Losing weight is always the result of burning more calories per day than you take in through food and beverages. To drop pounds, you need to create a deficit between what your body needs to function and what you're giving it. You can do this by burning more calories or by eating less, but ideally you should strike a balance. A pound of body weight is equal to about 3,500 calories, so if you average 500 calories more per day than you burn, you will gain a pound each week. Likewise, if you "cheat" your body by 500 calories a day, you will lose a pound in the same amount of time.
Metabolism
Metabolism is the process by which your body burns calories. People often say that they have "high" or "low" metabolism, but, in fact, the physiological process is pretty much the same from person to person. Everyone starts with a basal metabolic rate, or BMR -- the number of calories your body requires to breathe, heal and keep your heart beating. What people refer to as "high" or "low" metabolism starts here, but certain factors can make your body burn more calories at rest and can change your BMR.
Effects on Metabolism
Your body needs more calories to maintain muscle mass and less to maintain fat. If you're a lean individual with a lot of muscle, your BMR is going to be higher than someone who carries roughly an equal amount of fat and muscle. Your muscles, along with your body's efforts to blink, breathe and pump blood, require from 60 to 75 percent of your BMR. Your body devotes another 10 percent of your BMR to digesting your food; not just chewing and swallowing, but processing it.
Movement
The remaining 15 to 30 percent of your BMR goes to fueling your daily activity. This involves not just exercise, which burns a lot of calories, but any movement at all. Every time you get to your feet and walk to another room, your body uses calories to fuel that motion. You can burn several hundred calories a day simply doing housework, taking the stairs instead of an elevator, or walking to a destination rather than taking your car. Sedentary people generally use about 15 percent of their BMR on activity, while more active individuals use up to 30 percent or more, which results in weight loss.
Tips
Your body has a certain amount of control over your BMR. If you starve it to try to lose weight, it will devote fewer of your daily calories to breathing and existing and save the remainder against potential famine. The best dieting results come from lowering calorie intake by a reasonable amount and stepping up your activity. Aerobic activities, such as jogging, swimming or biking, have the added advantage of prompting your body to keep burning extra calories for a few hours after you've worked out. Eating smaller, more frequent meals over the course of the day will force your body to continuously expend that 10 percent of calories that it reserves for digestion. But eat the right things. Junk food will only defeat your purpose.
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