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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Cholesterol is a very familiar medical term almost to anyone, particularly the middle age group. It is a common thing the word will never be a part of teen-age lingo. The main reason is, most of the dreaded ailments accompanying “high cholesterol” levels are associated with hypertension, heart failure, diabetes and other long term and acquired conditions, which does not could also happen to younger generation as juvenile complications. To make it clear, when the majority is talking about lowering cholesterol, it is all about alleviating the further progress of bad cholesterol.

There are two kinds of cholesterol accumulating or present in the human body. Bad cholesterol or low-density lipoprotein is harmful because it can cause atheroma. Atheroma is considered to be the plaque of the arteries, commonly referred to as fat streaks. If not watched carefully, accumulation of ‘macrophage white blood cells’ can happen to a child even before the age of 10.

The early symptoms may start as early as 5 years old, while the child grows up and the condition is accumulating quietly in the veins. Most of the time, the exact symptoms are only given prognosis after the onset of heart attack or stroke, which is already too late for the patient. The attack of silent killers may not cause death but chances are it can lead to lifetime disability.

It is debilitating to imagine how high levels of bad cholesterol can cause serious consequences to the body. When most people may appear healthy all the time, cholesterols can only be checked through lab tests. Sometimes it surprises people to find out how high their cholesterol build-up has soared for the past years.

There is no mystery behind the strengthening of bad cholesterol other than high consumption of saturated fats in the diet. In the advent of labels or guides in processed foods like canned goods and other packed products in the groceries, it is easy to see the amount of cholesterol a food has. This is just a small matter on how to grasp the essence of being cholesterol conscious.

The major way to lower down cholesterol levels in the body is to understand how it metabolizes in the body. Cholesterol doe not actually come from diet alone. It is a whole process within where diet is just one of the contributing factor. Good cholesterol aids in the body’s biochemical functioning like producing bile, regulating of vitamins that are fat soluble such as A, K, D, and E.

It also has impact on the synthesis of the body hormone. After cholesterol has been utilized in the body, it excretes as excess lipids in the liver and gall bladder as crystal particles. Because cholesterol is not water soluble, it circulates over and over and gets converted to bad cholesterol (low density lipoproteins). For normal individuals with healthy metabolism, bad cholesterol is minimal and comes in as large quantities. The harmful ones are those that come in many number of small sizes trapped in the veins as accumulated clogs.

When it comes to lowering high cholesterol, basically there is nothing to ponder about genetic weaknesses, the key is watching over food intake. Cholesterol is highly present in animal meats and fats, especially pork and beef. It is easy to watch fatty foods with all the precautions available today. But it takes discipline to live a life with less cholesterol consumption.

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