What Every Dieter Should Know about Metabolism: Eating Strategies for Increasing our Metabolism

This is Part 3 in the series, What Every Dieter Should Know about Metabolism. Part 1, Metabolism Basics, can be found here, and Part 2, The Role of Muscle, can be found here.

Our metabolism burns the most calories for the automatic body functions of breathing, maintaining our body temperature and circulating blood. Physical activity is the second biggest burner. There is even a special term for the physical activity we do when we aren’t exercising, non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT). This refers to all the physical activities we do in the course of daily living such as talking, walking, sitting and shifting, fidgeting, and any other forms of movement that aren’t sleeping or eating. The balance of our caloric expenditure comes from the food we eat and what we drink. Even though what and how we eat is the smallest of the calorie-burning activities, we can influence how much is burned by the physical activities we do with our choices. In other words, the choices we make about foods and eating can turn up our metabolic thermostat.

How We Eat

If we are trying to lose weight, or maintain our current weight, we are probably avoiding foods with lots of calories and little nutritional value, empty calories. The only way we can affect the calories we burn is to increase our physical activity and to make wise choices about both how we eat and what we eat. We want to eat in such a way as to get our metabolism in high gear and we can do that by our choice of foods and by our patterns of eating

Eat frequently: All foods are thermogenic (metabolism enhancing and calorie-burning) so every time we eat, it turns our metabolism up. Eating 5-6 small meals or healthy snacks throughout the day without exceeding your total calorie goal enhances the thermogenic effect. Research shows that people who eat small frequent meals burn more calories. Frequent eating and snacking also helps to stabilize your blood sugar and give you more energy throughout the day.

Time your meals: If you time your meals and snacks about 3 hours apart and start your day with a good breakfast and follow your workout with a substantial meal you will maximize your workout and keep your metabolism busy burning calories throughout the day.

Eat Enough: Starvation diets don’t work because the body goes into survival mode and throttles the metabolic engine down. We need to eat enough to keep the metabolism going, but enough to keep the intake-expenditure equation working in favor of weight loss. The Mayo Clinic has a calculator to help you determine what your safe level of calories for weight loss is based on your height, current weight, age, and gender.

Food choices: Natural unprocessed protein foods such as lean beef, turkey, chicken, fish, and egg whites have a high thermal effect. Whole grains and beans metabolize more slowly (and require more energy to digest) than highly processed foods. Good examples of these are sweet potatoes, oatmeal, whole grains, beans, brown rice, and even potatoes. Fibrous foods such as greens and salad vegetables have a high thermal effect as well.

Vitamins and Minerals: Some vitamins and minerals play an important role in the metabolism of food and without them your metabolism won’t operate at peak efficiency.

The B-vitamins, especially B12 help to regulate your resting metabolic rate (RMR).I take a high potency multivitamin high in B complex three times per day.

The antioxidant effect of Vitamin C is also important in keeping your metabolism tuned up. Our cells may progressively undergo oxidative stress as we age and this may slow down our metabolism. Antioxidants can help fight the free radicals that are responsible for this. Some research shows that inadequate levels of vitamin C can reduce the body’s ability to burn fat. Vitamin C is widely available, inexpensive, and excess amounts are excreted, so there is no reason not to supplement with this important vitamin.

Chromium taken in trace amounts (it’s included in my multivitamin) can help with weight loss by improving the metabolism of sugars and carbohydrates. It has also been found helpful for stabilizing blood sugar levels in hypoglycemic and diabetics.

Calcium, green tea, coffee, and some other foods also boost our metabolism. But, that’s getting into tomorrow’s topic, thermogenic foods.

Here is my recap for yesterday.

Daily Dietary Recap-5/29/2007
Calories	Protein	Carbohydrates	Sodium	Fat	% Calories from Fat
1204.56	88.76 g	187.41 g	1105.94 mg	11.91 g	8.9%

What Every Dieter Should Know about Metabolism: Metabolism Basics

Metabolism is the rate at which our bodies burn calories in order to maintain our bodies, and perform work. Our metabolic rate affects our Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). Weight loss is a based on a fairly simple formula. If the energy we consume exceeds the energy we expend, we gain weight; if the energy we consume is less than the energy we expend, we lose weight. Therefore as dieters, it is important for us to understand the factors that will increase our metabolic rates. That is what this series of articles is about-increasing our metabolic rate in support of weight loss.

We burn calories every second that we are alive. We burn calories when we are sweating at the gym, eating, or even sleeping. Our metabolic rate describes how quickly we burn those calories. The faster our metabolic rate, the easier it is to lose weight. A faster metabolic rate also means that we can eat more without gaining weight.

Factors that Influence TDEE

Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR): This is the body’s rate of energy expenditure just to maintain body functions without introducing any work or exercise.

Thermal Effect of Food (TEF): Chewing, swallowing, digesting, and absorbing nutrients all require energy. Different foods require different amounts of energy. Later on we will be looking at the thermogenic properties of various foods and how we can positively influence our metabolism in support of weight loss.

Daily Physical Activity: Different levels of physical activity, (running, lifting, sitting, talking, etc.) expend different amounts of energy. Increasing our daily physical activity will increase our caloric expenditure.

Body Composition: Body composition is influenced by age, genetics, medication, gender, and even medication. But, the most important factor is the ratio of fat to lean body mass. The more muscle and less fat we have, the higher our TDEE goes. And, that’s a good thing for weight loss dieters.

Aging and Weight Loss

At about the age of 30, our metabolic rate declines by about 1-2% every ten years. If we continue to consume the same number of calories as we did in our youth without increasing our exercise, the result is weight gain and we may grow a paunch and take on the profile of the middle age spread. If we don’t increase our exercise level, our body composition, the percentage of fat to lean, increases in favor of fat. And, fat takes less energy to maintain than lean muscle or bone. Muscle takes about 20 more calories per pound to maintain than fat does.

The Tipping Point

As we lose lean muscle mass in favor of fat, we have less muscle with which to perform work and create more muscle. If we don’t notice what’s happening, we get on the downhill side of the energy equation and it becomes very difficult to expend enough energy to maintain, much less, lose weight. The good news is that when we begin a conditioning program that includes strength training and start to work our way up the energy curve, at some point we reach the tipping point and it begins to work in our favor. With more muscle, we can perform more work which creates more muscle, and more muscle takes more energy to maintain and thus increases our TDEE even when we aren’t working out.

The Answer to Yesterday’s Quiz

Yesterday I described the birthday dinner I cooked for my wife and asked which foods were thermogenic (increasing the TDEE) and which foods were the most thermogenic. The dinner consisted of grilled bison sirloin steak, baked potatoes with non-fat sour cream, Brussels sprouts, green tea, and okra, onions, tomatoes, and Tabasco sauce.

Answer to question 1: All foods are thermogenic, that is, they take energy to chew, swallow, digest, and absorb.

Answer to question 2: The foods in this meal that are considered most thermogenic are: Brussels sprouts, green tea, and Tabasco sauce. Later in this series on metabolism and dieting, I will list the most highly thermogenic foods.

Next: Muscle and Weigh Loss

Here is my recap from yesterday.

Daily Dietary Recap-5/27/2007
Calories	Protein	Carbohydrates	Sodium	Fat	% Calories from Fat
1170.29	71.16 g	173.21 g	965.10 mg	14.08 g	10.83%