What Exactly is Metabolism?

The textbook definition: Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that occur in living organisms to maintain life. It includes processes such as digesting food, converting nutrients into energy and eliminating waste. Metabolism is a complex process and requires the coordination of many different organs and processes in the body.

What does It really mean? Basically, the process of staying alive. The body is very complicated and needs balance to keep things running smoothly. Metabolism isn’t about just one thing and isn’t simply ‘good or bad’.

Your body requires fuel to produce the energy needed to stay alive and keep all of those completed chemical reactions happening. Think about it just like your car needs gas to run and your phone needs a charged battery to work.

The body’s fuel is from food. All food is eventually turned into glucose and used for energy (fuel). If you don’t have enough fuel, you go into an energy saving mode (#decreasedmetabolism, #powerdown) Slowing down to conserve energy means burning less calories, which means gaining weight and feeling tired. Slowing down can cause constipation. Lowering metabolism means slowed down everything non essential, hair growth, nails, skin turnover, menstrual cycles, fertility, bone production… In severe cases, such as anorexia, the body starts getting desperate for fuel. One of the ways to get fuel is by breaking down the protective fat around our organs and even muscle to turn it into energy. Not good!

Now, you may say you are okay with burning your fat stores for energy, but you don’t want to break down the protective parts of this whole body system. Then you have no defense against illness, injuries or the environment. It is very possible to have it all and preserve a healthy metabolism, actually speed it up a bit, with balance.

You will hear me say balance A LOT in any health discussion. Extremes only leave you out of balance and the body starts acting crazy trying frantically to get it all back in order. Who wants the ups and downs and body drama? You know… weight gain/weight loss, energy/ no energy, healthy/sick, happy/grumpy.

Now, think about it this… It takes energy to make energy. So things that deplete our energy, such as stress and sleep deprivation take away from metabolic balance by making it harder to keep up. You can hang in there, for a while, but when you’re on empty or have no power reserve, you shut down. No more energy. Metabolism comes to a halt.

How can you increase metabolism for more energy? Things that increase energy (metabolism) are moving more to get the blood flowing, eating a diet full of vitamins and minerals and phytonutrients (plant nutrients), rest and relaxation. Seems simple enough right?

Are you starting to see how this all works? This is a very basic overview, but will help lay the foundation as we move forward with other topics about health, vitality, hormone balance and weight management. You won’t get a “quick fix”, fad answer here about any of those topics. We will build on our Health Interventions and it will all start to make sense, allowing you to break free of diets and restrictions and blaming “metabolism” for everything. If you haven’t already gotten an evaluation to identify possible root causes of your health concerns, I still highly recommend a Functional Medicine approach.

Great Options to choose from: Prestige Family Health Care, Spring Valley Care, NPClinicOnline.com, Health Interventions