It helps to understand what people\u00a0mean when they talk about \u201cmetabolism\u201d, says James Betts, professor of metabolic physiology at the University of Bath. Usually, they\u2019re referring to metabolic rate; the amount of energy your body burns in a\u00a0given time. This is largely determined by factors such as your size, age, sex and body composition.<\/p>\n
Your daily energy expenditure comes from three main sources: your resting metabolism (the energy needed to keep your organs and tissues functioning), the calories burned processing food, and physical activity. Of those, exercise and movement are by far the most variable.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people say they want to boost their metabolism, what they really mean is they want to burn more energy,\u201d says Betts. \u201cBut resting metabolism is actually very predictable. For most people, we can estimate it fairly accurately from things like body weight, age and sex.\u201d<\/p>\n
So does eating every few hours help? Only in a very limited sense.<\/p>\n
double quotation markIf you eat 100 calories, you\u2019ll have a net gain of 90 calories<\/p>\n
Digesting food requires energy \u2013 a\u00a0process known as the thermic effect\u00a0of food. Roughly 10% of the calories you eat are used for chewing, digesting and absorbing nutrients. But\u00a0that does not mean frequent snacking gives your metabolism a\u00a0meaningful boost.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tend to compare it to a tax,\u201d says\u00a0Betts. \u201cJust as your net take\u2011home pay is less than your gross salary due\u00a0to tax, if you eat the 100 calories on your plate you may only have a net gain of 90 calories since you\u00a0must invest around 10 to access what is in\u00a0your food.\u201d<\/p>\n
This means eating can expend a\u00a0little energy, but not enough to offset\u00a0the fact that you have eaten. If\u00a0your goal is to increase energy expenditure, there\u2019s a much more effective strategy, says Betts: \u201cMove\u00a0more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It helps to understand what people\u00a0mean when they talk about \u201cmetabolism\u201d, says James Betts, professor of metabolic physiology…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[134,111,139,556,69],"class_list":["post-512038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nutrition","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}