Why Does Our Metabolism Slow Down?
The slowing of our metabolism is not tied with aging nearly so much as it is with a gradual loss of muscle and muscle tone as we get older. Even if we keep our weight the same, as we become less active our muscles lose their tone and more of our weight is coming from a gradual gain of fat. When our muscles lose their strength, density and tone it’s like turning our burners on low heat, our body simply does not burn calories like it used to.
Most of us (after the age of 35) lose enough muscle every year to burn 4 pounds of fat! This means that we’re not only losing the only thing on our body that creates strength, tone and good shape, we also are losing the very thing that helps us keep our metabolism up. So just like the simplicity of turning up the burners on our stove to generate more heat, we can also turn up our capability of burning fat and calories by toning and building muscle.
Toned muscle weighs more than untoned muscle, so it’s very easy for an average height person to gain 8–12 pounds of weight in the muscle sector, (when starting a fitness routine). This is why; the weight doesn’t drop nearly as rapidly on the scale the first few months.
Example: if we gain 10 lb. of muscle and lose 10 lb. of fat, the scale weight hasn’t changed, but our shape sure has! Since this new muscle adds to the thermogenic heat in your body your metabolism is changing as well. The same principle applies, that we should drop body weight if we get inactive to compensate for weight loss from muscle tone. If we continue to weigh the same, we can count on it that we gained body fat, (this is why our shape looks so different, even though our weight stays the same on the scale).
To help insure that we’re properly turning on our thermogenic heat to its full potential, we need to exercise the muscles all over our body. We can do this by making sure that our exercise routine includes, pulling, pushing and pressing, (these each get different muscle groups).
Example: Rowing gets the back and biceps, Pushups get our triceps and chest, leg press, squats (with weights) or body weight squats get most of the large muscle groups of the legs. Keep a basic routine but try to add some different angles to your pulling, pushing and pressing movements to give the muscle groups better development.
Example home routine: After walking or some other form of warm-up, lay on the floor and do pushups until tiring, then get up and pick up a weighted object off the floor and straighten to standing position, repeat this action until tiring and then do some squats with arms extended out in front of you, raising your arms toward ceiling as you come to a standing position. Repeat this circuit about 3 times and then finish routine by getting on the floor and doing some crunches for stomach.
Remember: if toning muscle turns up our metabolism, shouldn’t we tone muscle all over our body?
Take away: Turning up our own metabolism by toning our muscles is the cheapest form of a weight loss program and it is also THE healthiest way!
