Journal of Healthy Living

Understanding Your Metabolism

What exactly is your metabolism? It’s something that a lot of people don’t fully understand because there are a lot of myths and misunderstandings floating around out there. Metabolism, scientifically, is the breakdown of fuels in your diet. As you eat proteins, carbs, and fat, your body will convert those fuels into energy that you body can use. When you’re younger, your metabolism burns a lot of fuel; as you get older, your metabolism begins to slow down as your cells become less efficient and operate more slowly. The slowing down of your metabolism is a very real thing, let’s look at why this is.

One of the biggest reasons why your metabolism slows down has to do with your muscle mass. Muscle burns a tremendous amount of energy and as you age, the amount of muscle you have begins to fall. When you’re 60, you have far less muscle mass than when you were 20. Naturally, your metabolism is going to slow down because you won’t need as much fuel to keep your muscles running because your muscles are smaller!

So, why do you get fatter? Our body is trained to turn energy into fat, our body’s natural storage system. When you eat more than your body needs in terms of energy, the extra is stored as fat. Your body does this as a way to protect you because there may come a time when there is no food to eat and your body will need that fat.

There you have it! That’s in essence what your metabolism is and why it seems that it’s conspiring against you to make you fat.