What does my metabolism have to do with me?

“I keep hearing the word metabolism when it comes to working out and dieting...

But what does it mean?”

According to dictionary.com, it means,

“The sum of the physical and chemical processes in an organism by which its material substance is produced, maintained, and destroyed, and by which energy is made available.”

But what does that mean?

Basically, it means that the metabolism is what maintains your body weight. It is the equation of the number of calories you burn vs the number of calories you take in.

So why does that matter?

Simply put, it matters because it affects how much weight you lose. What it all comes down to is your level of body fat vs. your level of muscle.

Muscle burns fat.

If you've done any workouts by Chalene Johnson, you've no doubt heard this a couple million times. But it is so true. The hard truth is that the reason that the diets of so many people are so ineffective isn't because of the diet, it's because of the people.

Why does muscle burn more fat?

Muscle burns more fat because it requires more calories to maintain. It takes all these extra calories out of your system just to keep itself living. This is why exercising is so important.

Exercising builds that muscle that you need to burn fat. If you only diet, you're only going to burn as many calories as your fat needs to maintain itself, and then you're still stuck with however many calories are left over. These calories are what keep you from losing weight.

Okay, so how do I build muscle?

Resistance training!

This can be done with free weights (in other words your 1, 3, 5, etc lb set) or with resistance bands like the ones found in Turbofire. However, this is important:

You cannot do strength training every single day.

If you do that, you're going to tear your muscles by overworking them. You do strength training one day, then you need to give your muscles a day of rest. Following that day of rest, you may work them out again.

So, only do strength training every other day.

Also, don't neglect your cardio workouts. These are still important because they burn even more calories. As a general rule, I do cardio workouts three days a week, and strength training two. That puts me at 5 days a week, with every other day strength training and vice versa.