Whether you knew it or not, all energy we consume comes from the sun, indirectly.
In short, plants use photosynthesis to turn carbon dioxide into simple sugars, which we consume when we eat plants or other animals that have eaten plants.
Over the next couple of weeks we will share around metabolism to help you understand how to simplify the busy chemical reactions occurring in your body right now and turn it into applicable knowledge.
All the reactions that break down proteins, fats and carbohydrates are collectively known as metabolism.
The trillions of cells our body is made from, are constantly working metabolic reactions for our survival. However there are 2 major categories, anabolism and catabolism.
Anabolism is the building block process in the body.
Whether building muscle or just replenishing ATP and energy stores, your body requires you to consume enough food each day for these functions to operate.
If you operate in an energy deficit, your body will increase catabolism, by drawing on the energy reserves (excess fat) to continue its daily functions.
Catabolism does occur every day as well to perform basic functions, exercise and cell regeneration.
It’s when we maintain that deficit that we are able to use our excess fat, stored as energy and lose unneeded body weight through catabolic reactions. This allows our body to perform more efficiently and can also improve our health markers long term.
How can you improve metabolism?
Well you can’t directly. There’s no “quick-fix” to speeding up your metabolism, no matter how good the advertisement might seem.
BUT! You can increase the amount of reactions occurring during basic metabolism, thus burning more calories.
You see, to get energy, oxygen (through breathing) is added to create these reactions (think of a car combusting fuel).
You can add more oxygen one of 2 ways… exercise for longer OR up the intensity… also a combination of the 2 works even better.
Basically, consume a larger volume of oxygen (exercise harder or longer) and you will burn more calories.
So there you have it, metabolism in all it’s glory, simplified to 1 A4 page of writing.