My metabolic rate

Why should I care about my metabolic rate?

The metabolic rate is an important factor if you want to loose weight. Metabolism is the process where your body converts what your eat and drink into energy. It can be divided in two categories: 

• Catabolism: the breakdown of molecules to obtain energy (breaking down molecules)
• Anabolism: the synthesis of all compounds needed by the cells (building up molecules)

A higher metabolic rate is beneficial because it increases the number of calories we burn over time. 

Many people think that heavy people have a slower metabolic rate that skinny people. This is not true. In fact, in general, how heavier you are, the higher you metabolic rate because a heavier body requires more energy during physical movement. When you loose weight, your metabolic rate will slow down. 

Your metabolic rate is determined by several factors, among others:

• Muscle mass: muscles use more energy than any other body tissue
• Age: young cells renew more often which requires energy
• Length: tall persons require more energy to keep their body warm
• Hormons: several hormons influence the metabolic rate

However, you can exercise some influence on your metabolic rate. 

• Create more muscle mass! The muscles in your body will require more energy than any other tissue in your body, even when you are not working out. Even when you are sleeping you will burn more calories than a person with lass muscle mass. :)
• Eat regularly and eat food with a low glycemic index (complex carbs) and high in fiber! These foods require relatively more effort from your body to digest than foods like simple carbs without any fiber. Your body will use more energy to digest. Eating regularly ensures your metabolism is working continuously and keeps on burning energy. 
• Move! Physical exercise will burn calories. Whether it is a long easy walk on the beach or a heavy bootcap workout with intervals, you will burn those calories!
• Sleep! Try to get at least seven hours of sleep each night. Your energy and activity levels are higher when you slept well, increasing your metabolic rate. 
• Herbs like chili powder and cayenne peppers can increase your metabolic rate. These herbs increases the release of, among others, adrenaline which stimulates the metabolism and increases calorie burn. 
• Drink green tea. Several studies show that drinking green results in burning an extra 70-100 calories a day because of the antioxidants in the tea. 

Do keep in in mind that although your metabolism influences your body's basic energy needs, ultimately it is your total caloric intake and physical activity that determines wether you gain or loose weight!

Work hard and get your metabolism on fire!

Why sleep is so important

During my research about muscle growth, I stumbled upon a very old article from 1968 about the presence of the growth hormone during your sleep. It is said often to me that rest is very important in order to stimulate muscle growth. I was wondering how this worked, and how sleep affects the growth of the muscles. And this article actually gave me some answers. 

The growth hormone

The growth hormone stimulates, among others, the growth of cells and the regeneration of cells. This thus has an effect on your muscle growth. This is why taking in extra growth hormone is popular by some athletes. However, there is no scientific evidence that taking in extra growth hormone improves strength and/or speed. But, research did show improved lean muscle, decrease of fat, and more muscle mass as a result of the growth hormone. Also it showed that the use of the growth hormone stimulates storage of water in your body. So, the growth hormone could assist in moving fluids away from fat towards your muscles. Lucky us, that our body provides us with this great hormone!

The growth hormone during sleep

The natural production of growth hormone is highest in stage 2 and 3 of your non-REM sleep. Non-REM sleep stands for non Rapid Eye Movement sleep and usually is 80% of your sleep time. Non-Rem sleep has four stages of which stage 1 is very light sleep and stage 4 is very deep sleep. Stage 2 is a period of light sleep, where you have periods of muscle flexion and relaxation. This is the stage that the body is preparing to go into deep sleep. When you wake up and you are a bit disoriented, you usually just woke up from sleep stage 3 or 4. 

Go to bed in time!

In the graph below, you can see on top the stages of sleep and the according lever of growth hormone in each stage as the sleep continues. At 11PM you can see the largest peak in the natural production of the growth hormone. At his time, the person is in deep sleep as you can see (stage 4). Another peak can be observed at 2.30AM. Again at this time the person is in deep sleep (stage 3). This graph shows that at the beginning of your sleep, when you are in deep sleep, the production of the growth hormone is greatest!

For contrast, the graph below shows the production of the growth hormone for a person that goes to bed late (delayed sleep). In the graph you can see that production of growth hormone is very limited over the whole night. Even though this person does reach the deep sleep stage (stage 3), it does not product much growth hormone. This shows that going to bed early stimulates the production of the growth hormone to a greater extend! So, up to bed your go! 

Good night!

Source: Takahashi, Y., Kirnis, D.M., Daughaday, W.H., 1968. Growth Hornone Secretion during Sleep. The Journal of Clinical Investigation, 47. pp 2079-2090