Imaginary conversations I know people have had:  ‘I have very slow metabolism. I have put on so much weight after my holiday binge’.

‘ At least yours is from just a weekend. My metabolism has been slowing down since I turned 30!’

The fault, dear reader, is not in our metabolism, but in our energy intake 

Metabolism like the word *uck means so many things. It comes attached with several adjectives or adverbs: slow, fast, high, low, medium are just a few that get strung to it.

Metabolism, by the book, is the complex chemical processes the body uses for normal functioning and sustaining life, including breathing, breaking down food and drink to energy and building or repairing the body. The word is a loaded one. 

It captures the millions of interactions and processes that occur to keep us alive. The body uses a basic xxx-xxxx number of calories to keep one alive. This is basal metabolic rate ( BMR). It is the calories you need to provide your body to stay alive and not do much else.

Coming back to our imaginary yet very plausible conversation. Your metabolism remains intact. It keeps you alive and gets you through the day.  You might consume far more energy than your body needs for its metabolic processes. Or your body might require far less energy than it once did to keep you alive.

TAKEAWAY

Here’s a simple way to communicate the reality of body composition and metabolism :

‘I am not able to eat as much as I once did without packing on a few pounds rather swiftly’

‘The pounds seem to pile on a lot quicker since I turned 36 even without changing a single habit’

We directly linked energy intake to body composition. By eliminating the nebulous middleman called metabolism that we have minimal control over, we can address the things we do control: food intake and activity levels.