A Faster Metabolism Burns More
It takes a shortfall of about 500 calories a day to lose 1 pound per week and 1,000 calories a day to lose 2 pounds weekly. The most effective method to create this shortfall is to cut calories from food and also to boost metabolism. But despite the promises of so many popular diets and products, metabolism can be boosted in only a couple of ways: exercising more and speeding up heart rate.
One of the chief benefits of exercise is that it revs up metabolism. The reason is simple. Individuals who exercise on a consistent basis maintain high levels of lean muscle tissue throughout their lifetime. They also build new muscle. Lean muscle tissue sustains high levels of metabolism. In fact, lean muscle tissue burns seventy times as many calories as fat does. Exercise burns calories, and longer periods of exercise mean greater calorie burning.
While it is true that an increase in lean muscle mass increases metabolism because muscles burn a lot of calories, weight loss almost always results in some loss of muscle mass. The muscles have less weight to carry around, so less muscle is needed. People who follow extreme diets to get a fast weight loss can significantly reduce their lean muscle tissue and thereby slow their metabolism.
A popular theory widely reported in the media is that exercise increases metabolism during activity and for a period of time after the activity is completed. Unfortunately, studies that have researched this concept do not have consistent results. In general, studies on humans suggest that metabolism increases when the amount of body muscle increases but that the number of extra calories burned after exercise is relatively small. And no studies have directly linked the aftereffects of exercise with significant weight loss. It’s the calories expended doing the exercise that boost weight loss, not the aftereffects of exercise on metabolism.
The second way to increase metabolism is to increase heart rate. The heart and other organs contribute to the resting metabolic rate—the calories the body burns just to keep itself going. In a controlled study that looked at the effects of amphetamines on weight loss, the stimulants caused greater weight loss. Heart rate and blood pressure went up and food intake went down, a side effect of feeling hyper and too nervous to eat. Many weight-loss supplements contain chemical or herbal stimulants, including caffeine, guarana, and the now-banned ephedra, which speed up metabolism by pumping up the heart rate. Most of the supplements and over-the-counter products that are marketed to promote weight loss contain stimulants, albeit at a lesser strength than that found in prescription amphetamines. Like their more potent cousin, these compounds are marketed as “fat-burning” and cause weight loss by increasing your heart rate and blood pressure and decreasing your appetite.
These stimulants can work, but they do so at a cost to the body. Negative side effects include insomnia, nervousness, anxiety, and in extreme cases, death. Increasingly, some of these products (including the ones that were most effective, like phenylpropanolamine and ephedra) have been banned because of the negative side effects.
A careful look at the ingredient list of many herbal remedies reveals the truth—herbal diuretics that cause the body to lose fluid through urination and herbal laxatives. Just because the package says the product is natural or herbal does not mean it is healthy. A combination of stimulants, diuretics, and laxatives does not add up to a safe and sensible way to lose weight.
Over the years, other foods and products have been falsely promoted as metabolism boosters for weight loss. Grapefruit, for example, was said to have compounds that speed up metabolism; an added promise was that eating and digesting grapefruit actually uses up more calories than are in the grapefruit. Celery is often promoted as a food that burns more calories than it supplies. But there is no scientific proof that calories spent digesting and absorbing can be pumped up by eating particular foods.
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