Metabolism is the process by which your body converts food into energy. Many people hold the belief that fat people have low metabolism rates and skinny people have high metabolism rates. However, the process is not that simple.

Your metabolism depends on three separate factors, and how it works affects how much you weigh. Metabolism is determined by the amount of calories you consume, factors such as age and sex, and how physically active you are.

If you consume excessive calories, you will eventually gain weight. Each human body is designed to run on a certain calorie amount. This can vary from person to person, but is between 1500 and 2500 calories for most adults. If you are trying to lose weight, it will be less.

Men generally need more calories per day than women, unless the woman is pregnant or breastfeeding. The rate at which your body burns these calories is your metabolism; if you burn them more slowly, youll gain weight. If you burn through extra calories quickly, youll maintain your weight.

Factors such as age, body composition, and sex also determine metabolism. If your body contains more muscle, your metabolism will be faster. If it contains more fat, your body will be slower.

For this reason, women’s metabolism often slows down after pregnancy. Excess fat is accumulated and stored on the hips and breasts. After pregnancy, it can be harder to lose this weight. Age also affects your metabolism; as you age, your metabolism slows down. This can lead to “middle age spread” if you don’t take action to burn those extra calories and kick your metabolism into high gear.

Your rate of physical activity greatly affects your metabolism. This is good news; it means you have some control over the situation! If your metabolism is slowing down due to age, gender, or other factors, you can boost it by exercising. The key to weight loss is burning more calories than you take in.

When you choose to exercise regularly and eat a healthy diet, weight loss is possible. Your metabolism will increase as you add muscle to your body remember; muscle burns more calories than fat!

To jump-start your metabolism, you may need to lower the amount of calories you’re consuming daily and up the amount of exercise you are doing. Choose aerobic and weight lifting exercises for maximum impact. Aerobic exercise burns fat, and weight training will add muscle. Both can greatly increase your metabolism, leading to healthy fat loss.

This article isn’t medical advice nor should it be interpreted or substituted as medical advice. This article is for informational purposes only. Prior to making changes to your physical exercise routine and your diet, you should always consult your personal physician. It is much better to be safe than sorry.

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Many of us have very busy lives, even though we know we need to lose weight, and we are willing to do the work, we still only have limited time. For that reason you need to focus on the best exercise to lose weight so you can get the maximum results in the shortest amount of time.

Workout routines are usually broken up into two main components: cardiovascular (Cardio) and weight training. Both forms of exercise offer great benefits to your body and your overall health.

Cardio is a great way to get your heart rate up which can lead to a healthier heart and lung capacity. Weight training will help you build muscle tone and can lead to increased metabolism rates and a stronger body. Effectively combining the best elements of both forms of exercises is usually a good way to go.

But the downside to that approach is that it takes more time. If you go to a gym, any gym, you will see people who spend 20 -30 minutes on a treadmill, elliptical or exercise bike. Then they will go over to the weight machines or free weights and spend another 30 or so minutes lifting weights.

There is nothing wrong with that type of routine if: you have time to do it consistently, and you don’t find it boring. If either one of these issues is an issue for you than what you need to do is concentrate only on the weight training.

Why? Because you can get a cardio benefit out of the weight training too. This actually can happen in two ways, for one thing, if you do each repetition in a slow and controlled manner (which is what you should be doing anyway) than you will find that you are sweating and breathing heavy. In other words, you are getting a cardio workout.

But, unlike many forms of cardio exercises, you are also benefiting from the weight training too. You are building a lot of lean muscle tone. That will help you appear thinner since the muscles will “hold you in” kind of like a girdle, but more importantly, the more lean muscle mass you have the higher your metabolism will burn.

That increased metabolic rate isn’t going to just happen when you are at the gym working out, it will be happening all day everyday! Think of what that will do to you to your weight loss efforts if you are actually burning more calories every single day no matter what you are doing (yes, even while you sleep or sit on your rear on the couch).

So, if you want to know what the best exercise to lose weight is, it is a combination of cardio and weight training. If you need to shorten the time you exercise each week but don’t want to miss out on any of the benefits than your best bet is to do weight training. As I explained above, if you do it right you will get a cardio benefit too and that will last long after you leave the gym for the day.

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