Losing weight is a difficult art, and losing weight and keeping it in the desired state can be even more problematic. You hear a lot about the impact of metabolism on weight, that it promotes weight loss and is related to the calories burned. However, despite everything, we still know very little about him. There are many tips on the web about how to improve your metabolism. Some of them, however, are myths that we debunk below!
Burning calories is activated, of course, only after physical exertion. Slow metabolism exists in both very thin and overweight people. It is not body weight that is an indicator of metabolism, but its composition.
People who weigh the same may have different metabolisms – the one with less fat burns calories much faster. So it’s not that someone who is overweight is doomed to have a poor metabolism. A higher dose of physical activity and high amounts of energy will help to change this.
- Breakfast in the first place. Although it’s been said over and over again that eating breakfast promotes a faster metabolism, recent studies have shown that people who eat breakfast every morning don’t lose weight faster than those who don’t. It is often recommended that breakfast be the most important and very filling meal of the day. However, eating too much food in the morning, full and fatty, instead of getting the dose of energy we need, we will feel the opposite: lethargic and drained. It is best to eat your first meal only when you feel hungry. Delaying carbohydrate intake causes the body to start burning calories.
- Eating every three hours. Not in the case of people who do not use particularly strenuous physical activity. This method will work, for example, in the case of a bodybuilder who eats 5000 kcal a day. The optimal requirement of an adult with moderate physical activity is 2000 kcal, which does not require such distribution of meals during the day.
- The yo-yo effect is the enemy of metabolism. This is probably the most frequently repeated myth, treated as a revealed truth. Research conducted in 2013 showed that there is no connection between weight fluctuations (aka the infamous yo-yo effect) and metabolism. Where did such a myth come from? Well, people who have problems with maintaining weight are often frustrated and find it difficult to understand the reasons for this, which is why they blame their problem on a slower metabolism.
- It’s all about the genes. Of course, the metabolic rate is hereditary, but it does not mean that we are doomed to it. Metabolism can be turned up, mainly with proper nutrition and physical activity. Interestingly, between the ages of 30 and 80, we lose as much as 15% of muscle mass, so the sooner we exercise, the easier it will be to lose weight in later years.
- Fast weight loss requires a drastic diet. People who want to lose weight expect quick results, which is why they usually reach for low-calorie diets, e.g. consisting in providing only 1000 kcal a day. These solutions are not always healthy. A diet with a higher calorie content, which is matched to the age, lifestyle and health of the person, works much better.