How To Boost Your Metabolism

Metabolism is the process by which the human body converts the calories in food and beverages into energy. It is actually a biochemical action that is necessary for life to exist and for a body to sustain itself. The energy that is used to regulate heart rate, circulate blood, breathe and secrete hormones is converted from calories that are combined with oxygen through the metabolic process. This energy is necessary to sustain the body at rest as well as during exercise.

A basal metabolic rate or BMR is the actual number of calories that a person's body requires to function on a daily basis without additional exercise. This is the ideal number of calories for a body at rest to function normally.
Measuring your basal metabolic rate allows you to understand the actual number of calories required for normal daily activities. It also makes it much easier to determine how many calories should be removed in order for you to lose weight
There are several factors that affect a body's basal metabolic rate. The size of the person determines the rate that calories are burned. In general, a larger person with more muscle mass will have a faster resting metabolic rate than a smaller person. The muscles require large amounts of energy to sustain them even during rest. This forces the metabolism to work harder to keep up with the demand for energy.
Since lean muscle mass increases one's metabolism, men will usually have a faster resting metabolism than a female. Because women tend to carry less lean muscle, they normally have a slower basal metabolic rate. This is generally true of men and women of the same age and weight. Unless strength training is part of your fitness regimen, loss of muscle mass through the aging process will slow the metabolic rate of both men and women.
One of the issues that strict dieters tend to encounter when they try to lose weight is a slow-down in the body's ability to burn calories efficiently. Starvation diets signal the body to slow normal processes including actually decreasing the number of calories required to sustain the body. This is one of the reasons why most caloric-restricted diets almost always fail in the long run. When a body is subjected to a starvation situation, it compensates by saving energy.