June 30, 2009

Metabolism Definition - What Is My RMR?

by Dan Beckwith

Metabolism definition, we define metabolism as our bodies process for converting food - calories - into energy. If we need energy right away, the calories are immediately “burned”. If we don’t need the energy, the extra calories are stored as fat.

Here are some examples of what it means to have a slow metabolism… Do you look like you’re in training to be a sumo wrestler? Do you have to jump up and down just to get into your jeans? Before all the people around you start to complain about the earthquakes you create just by walking by, it’s time to start considering creating a better… healthier life for yourself.

However, it doesn’t have to be difficult to lose weight and in fact shouldn’t mean starving yourself. If you are doing it right, you’ll NEVER be hungry.

There are a lot of diet programs out there, so many in fact, it gets very confusing. A lot of them promise that you’ll “get thin quick.” It’s true that they look slick and easy, they have lots of testimonials from “satisfied” customers, and on and on and on. But keep in mind that even though you see lots of testimonials from people who are happy now, it’s not likely that they will be a year later. Why? Because they’ve almost always gained back the weight they lost, and they’ve likely gained even more.

Now let’s discuss a good metabolism. It’s time for you to take back control of your body, and your weight. It’s all about your metabolism. Once you understand how your metabolism works and are able to calculate your RMR or resting metabolic rate, you are halfway there.

RMR explained…

Metabolism definition - Your resting metabolic rate is the speed at which your body turns calories into fuel even when you’re resting and not actively doing anything. Several things influence this resting metabolic rate. For example…

One of the things that influences RMR is our age. You might have noticed that a lot of us tend to gain weight as we get older, and that’s because age slows down RMR.

Unfortunately, diets are also one of the things that can lower our resting metabolic rate. That’s because your body has a survival mechanism in it whereby when you cut calories, it cuts your metabolic rate substantially as a means to help you get through this “starvation.” It’s a survival mechanism that served us well when we did have times of famine, but now that we don’t have times of famine, it can certainly sabotage weight loss efforts. What that means is that when we stop “dieting” and start eating again, we are now are dealing with a slower metabolism.

So when we go off of the diet, we immediately gain back all of our weight, and now that our metabolism is slower, we tend to keep gaining weight even past our original starting point.

This type of dieting is often called “yo-yo dieting,” because with every diet, we may lose weight quickly, but we regain it — and more — just as quickly as soon we go off that diet.

Rapidly losing a lot of weight could also mean losing a lot of muscle. This too puts us in a dangerous position. Muscles are essential to our metabolism. Muscles burn more calories than fat. So, any good diet program will include exercise. The more we can tone and build muscle, the more calories we will burn - even when doing nothing.

So how do you increase your metabolism? It doesn’t have to be painful and it certainly doesn’t have to be difficult. To learn more about metabolism definition and about how you can master it, and therefore get the weight falling off quickly but safely, take a look at my website. You learn what you need to know about safely increasing your metabolism and taking off the extra weight. While you’re there, why not take a look at my free mini-course “Free Weight Loss Tips!” as well?

About the Author:

I’ve done a TON of study and research into weight loss and boosting metabolism so that excess weight just automatically melts away. To learn more about metabolism definition, check out my website. For a short time, you can also get a copy of my “Fast Weight Loss Tips!” mini-course while it’s still free. Use these tips and you MUST lose weight, guaranteed!