Metabolism Explained
Metabolism Explained
There is a lot of theory surrounding metabolism, a lot of which is often conflicting. We enlisted the help of Alessandro Alviani from Nordic Balance to explain exactly how your metabolism works and how to improve your metabolism.
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What exactly is metabolism?
Metabolism is the sum of the physical and chemical processes in an organism by which its material substance is produced, maintained, and destroyed, and by which energy is made available – basically the entire chemical process is going on continuously inside your body to allow everything to function as it should. All metabolism processes are controlled by hormones and the nervous system and influenced by your age, gender, muscle-to-fat ratio, diet, physical activity and overall lifestyle.
However there’s always a price to pay, and this comes in the form of calories. The amount of calories used to run all the processes each day is called total daily energy expenditure (TDEE), and it’s spent as follow:
– Around 60-70% just to maintain vital functions such as breathing, regulating the temperature and the heart beating – this is the BMR (basal metabolic rate).
– Around 15-30% to do our daily activities (working, training, commuting, etc.)
– Around 10-15% to break down the food and assimilate it
Basal Metabolic Rate, daily activities and diet are therefore the key factors that affect our total daily energy expenditure.
Now that we know what we are talking about, we can begin debunking the five biggest myths about metabolism!