This is for all my binge-eating buddies out there, I feel your pain. You try and try to diet, but you have an insatiable appetite, and no self-control.
Let’s face the facts, being addicted to food is no different than being addicted to gambling, alcohol, or drugs. According to Higgins, the mechanism that keeps an alcoholic hitting the bottle is the same as the one that brings the binge-eaters back to the refrigerator (par. 1 - 3).
So, whereas I can’t give you prescription medications to curb your appetite, I can offer another solution that will let you eat your heart out: negative-calorie foods.
In a previous post I believe I briefly spoke about how this works. Basically, you have a food, like celery, that takes more energy to break down and metabolize than the caloric value inherent in it. Therefore you are burning energy by eating this food (not enough to make a diet out of though). What this allows you to do is to binge out on these foods, which won’t add to your weight. Keep in mind though that you don’t want to base your entire diet on these foods or else you’ll most likely experience malnutrition.
Here is an article that gives a brief overview of the negative-calorie diet plan and from which I have pulled the list of negative-calorie foods.
Negative-calorie foods:
Asparagus
Apple
Beet
Cranberries
Broccoli
Grapefruit
Cabbage
Lemon
Carrot
Mango
Cauliflower
Orange
Celery
Pineapple
Chile peppers
Raspberries
Cucumber
Strawberries
Dandelion
Tangerine
Endive
Garden cress
Garlic
Green beans
Lettuce
Onion
Papaya
Radishes
Spinach
Turnip
Zucchini
What you could do is to add some of these foods to your diet, especially if you realize that you are lacking some other nutritional elements. Antioxidants for example are hardly ever eaten in most people’s diets, but you can fulfill your requirements for them and curb your hunger by eating a fruit salad filled with oranges, strawberries, and raspberries. How about some fiber? You can grab an apple on your way out to work and have about 3 – 3.5 grams of fiber along with a healthy energy booster. If you start incorporating these foods into your diet you'll be amazed at how quickly the change will come about.
References
Higgins, Dilara E. Realization Center for Food Addiction Program. 24 June 2003. 15 November 2008 http://www.realizationcenter.net/fdaddct.htm.
Womens-Health-Questions.com. Women's Health. 2008. 15 November 2008 http://www.womens-health-questions.com/negative-calorie-foods.html.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
H-2-Oh!
I’m sure we’ve all heard someone say to us “You’re supposed to drink 8 cups of water a day,” without having the reasons behind it explained. In this post I will explain why it is important for you to drink 8 cups of water a day (approximately).
Water, like some of the other substances covered, is considered an essential nutrient (substance) because your body cannot synthesize enough of it to stay alive. Thus, we must receive it from another source, whether it’s from food or beverages. According to the Mayo Clinic Staff, the average person uses about 2 liters of water daily, which is equal to 8 cups of water. This is the rationale behind the 8 cups of water; because you want to replace what you’ve used so that come tomorrow you won’t be dehydrated.
Water acts as a catalyst (trigger) for many reactions that go on in the body such as digestion, absorption, transportation of nutrients, metabolism, and expulsion of waste products (Vincent). Without enough water all of these functions are impaired and start to slow down.
You may think that 8 cups of water a day is a ridiculous task, especially because you only get thirsty about once or twice a day. I urge you to abandon this logic, because it’s as erroneous as eating only when you’re hungry. The fact of the matter is that by the time your thirst mechanism has kicked in, your water levels are sub-optimal, and therefore this cannot be used as a reliable indicator of when to drink.
As someone who abides by this rule, but is just as lazy as the next, I advise you to make a game of it. For instance, every time you scratch your head, make a note to drink a cup of water as well. Anything that gets you to drink your 2 liters will suffice. Also, a cup of water is bigger than a normal mug, and 2 liters is about half a gallon. Keep in mind that drinking 8 cups of water, a day, is the MINIMUM amount recommended to replenish what you’ve lost. So next time you scratch your head (or any other part of your body) remember to reach for that cup of water as well.
References
Mayo Clinic Staff. MayoClinic.com. 20 June 2008. 20 November 2008 http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/water/NU00283.
Vincent, Eileen. NORTHWESTERNUTRITION. 28 July 2007. 20 November 2008 http://www.feinberg.northwestern.edu/nutrition/factsheets/water.html.
Water, like some of the other substances covered, is considered an essential nutrient (substance) because your body cannot synthesize enough of it to stay alive. Thus, we must receive it from another source, whether it’s from food or beverages. According to the Mayo Clinic Staff, the average person uses about 2 liters of water daily, which is equal to 8 cups of water. This is the rationale behind the 8 cups of water; because you want to replace what you’ve used so that come tomorrow you won’t be dehydrated.
Water acts as a catalyst (trigger) for many reactions that go on in the body such as digestion, absorption, transportation of nutrients, metabolism, and expulsion of waste products (Vincent). Without enough water all of these functions are impaired and start to slow down.
You may think that 8 cups of water a day is a ridiculous task, especially because you only get thirsty about once or twice a day. I urge you to abandon this logic, because it’s as erroneous as eating only when you’re hungry. The fact of the matter is that by the time your thirst mechanism has kicked in, your water levels are sub-optimal, and therefore this cannot be used as a reliable indicator of when to drink.
As someone who abides by this rule, but is just as lazy as the next, I advise you to make a game of it. For instance, every time you scratch your head, make a note to drink a cup of water as well. Anything that gets you to drink your 2 liters will suffice. Also, a cup of water is bigger than a normal mug, and 2 liters is about half a gallon. Keep in mind that drinking 8 cups of water, a day, is the MINIMUM amount recommended to replenish what you’ve lost. So next time you scratch your head (or any other part of your body) remember to reach for that cup of water as well.
References
Mayo Clinic Staff. MayoClinic.com. 20 June 2008. 20 November 2008 http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/water/NU00283.
Vincent, Eileen. NORTHWESTERNUTRITION. 28 July 2007. 20 November 2008 http://www.feinberg.northwestern.edu/nutrition/factsheets/water.html.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Metabolism and Supplements
If knowledge is indeed power – then I feel it is my responsibility to tell you to check with your physician before adding supplements to your diet. I am not familiar with each of your individual medical histories and there could be great concern in taking some supplements.
First, discard all notions that supplements are “bad” for you. If you hold on to those thoughts you’re just buying into media hype, and that says something about yourself. We should all learn to investigate claims further because half the time we find out the people making such bold assertions cannot back them up what-so-ever.
Let’s begin. In this post we’ll be discussing how to raise your metabolism effectively by proper supplementing. What I don’t want you to do after you read this is to run to the store and start buying caffeine and metabolic enhancers, and all that jazz. While those supplements do offer positive effects, they don’t offer long-term healthy solutions. We want to supplement with nutrients and minerals that our body SHOULD be getting on a regular basis, and not those that will artificially boost certain bodily functions.
Multivitamins speak for themselves pretty much. There are few critics of vitamins, and those that are out there are most certainly the minority, probably lacking any scientific proof. A vitamin is a vital mineral. More accurately, it is an organic compound that the body cannot synthesize in sufficient amounts and therefore needs to be received in the diet (familydoctor.org editorial staff). The vitamins are crucial because they have so many different biochemical functions that are necessary for your survival. You should be eating a multivitamin daily, and note that whole food multivitamins have a higher absorption rate (typically around 90-95%) than their synthetically produced counterparts like Centrum (which is around 70%). The two vitamins I’d like to touch on are vitamins B and E. Vitamin B acts as a co-enzyme. What’s a co-enzyme? It’s a co-factor that is necessary for particular enzymes to function. So what’s an enzyme? Enzymes are molecular structures that increase the reaction rates of their respective chemicals. For example, the enzyme lactase acts on lactose (which is found in dairy products) to help speed the breakdown of this nutrient. Enzymes exponentially increase these reaction rates and that’s why co-enzymes are so important, because some enzymes need their co-factors to function. Now vitamin E is not necessarily related to metabolism, but I thought I’d share anyway for your own benefit. Vitamin E is an antioxidant. As an antioxidant it slows or halts some oxidative processes that go on in your body. According to the National Cancer Institute, oxidation releases free radicals (free-floating molecular structures that look to steal electrons) that cause reactions in your body that lead to cell damage/death, and cancer in some cases. The reason this happens is because these free radicals look to gain an extra electron from anything they can, and when they take them from healthy cells in your body this can cause the cell to mutate. The antioxidants job is to give these free radicals the electron they need so that they can neutralize them and stop them from causing harm.
B-complex is a vitamin so it may seem redundant, but hear me out. When you take a multivitamin you’re not getting the most out of those B-vitamins because there are simply so many kinds of B vitamins. They only put certain ones in there and your body could stand to take in much more since any extra that is not utilized is excreted. B-complex is going to load you up with much more co-enzymatic molecules and energizing molecules (natural alert energy) allowing your metabolism to be boosted and many times it will say on the label that they are for metabolic support.
Essential fatty acids are the next on our list. These are some more substances that cannot be synthesized in the body and therefore must be obtained in your diet. Don’t let the word fat make you think it’s automatically bad, although I know some of you think that way. Originally given the name Vitamin F, these fatty acids play a part in many metabolic processes as well as preventing some illnesses and helping your body function more efficiently in general (A.D.A.M., Inc.).
Now I must let you know that I’m about to start talking about poop. Fecal retention is known as constipation, and I bet most of you aren’t constipated, however, I know that all of you are retaining fecal matter. Bear with me now, I know this is gross to some, but the average person retains some fecal matter at all times in their body. That means when you defecate, not all of your excrements are being expelled. I’ll tell you why. If you know anything about the intestines (small and large) in your body you know that it’s a labyrinthine, tubular structure. In that structure we have cilia, which are cylindrical finger-like structures that jut out from the walls of your intestines whose purpose is to increase surface area for the absorption of nutrients. This in turn increases your metabolism because the catabolic functioning gets sped up. But what happens when your intestines get clogged and bogged down with fat and waste? Your metabolism goes down for starters, because there’s less surface area for nutrients to be absorbed through. If you’re a heavy fat/meat/fried food/protein eater then your intestines are likely to be more clogged than your average person (keeping fiber intake constant). So to give your body one of the quickest jumps in metabolism that you can, I advise a colon cleanse. You can do this in several ways, either by going to a physician and having the procedure done or the much less invasive high-fiber powders which act as laxatives. Doing this colon cleanse will expel years of built up waste and will free up clogged cilia allowing you to absorb much more of your food/nutrients.
Not only will these help boost your metabolism, but there will definitely be the added psychological effect when you lose those initial pounds. Who knows, this could be the impetus that turns you into a self-proclaimed nutrition/fitness guru yourself.
References
A.D.A.M., Inc. University of Maryland Medical Center. 1 May 2007. 20 November 2008 http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/omega-3-000316.htm.
familydoctor.org editorial staff. familydoctor.org. December 2006. 20 November 2008 http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/otc-center/otc-medicines/863.html.
National Cancer Institute. 28 July 2004. 20 November 2008 http://www.nci.nih.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/antioxidantsprevention.
Ophardt, Charles E. Virtual Chembook. 2003. 20 November 2008 http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/index.html.
First, discard all notions that supplements are “bad” for you. If you hold on to those thoughts you’re just buying into media hype, and that says something about yourself. We should all learn to investigate claims further because half the time we find out the people making such bold assertions cannot back them up what-so-ever.
Let’s begin. In this post we’ll be discussing how to raise your metabolism effectively by proper supplementing. What I don’t want you to do after you read this is to run to the store and start buying caffeine and metabolic enhancers, and all that jazz. While those supplements do offer positive effects, they don’t offer long-term healthy solutions. We want to supplement with nutrients and minerals that our body SHOULD be getting on a regular basis, and not those that will artificially boost certain bodily functions.
Multivitamins speak for themselves pretty much. There are few critics of vitamins, and those that are out there are most certainly the minority, probably lacking any scientific proof. A vitamin is a vital mineral. More accurately, it is an organic compound that the body cannot synthesize in sufficient amounts and therefore needs to be received in the diet (familydoctor.org editorial staff). The vitamins are crucial because they have so many different biochemical functions that are necessary for your survival. You should be eating a multivitamin daily, and note that whole food multivitamins have a higher absorption rate (typically around 90-95%) than their synthetically produced counterparts like Centrum (which is around 70%). The two vitamins I’d like to touch on are vitamins B and E. Vitamin B acts as a co-enzyme. What’s a co-enzyme? It’s a co-factor that is necessary for particular enzymes to function. So what’s an enzyme? Enzymes are molecular structures that increase the reaction rates of their respective chemicals. For example, the enzyme lactase acts on lactose (which is found in dairy products) to help speed the breakdown of this nutrient. Enzymes exponentially increase these reaction rates and that’s why co-enzymes are so important, because some enzymes need their co-factors to function. Now vitamin E is not necessarily related to metabolism, but I thought I’d share anyway for your own benefit. Vitamin E is an antioxidant. As an antioxidant it slows or halts some oxidative processes that go on in your body. According to the National Cancer Institute, oxidation releases free radicals (free-floating molecular structures that look to steal electrons) that cause reactions in your body that lead to cell damage/death, and cancer in some cases. The reason this happens is because these free radicals look to gain an extra electron from anything they can, and when they take them from healthy cells in your body this can cause the cell to mutate. The antioxidants job is to give these free radicals the electron they need so that they can neutralize them and stop them from causing harm.
B-complex is a vitamin so it may seem redundant, but hear me out. When you take a multivitamin you’re not getting the most out of those B-vitamins because there are simply so many kinds of B vitamins. They only put certain ones in there and your body could stand to take in much more since any extra that is not utilized is excreted. B-complex is going to load you up with much more co-enzymatic molecules and energizing molecules (natural alert energy) allowing your metabolism to be boosted and many times it will say on the label that they are for metabolic support.
Essential fatty acids are the next on our list. These are some more substances that cannot be synthesized in the body and therefore must be obtained in your diet. Don’t let the word fat make you think it’s automatically bad, although I know some of you think that way. Originally given the name Vitamin F, these fatty acids play a part in many metabolic processes as well as preventing some illnesses and helping your body function more efficiently in general (A.D.A.M., Inc.).
Now I must let you know that I’m about to start talking about poop. Fecal retention is known as constipation, and I bet most of you aren’t constipated, however, I know that all of you are retaining fecal matter. Bear with me now, I know this is gross to some, but the average person retains some fecal matter at all times in their body. That means when you defecate, not all of your excrements are being expelled. I’ll tell you why. If you know anything about the intestines (small and large) in your body you know that it’s a labyrinthine, tubular structure. In that structure we have cilia, which are cylindrical finger-like structures that jut out from the walls of your intestines whose purpose is to increase surface area for the absorption of nutrients. This in turn increases your metabolism because the catabolic functioning gets sped up. But what happens when your intestines get clogged and bogged down with fat and waste? Your metabolism goes down for starters, because there’s less surface area for nutrients to be absorbed through. If you’re a heavy fat/meat/fried food/protein eater then your intestines are likely to be more clogged than your average person (keeping fiber intake constant). So to give your body one of the quickest jumps in metabolism that you can, I advise a colon cleanse. You can do this in several ways, either by going to a physician and having the procedure done or the much less invasive high-fiber powders which act as laxatives. Doing this colon cleanse will expel years of built up waste and will free up clogged cilia allowing you to absorb much more of your food/nutrients.
Not only will these help boost your metabolism, but there will definitely be the added psychological effect when you lose those initial pounds. Who knows, this could be the impetus that turns you into a self-proclaimed nutrition/fitness guru yourself.
References
A.D.A.M., Inc. University of Maryland Medical Center. 1 May 2007. 20 November 2008 http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/omega-3-000316.htm.
familydoctor.org editorial staff. familydoctor.org. December 2006. 20 November 2008 http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/otc-center/otc-medicines/863.html.
National Cancer Institute. 28 July 2004. 20 November 2008 http://www.nci.nih.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/antioxidantsprevention.
Ophardt, Charles E. Virtual Chembook. 2003. 20 November 2008 http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/index.html.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Raising your metabolism
Okay let's cut right to it. You want to raise your metabolism, and you want to raise it now.
Let's review one simple thing about metabolism first though. When you are saying that you want to raise your metabolism, you're really saying "I want my body to utilize the nutrients I supply it more quickly, and effectively."
We can raise our metabolism in a number of ways, whether it's by dieting, exercising, supplementing, or by relieving stress. In this post I will discuss dieting and exercise and their role in increasing metabolism.
Dieting
Since your body is constantly housing biochemical reactions it's safe to assume that we need a steady and constant supply of energy right? Well I'd say that's a fair assumption, and logically speaking it makes sense. So the first order of business is to cut your 1-3 meals a day into 6 small meals a day. In this way you are ensuring that your body has a steadier supply of nutrients, and that you will be storing less fat too. How does that happen? Well when you eat your 3 meals a day, if all of the nutrients aren't used, which they most likely won't be, then the extra nutrients gets stored away as fat. When you eat smaller meals daily, you're less likely to store fat because you'll have less excess nutrients.
Another powerful way to change your nutrient intake is to find healthier substitutes for you normal diet. This could be as simple as substituting the kinds of cereals you eat or as drastic as re-organizing your entire shopping list. For example, I have about 5 pounds of stubborn fat that I'm having trouble getting rid of. So in my first order of business I started substituting because I believe it's the easiest route. Instead of buying the normal 2% milk, which has 5g of fat (45 calories from fat) per serving, I opted for the no-fat milk. Seeing as how I have 3 servings of milk daily, I just cut 135 calories out of my daily diet! Now if you remember the calculation for a pound of fat you can see how quickly you can expect to lose weight without doing anything else. 3500calories/135calories = approximately 30. That means in 30 days/1 month I could lose a pound of fat just by substituting out my milk. Pretty easy if you ask me.
Metabolism - 1, Fat - 0
Exercising
It's important for you to exercise on a weekly basis at the very least, regardless of your weight. Not only does it reduce stress, which is a way to increase your metabolism, it also rids your body of harmful free radicals, and other waste products in your body. I won't go in-depth here because this is not an exercising guide but, one of the best ways to quickly increase your metabolism is by doing HIIT. HIIT is an acronym for High Intensity Interval Training. What this means is that instead of running for 20 minutes at a constant speed, you would run steadily for 45 seconds, and then sprint for 15 seconds, and continue that loop until you reach 20 minutes. The reason this type of training is so effective is because it doesn't let your body catch a break. What I mean to say is that our bodies are extremely resilient and efficient pieces of machinery. When you run for 20 minutes and the treadmill says you’re burning calories at a steady 15 calories per minute, it's lying. Your body quickly adapts to any exercise so that it can put out as little energy as possible to achieve any given task. Your bodily components start to work synergistically to accomplish this task. So by constantly shocking your system with intense bursts, you effectively keep your metabolism from settling down. If you adopt this difficult method of exercise you will be greatly rewarded.
Metabolism – 2, Fat – 0
In the next post I will discuss supplementing and relaxation techniques as it relates to raising your metabolism.
References
intervaltraining.net. 2008. 20 November 2008 http://www.intervaltraining.net/hiit.html.
Let's review one simple thing about metabolism first though. When you are saying that you want to raise your metabolism, you're really saying "I want my body to utilize the nutrients I supply it more quickly, and effectively."
We can raise our metabolism in a number of ways, whether it's by dieting, exercising, supplementing, or by relieving stress. In this post I will discuss dieting and exercise and their role in increasing metabolism.
Dieting
Since your body is constantly housing biochemical reactions it's safe to assume that we need a steady and constant supply of energy right? Well I'd say that's a fair assumption, and logically speaking it makes sense. So the first order of business is to cut your 1-3 meals a day into 6 small meals a day. In this way you are ensuring that your body has a steadier supply of nutrients, and that you will be storing less fat too. How does that happen? Well when you eat your 3 meals a day, if all of the nutrients aren't used, which they most likely won't be, then the extra nutrients gets stored away as fat. When you eat smaller meals daily, you're less likely to store fat because you'll have less excess nutrients.
Another powerful way to change your nutrient intake is to find healthier substitutes for you normal diet. This could be as simple as substituting the kinds of cereals you eat or as drastic as re-organizing your entire shopping list. For example, I have about 5 pounds of stubborn fat that I'm having trouble getting rid of. So in my first order of business I started substituting because I believe it's the easiest route. Instead of buying the normal 2% milk, which has 5g of fat (45 calories from fat) per serving, I opted for the no-fat milk. Seeing as how I have 3 servings of milk daily, I just cut 135 calories out of my daily diet! Now if you remember the calculation for a pound of fat you can see how quickly you can expect to lose weight without doing anything else. 3500calories/135calories = approximately 30. That means in 30 days/1 month I could lose a pound of fat just by substituting out my milk. Pretty easy if you ask me.
Metabolism - 1, Fat - 0
Exercising
It's important for you to exercise on a weekly basis at the very least, regardless of your weight. Not only does it reduce stress, which is a way to increase your metabolism, it also rids your body of harmful free radicals, and other waste products in your body. I won't go in-depth here because this is not an exercising guide but, one of the best ways to quickly increase your metabolism is by doing HIIT. HIIT is an acronym for High Intensity Interval Training. What this means is that instead of running for 20 minutes at a constant speed, you would run steadily for 45 seconds, and then sprint for 15 seconds, and continue that loop until you reach 20 minutes. The reason this type of training is so effective is because it doesn't let your body catch a break. What I mean to say is that our bodies are extremely resilient and efficient pieces of machinery. When you run for 20 minutes and the treadmill says you’re burning calories at a steady 15 calories per minute, it's lying. Your body quickly adapts to any exercise so that it can put out as little energy as possible to achieve any given task. Your bodily components start to work synergistically to accomplish this task. So by constantly shocking your system with intense bursts, you effectively keep your metabolism from settling down. If you adopt this difficult method of exercise you will be greatly rewarded.
Metabolism – 2, Fat – 0
In the next post I will discuss supplementing and relaxation techniques as it relates to raising your metabolism.
References
intervaltraining.net. 2008. 20 November 2008 http://www.intervaltraining.net/hiit.html.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
muh-tab-uh-liz-uhm
I want you to read the title of this post, and then read it one more time. I cannot stress enough that this is simply an introductory measure to helping you understand metabolism. Too often I have found that people, in general, rely too heavily on one source of information without going the extra distance to verify the authenticity/credibility. I want you to understand that I'm still learning every day, and I have a far way to go before I can consider myself a nutrition guru.
Okay, now let's begin.
What is metabolism? It is "The sum of all the physical and chemical processes by which living organized substance is produced, and maintained (anabolism), and also the transformation by which energy is made available for the uses of the organism (catabolism)" (Cancerweb). What this definition is basically stating is that metabolism is the sum of two metabolic functions: anabolism, and catabolism. Anabolism deals with the building processes that your body goes through, such as, adding muscle, bone, and everything else on your body that grows. For this process to go on, it needs energy and raw nutrients; catabolism is the mechanism by which anabolism is powered. Catabolism deals with the breakdown of the nutrients supplied to/by your body.
Another important nugget of information to retain before we venture forth is the idea of negative feedback. According to Tortora and Derrickson, negative feedback is a process which most organisms on this planet use to keep biochemical homeostasis (pg. 10). That is to say that just as organisms make up an environment, biochemical components within our own bodies make up a microscopic environment of their own. The way it works is that once a bodily process completes a cycle, its output is partially fed back into the system’s input to “decide” at what rate to continue this process, if at all. For example, I’m sure most of us have drunk alcohol before. I’d go as far to say that many of us have probably been black-out, passed-out drunk. While blacking-out depends more on a person’s individual brain chemistry, passing-out is a negative feedback mechanism that keeps you from killing yourself. Here’s how: When you drink alcohol you are increasing your BAC (blood alcohol content), and once you knock back enough drinks, your BAC gets dangerously high. Well, as you’re metabolizing the alcohol your body gets signals that the BAC is dangerously high, so once a threshold is reached, your body shuts off and you pass out. This is to keep you from consuming more drinks, and risking alcohol poisoning or death. That’s the cliff notes version but, it sufficiently demonstrates how your body utilizes the feedback system.
Now back to metabolism. It’s a known fact that metabolism decreases with age. The question is why. In some people it seems like metabolism plummeted as soon as puberty stopped, and for others there may have not been a drastic difference between high school and the golden years. The key to keeping your metabolism going strong is proper dieting and supplementation, routine activity, and abstinence from drugs. You see, during your childhood, and adolescence, your body is working hard to develop your brain and your body to their predefined, genetic limits. That means anytime you eat, those nutrients are being allocated to the various parts of your body that require it. Once puberty stops, however, your skeletal structure remains more or less constant, and your brain has pretty much reached maturity as well. This means that a lot less nutrients are being utilized in your body now and if you continue your same lifestyle (exercise/eating/sleeping habits) you’ll most likely notice weight gain. Why? Well, before you may have been ingesting 2,000 calories a day. From those 2,000 calories, your body was using 1,400 for maintenance, another 300 to build your body up, and 300 for exercise. Now that your body is not growing much, save for exercise induced hypertrophy, you have an excess of 300 calories a day that are not being utilized. That’s a lot of excess caloric intake in one day. Now this excess energy is getting stored away as fat, and glycogen stores (daily energy). You are now gaining weight and your body knows it, so to keep from gaining weight unnecessarily so, it’s going to drop your metabolism by the process of negative feedback. What your body is trying to accomplish is slowed weight gain because if less nutrients are being broken down, and used to build up, that means less is becoming fat. The problem here is that if the same amount of nutrients are being ingested then all that has been accomplished is a slowed metabolism. This cycle will perpetuate itself and that’s how many people lose control of their body.
In the next section we will discuss metabolism as it relates to you, and ways to increase your metabolism.
References
Cancerweb. 2007. 8 November 2008 http://cancerweb.ncl.ac.uk/cgi-bin/omd?metabolism.
Tortora, Gerard J. and Bryan Derrickson. Principles of Anatomy and Physiology. Danvers: Von Hoffmann Press, Inc., 2006.
Okay, now let's begin.
What is metabolism? It is "The sum of all the physical and chemical processes by which living organized substance is produced, and maintained (anabolism), and also the transformation by which energy is made available for the uses of the organism (catabolism)" (Cancerweb). What this definition is basically stating is that metabolism is the sum of two metabolic functions: anabolism, and catabolism. Anabolism deals with the building processes that your body goes through, such as, adding muscle, bone, and everything else on your body that grows. For this process to go on, it needs energy and raw nutrients; catabolism is the mechanism by which anabolism is powered. Catabolism deals with the breakdown of the nutrients supplied to/by your body.
Another important nugget of information to retain before we venture forth is the idea of negative feedback. According to Tortora and Derrickson, negative feedback is a process which most organisms on this planet use to keep biochemical homeostasis (pg. 10). That is to say that just as organisms make up an environment, biochemical components within our own bodies make up a microscopic environment of their own. The way it works is that once a bodily process completes a cycle, its output is partially fed back into the system’s input to “decide” at what rate to continue this process, if at all. For example, I’m sure most of us have drunk alcohol before. I’d go as far to say that many of us have probably been black-out, passed-out drunk. While blacking-out depends more on a person’s individual brain chemistry, passing-out is a negative feedback mechanism that keeps you from killing yourself. Here’s how: When you drink alcohol you are increasing your BAC (blood alcohol content), and once you knock back enough drinks, your BAC gets dangerously high. Well, as you’re metabolizing the alcohol your body gets signals that the BAC is dangerously high, so once a threshold is reached, your body shuts off and you pass out. This is to keep you from consuming more drinks, and risking alcohol poisoning or death. That’s the cliff notes version but, it sufficiently demonstrates how your body utilizes the feedback system.
Now back to metabolism. It’s a known fact that metabolism decreases with age. The question is why. In some people it seems like metabolism plummeted as soon as puberty stopped, and for others there may have not been a drastic difference between high school and the golden years. The key to keeping your metabolism going strong is proper dieting and supplementation, routine activity, and abstinence from drugs. You see, during your childhood, and adolescence, your body is working hard to develop your brain and your body to their predefined, genetic limits. That means anytime you eat, those nutrients are being allocated to the various parts of your body that require it. Once puberty stops, however, your skeletal structure remains more or less constant, and your brain has pretty much reached maturity as well. This means that a lot less nutrients are being utilized in your body now and if you continue your same lifestyle (exercise/eating/sleeping habits) you’ll most likely notice weight gain. Why? Well, before you may have been ingesting 2,000 calories a day. From those 2,000 calories, your body was using 1,400 for maintenance, another 300 to build your body up, and 300 for exercise. Now that your body is not growing much, save for exercise induced hypertrophy, you have an excess of 300 calories a day that are not being utilized. That’s a lot of excess caloric intake in one day. Now this excess energy is getting stored away as fat, and glycogen stores (daily energy). You are now gaining weight and your body knows it, so to keep from gaining weight unnecessarily so, it’s going to drop your metabolism by the process of negative feedback. What your body is trying to accomplish is slowed weight gain because if less nutrients are being broken down, and used to build up, that means less is becoming fat. The problem here is that if the same amount of nutrients are being ingested then all that has been accomplished is a slowed metabolism. This cycle will perpetuate itself and that’s how many people lose control of their body.
In the next section we will discuss metabolism as it relates to you, and ways to increase your metabolism.
References
Cancerweb. 2007. 8 November 2008 http://cancerweb.ncl.ac.uk/cgi-bin/omd?metabolism.
Tortora, Gerard J. and Bryan Derrickson. Principles of Anatomy and Physiology. Danvers: Von Hoffmann Press, Inc., 2006.
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