Metabolism plays an important role in weight loss. A fast metabolism means you'll lose weight faster and more effectively. A number of factors affect the speed of your metabolism, including certain medications, lack of exercise and even genetics. Still, changing the way you eat can have the biggest impact, especially if you're trying to lose weight without slowing down your metabolism.
Factors
A number of factors affect your metabolism, regardless of whether you're dieting or not. These include age, sex and body composition. Metabolism slows down as you age. It also slows down based on how much fat and muscle you have. If you're having a hard time losing weight or keeping the weight off after dieting, pay attention to your eating habits. Skipping meals, a common dieting technique, can also slow down your metabolism.
Weight Loss
How you lose weight plays a role in whether your metabolism speeds up or slows down. If you're losing weight through diet alone, you might be losing muscle mass. The more muscle you lose, the higher your metabolism and the easier you lose weight. That's why men lose weight more easily than women -- they have a higher ratio of muscle to fat than women do. If you're doing weight training as part of your weight loss efforts, your metabolism will benefit.
Low-calorie Intake
Cutting down your calorie intake significantly will slow down your metabolism. According to the American College of Sports Medicine, women need at least 1,200 calories a day to keep their metabolism working properly. Men need a minimum of 1,800 calories. If you're losing weight by eating less than the minimum amount , your metabolism will slow down. Eventually, you might reach a plateau where no weight loss is achieved.
Foods
Protein is harder to process, so it burns more calories as your body digests it. If you're losing weight by eating a high-protein diet, you're more likely to keep your metabolism strong. If instead you lose weight with a low-calorie or a low-fat diet -- which usually means cutting down on animal protein -- your metabolism might start running at a slower pace.
References
- MayoClinic.com; Metabolism and Weight Loss: How You Burn Calories; October 2009
- Weight Loss Resources; Dieting and Metabolism; Juliette Kellow BSc RD; 2010
- American College of Sports Medicine; Metabolism is Modifiable with the Right Lifestyle Changes; 2007
- MayoClinic.com; Slow Metabolism: Is it to Blame for Weight Gain?; Donald Hensrud, M.D.; August 2009
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