You’re working out and eating well, but just can’t seem to lose weight. The wobbly stuff seems to have a death grip! Could a slow metabolism be keeping you from your weight-loss goals? It just might.

First let’s cover the basics.

What is your metabolism and what relationship does it have to weight gain? Can you speed up your metabolism to help your body burn more calories?

Time for a bit of a crash course in metabolism…

What is Metabolism?

The million squid question. Here’s the science bit…

The calories in your food or beverages combine with oxygen and create the energy necessary for your body to function. Metabolism is the complex, biochemical process in which your body takes what you eat and drink and converts it into energy. Your metabolism is constantly at work, even during rest and sleep when your body needs energy to breath, circulate blood, adjust hormones, repair cells, and grow new cells.

Your basal metabolic rate is the amount of calories it takes for your body to perform its basic functions. It affects how much energy your body needs to do its job and helps determine the number of calories you’ll burn each day. Many factors play a role in your basal metabolic rate.

The first is your body composition and size. Larger people and those with more muscle mass burn more calories even while resting. This means that when untrained, overweight people generally have a faster metabolic rate than sedentary skinny minnies.

The second factor affecting your metabolic rate is your sex.

Not that sex. Your gender. Come on people, mind on the job…

Men generally have more muscle and less fat and therefore burn more calories, giving them the advantage when it comes to metabolic rate.

Score one for team testicle.

Third, your metabolic rate changes with age. The older you are, the less muscle you’re likely to have. As a result, you burn calories slower.

Besides your basal metabolic rate, the amount of physical activity you get and the way your body digests and processes food determines how many calories you burn. While many factors go into your metabolism, the most variable is physical activity. However, exercise also makes the most difference in the number of calories you burn, so amp up your exercise (and the important bit is to do the right type of exercise) and watch your metabolism rise as well.

Myth: Slow Metabolism = Weight Gain?

Contrary to popular belief, a slow metabolism rarely causes excess weight gain. While it would be easy to blame your weight on a slow metabolism, the most likely culprit behind those extra pounds is the amount of calories you nom (om nom nom nom) versus the amount of calories you expend in physical activity. When you eat more calories than you expend, your body stores that away as fat.

Simple right?

Once you understand this basic principle and get your eating plan sorted, then you can use exercise to boost your metabolism for several hours afterwards.

But the exercise needs to be the right type.

It needs to be of a high intensity and focus on the muscular system to stoke your lean mass, not your heart and lungs to rack up the calories burned. 

Check out the videos on this blog for a tonne of watch and follow workouts you can do in your own home.

Your metabolism is a natural process, and your body balances your metabolism to meet your individual energy needs. This is made obvious when folks jump into a starvation diet. When you don’t eat, your body slows down the metabolising processes to conserve calories and energy to survive.

So you may think a thin person has a faster metabolism, but they’re actually just better at balancing their food intake with their exercise… Whether they know it or not!

Having a slow metabolism is rare, and it usually doesn’t cause obesity. Medical conditions such as hypothyroidism and Cushing’s syndrome may slow metabolism and lead to weight gain, but for the most part, the factors that contribute to weight gain include consuming too many calories, genetics, family history, unhealthy habits such as too little sleep or not eating breakfast, and certain medications.

Unfortunately, trying to speed up your metabolism with nutritional supplements will likely have little effect on weight loss. Therefore, be skeptical of products, foods, and drinks that claim to do such a thing. They may have dangerous or undesirable side effects.

If a magic pill is what you’re waiting for, you may be waiting a long time. If you want to lose weight, nothing will get you there faster than a healthy diet and a consistent, challenging exercise programme.

If you’re serious about kick-starting your metabolism losing weight, sculpting a lean, sexy body and winning £2000 worth of prizes for doing it, I’ve created a brand new 90 day programme that will get you on pace to your goals as quickly as possible… AND… not only does this programme get great results, give you motivation, accountability, and state-of-the-art online software that will design all your meals and track your body composition, but the investment is as little as a third of what it costs to join my regular mentoring programme… In fact you can get on board the full 90 day programme free of charge if you like!

Click Here to Learn More About Our 90-day Complete Body Makeover

Remember, you can build your dream body that turns heads and gives you strength, energy, and most of all a tonne of confidence… and it DOESN’T HAVE TO TAKE YEARS!