Metabolism is Life

Metabolism is Life
By Steve E Larsen

With all of the new workouts and diets around, certainly you have heard the word metabolism being thrown around. High metabolism, low metabolism, ectomorph and endomorph body types. Maybe you have heard about BMR or basal metabolic rate, maybe not. It can be confusing at times not to mention conflicting. A person should eat five or six times a day or is it eat when you're hungry? Metabolism and BMR can easily be defined, understanding might be another matter. I can't recall what I used to think metabolism was, but it wasn't correct. I think I thought it was like a pre-determined energy/reaction time/life speed that everyone had. And everybody's was different based upon genetics, eating habits, exercise, etc. Comparing metabolism to a structure or building is a simple way to look at it.

What is metabolism? Think of metabolism as life. It is energy, a set of chemical reactions, processes, all of it. I do not know if this scientifically fits here but remember that old rule that energy can neither be created nor destroyed only altered in form? Technically metabolism is the sum of all of those different energies. They can be physical or chemical, and could include the production, destruction, or maintenance of the organic matter in an organism. Typically metabolism can be broken down into two processes, one of which is catabolism and the other is anabolism. Catabolism is the breaking down of more complex substances into simpler ones, a conversion of energy. Maybe think digestion for a basic picture. Anabolism is the opposite, it is the creation or building of more complex substances from simpler ones. For this one, imagine laying the groundwork for protein building blocks, or building muscle.

So why is metabolism such a hot discussion topic? It probably shouldn't be. I think the term is just easier to use than BMR. Basal metabolic rate is the actual amount of energy consumed by the body just in order to maintain life. Everything we do requires calories, which when broken down, provides fuel or energy. In another article we talk about calories and what they are. Referencing that article, caloric intake is compared to a financial budget. As you should be able to see, here is where the calories tie in. Using that as an example, calories are like deposits into your Bank of Metabolism. Everything an individual ingests is a deposit, everything he expels a withdrawal.

There should be a much easier way to get a grasp on what metabolism actually is.

Let's travel to the Bank of Metabolism for a much more simple analogy. You are the president of the bank (really though the bank is your body) and you make the decisions. Banks are closed on Sunday's and when you close shop on Saturday afternoon, you shut everything down. This saves you on energy costs but still doesn't completely cut them out. Federal law requires that businesses have a certain amount of lights on at all times for egress so your bank still needs a little bit of electricity(your eyes blinking consumes calories.) And in case there's a fire you still have water to your sprinkler system (your kidneys are constantly filtering - calories.) Minimizing your energy costs would be like eating just enough calories to do nothing else but just sit there and exist. But when Monday morning rolls around and the bank is in full swing business mode, the requirements to operate your business change drastically. Turn on more lights, turn on the air conditioning so people are comfortable, you have to pay the cleaning crew. Remembering that this is just a comparison of your body's metabolism to the operating budget of a building, this hustle and bustle of activity or expenditures could be looked at like all of a sudden you are exercising profusely or eating way more than normal.

So would we want a high metabolism/BMR or a low? Ideally you'd like to have a higher BMR. Having a higher rate indicates you are using more energy, expending more calories than a person with a lower consumption rate, simply to just be. Everything you do factors into this equation, every process that your cells go through. How do we get a higher metabolic rate? One way to get a higher metabolic rate is to increase your lean muscle mass. By having a greater amount of lean muscle on your frame, your body has to work harder just to maintain it. Your skeletal muscles have to work even harder to support that added weight. A fit body with lean muscle is more dense therefore harder to swim, harder to lift. Your body has to work double time with all of its maintenance and healing. You can achieve this by lifting weights, eating properly, and even seeing if a supplement such as creatine or whey protein helps.

Metabolism is a series of energy conversions and chemical reactions that occur at the cellular level. Basal metabolic rate or BMR is the minimum rate required in order to maintain existence. If we were to tie in metabolism with calories, we should be able to see how they are interconnected. Just like calories are part of your budget, metabolism is like the operating costs. Having an increased mass of lean muscle would require an individual to have a subsequent increase in their BMR as well as your body requiring more fuel to maintain its new, improved digs.