Jun 10
3
What is metabolism?
In this article I’ll try to explain to you as simply as possible what is metabolism and why you need to understand it to manage your weight.
As you surely already know, you eat food, and food contains calories. What is a calory? A calory means how much heat is required to raise of one degree Celsius temperature of a kilogram of water.
Imagine that, just like a car, your metabolism is your engine. When you eat food, you’re fueling your engine. We appraised the amount of calories contained in different foods to appraise the amount of energy they will give to your metabolism. Then your body will use the energy produced by your engine (metabolism) to make you breathe, move and think.
As simple as this. By the way, to be scientificly exact, we should say kilocalory, but in everyday life, everyone just say calory so I’ll continue to do so for understanding purposes.
Your metabolism has 3 purposes. His first purpose is to assure energy distribution for your vital needs : to make sure you don’t stop breathing 
, ensure your blood circulation, and maintain your body temperature at around 37°C. We call this first purpose BMR : Basic Metabolism Rate. It’s like when you are waiting in your car, engine stopped but listening to radio. You are on your batteries reserves. This also explain why it is so important to have breakfast every morning : to fuel up your tank! Have you ever tried to drive your car on an empty fuel tank? The BMR is about 70% of your total daily energy expenditure.
His second purpose is to assure digestion. Digestion is about 10% of your total daily energy expenditure. Digestion involves muscular contractions to break down food in very small particles. It also involves chemicals that your glands needs to produce to break down food particles in chemical subsitutes (fatty acids, proteins and simple glucose) that your body will be able to use to assure BMR, digestion and the last purpose of metabolism : sustain physical activity.
This third purpose counts for about 20% of your total daily energy expenditure. You know that the more physical activity you do, the higher your energy expenditure will be. What you might not know is that regular exercice can boost your BMR. Some exercices has an higher influence on BMR than others. I will discuss this aspect in another article, I’ll put the link here later .
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