Muscles, Energy and Metabolism

Here are some basic key tips to understand when talking about muscles, energy and metabolism.

What you need to know:

Muscles use energy when they contract (they are highly metabolic so the more toned muscle tissue you have the more calories you burn).

The more intense muscle contractions become the more energy they will use to perform the movement.

Eventually movement can become so intense that your muscles will use more oxygen than your body can produce. This creates an oxygen deficit that can last for hours after a workout.

Your body needs more nutrients and fuel (calories) after an oxygen deficit because it needs to replenish its energy and oxygen levels. This higher fat burning state is often called an “after-burn” and very helpful if the goal is fat loss.

To tone and build muscle you need to be taking in more energy than its putting out.

Skeletal muscles account for about 40-50 percent of total body weight in a healthy adult. Loss of muscle tissue and strength or sarcopenia is a result of lack of activity that challenges your muscle system.

Metabolic rates fall for three reasons-when you fail to take in enough nutrients: thyroid function slows, there is a reduction in muscle mass and there is a lower thermic effect of eating. (The expression
“thermic effect of food” is used to describe the energy expended by our bodies in order to consume (bite, chew and swallow) and process (digest, transport, metabolize and store) food. We “expend energy” by burning calories.

The greatest expenditure of energy is required when processing protein…with estimates ranging as high as 30%. Dietary fat on the other hand is so easily processed and turned into body fat that there is little thermic effect…perhaps only 2 or 3%. The amount of energy required to process carbohydrates falls between that of protein and fat.

The best way to keep your metabolism at its highest levels and ready to burn calories is through regular resistance training, eating healthy, frequent and consistent wholesome meals and customizing your workout routines to avoid muscle adaption. Stick to these basic steps and your body will stay healthy, young and fit for years to come.

You can actually fool your body’s natural aging process by stroking its engine to lose excess fat and the best way to stroke it is with strength training. Lifting weights actually works to break down your muscles which respond by building new muscle cells to compensate for the new loads being place on them. These new cells burn three times more calories than fat cells even when resting (pay attention to the resting part)…even when you are not working out you are burning calories.

Changing your rep range, time of day you train or increasing your strength training stamina all contribute to revving up the metabolism.

What you eat is just as important as how frequently you eat and the key to it all is protein. Proteins take a lot of effort and energy to process and that equates to burning more calories.

Understanding how your energy (diet), muscles and metabolism work together is important if you want to avoid yo-yo dieting.

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