Our body uses the energy to control a large host of essential functions. If you eat too many calories your body stores them as fat. When you do not eat enough your body breaks down the fat and converts it to energy."

There you have it, a no nonsense, simple answer that explains the definition. Unfortunately the answer opens up a host of other questions that are not as simple to answer. Other questions pop up faster than you can process and that is where many people get confused. For the person who is trying to lose weight they need to keep the question unclouded. The question should be as follows: How does my metabolism affect my weight loss? When you seek an answer to this question the clouds again may be easily lifted.

If you want to lose weight you need to burn more calories than you consume. Your body will burn calories from a carrot or a candy bar and really does not care where the energy source, or calories come from. If you eat a small meal your body will burn those calories in order for you to exist and whatever is not needed is turned into fat. Your metabolism is sort of like a traffic cop. When you need energy you get it either from calories or from fat. Your metabolism is what decides. What you decide is what goes in your mouth and then your metabolism decides what to do with what you sent it. What you need to know is that in order to lose weight you need to eat. You need to keep your metabolism up and prevent your system from slowing down the burning of fat cells. If you do not eat the correct balance your metabolism will think you are starving and start to burn muscle. You need to keep the food flowing in small spurts to convince your system you are not starving and convince that traffic cop to burn fat cells and not muscles and to keep that metabolism going.

Hey, I said the definition was easy, now it is up to you to understand everything about the definition because your metabolism needs to be understood in order for you to have a successful weight loss expedition.

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