The metabolism isn’t any particular body part. It’s the process of transforming food (e.g. nutrients) into fuel (e.g. energy). The body uses this energy to conduct a vast array of essential functions. Hence, you’ve likely heard of the phrase metabolic process used synonymously with the term metabolism, because they both mean the same thing.
In fact, long before you realized that you couldn’t move a finger or lift your foot, your internal processes would have stopped; because the basic building blocks of life – circulating blood, transforming oxygen into carbon dioxide, expelling potentially lethal wastes through the kidneys and so on – all of these depend on metabolism. Numerous chemical conversions are taking place through metabolism, or metabolic functioning. And the first function is creating tissue and cells. Each moment, our bodies are creating more cells to replace dead or dysfunctional cells.
For example, if you cut your finger, your body will begin – without even wasting a moment or asking your permission –the process of creating skin cells to clot the blood and start the healing process. This creation process is indeed a metabolic response, and is called anabolism.
On the other hand, there is the exact opposite activity taking place in other parts of the body. Instead of building cells and tissue through metabolism, the body is breaking down energy so that the body can do what it’s supposed to do.
For example, as you aerobically exercise, your body temperature rises as your heart beat increases and remains with a certain range. As this happens, your body requires more oxygen; and as such, your breathing increases as you intake more water. All of this, as you can imagine, requires additional energy. Presuming that you aren’t overdoing it, your body will instead begin converting food (e.g. calories) into energy. And this process, as you know, is a metabolic process, and is called catabolism.
So as you can see, the metabolism is a constant process that takes care of two seemingly opposite function: anabolism that uses energy to create cells, and catabolism that breaks down cells to create energy.
Indeed, it’s in this way that the metabolism earns its reputation as a harmonizer. It brings together these apparently conflicting functions, and does so in an optimal way that enables the body to create cells as needed, and break them down, again as needed.
By now, you already have a sense of how metabolism relates to weight loss (catabolic metabolism, or breaking cells down and transforming them into energy). Your metabolism isn't burning calories at a constant rate. The rate can change and you can help to control it! You can learn how to take the reigns and tighten your grip on weight-loss with my new guide...
