Up next in 10
What Is Metabolism? Can You Change Your Metabolism? | Nutritionist Explained | Myprotein
3K views
Jan 30, 2025
What is metabolism and how does it work? Are there ways to boost your metabolism? Nutritionist expert explains everything you need to know. Everyone has a metabolism, but do you know what yours does or how it works? And what do people mean when they say they have a 'fast' or 'slow' metabolism? Our nutritionist and PhD researcher, Richie Kirwan, is here to help us get the facts straight. Weight management and metabolism often come hand in hand — so if you're struggling to get a handle on your goals, it might help you to know a little more about how your metabolism actually works and factors that can affect it. Find Richie on Instagram: @be_more_nutrition ********************************* Chapters: 00:00 – Intro 00:20 – What is metabolism? 01:43 – What is our metabolism made up of? 05:41 – How to increase your metabolic rate ********************************* Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/MyproteinUK?sub_confirmation=1
View Video Transcript
0:00
everyone likes to drop the word
0:01
metabolism into a conversation about
0:02
nutrition but do you really understand
0:04
what it means let's talk about that
0:08
how's it going guys my name is richie
0:10
kirwan and today we're going to talk all
0:11
about your metabolism what it means the
0:14
role it plays in our body composition
0:15
and how it can change now to explain
0:18
what metabolism is you need to
0:19
understand one very important concept
0:22
you are made of chemicals
0:25
actually almost everything you know is
0:26
made of chemicals that phone in your
0:28
hand chemicals the skin touching the
0:30
phone chemicals the blood flowing
0:32
through your veins chemicals the dna in
0:34
your cells that makes you unique
0:36
chemicals even the nerve impulses in
0:38
your head allowing you to see and hear
0:40
this video and process this information
0:42
all chemicals
0:44
and a little electricity now why is that
0:47
important well metabolism is the
0:48
combination of all the chemical
0:51
reactions that go on in your body at any
0:53
one time and believe me just to keep you
0:56
alive your body needs a ridiculous
0:58
amount of beautifully coordinated
1:00
reactions all the time time bear with me
1:03
on this you see you're using chemical
1:05
reactions to keep your body at a
1:07
constant temperature right now
1:09
you use chemical reactions to break down
1:11
that protein bar you ate earlier into
1:12
amino acids sugars and fatty acids
1:15
you need chemical reactions to transport
1:17
those amino acids to your muscles to
1:19
pass them across your cell membranes and
1:21
to turn them into new muscle protein
1:23
you need chemical reactions to help you
1:25
stand up and sit down and lift weights
1:28
and you know what a lot of those
1:29
chemical reactions need
1:31
energy our bodies are chemical machines
1:34
and it needs energy to keep working and
1:36
the energy we eat in the form of food
1:38
goes to supply a lot of different parts
1:41
of our metabolism so what exactly is our
1:44
metabolism made up of your metabolism is
1:46
made up of four main parts and these are
1:48
called your basal metabolic rate or bmr
1:51
your non-exercise activity thermogenesis
1:53
or neat
1:54
your exercise activity thermogenesis and
1:57
the thermic effect of food or tef which
2:00
is sometimes called diet induced
2:02
thermogenesis your bmr is the energy
2:04
that your body uses to maintain all the
2:07
essential metabolic processes that keep
2:09
you alive even when you're at rest and
2:11
you think you're doing nothing in fact
2:14
for most people it's bmr that uses the
2:16
most energy by far of all the different
2:19
parts of metabolism every different part
2:21
of your body needs a different amount of
2:22
energy to work to give you a little idea
2:24
what i mean
2:25
one kilogram of adipose or fat tissue
2:28
uses about 4.5 calories per day it
2:30
doesn't sound like a lot right in
2:32
comparison the same weight of muscle
2:34
needs 13 calories a day to function
2:36
properly which is why people rightly say
2:38
muscle burns more calories than fat but
2:40
your muscles have nothing on your brain
2:43
one kilogram of brain tissue actually
2:45
uses 240 calories per day pretty
2:48
impressive right well not compared to
2:50
your heart muscle because the same
2:51
amount of heart tissue burns 440
2:54
calories a day just carrying out its
2:56
basic functions now obviously the
2:58
important thing to remember is that your
3:00
body usually has a lot more muscle and a
3:03
lot more fat than other organs so
3:04
overall they contribute a lot more
3:06
calorie burn to your metabolism i just
3:08
thought it'd be pretty cool to know
3:09
moving on the next biggest user of
3:11
energy for most people is something
3:12
called neat which means non-exercise
3:15
activity thermogenesis meat is all the
3:18
energy you use for any physical or
3:20
movement activity that isn't
3:22
specifically exercise so things like
3:25
walking from your car to your office
3:26
scratching your head carrying your
3:28
groceries and even fidgeting in your
3:31
chair bobbing your head to good music or
3:33
even moving your eyes side to side while
3:35
you eat that's all neat people don't
3:37
realize just how important meat is to
3:39
their metabolism in fact in people who
3:42
have very adaptive metabolisms that
3:43
means their metabolism speeds up and
3:45
slows down a lot depending on how much
3:47
they eat
3:48
if you feed them a lot of extra calories
3:49
they often move and fidget more which
3:52
helps them to burn off some of those
3:54
extra calories in other words their neet
3:56
goes up on the other hand if you
3:58
restrict their calories their need level
4:00
often drops and they become a lot less
4:03
active less fidgeting less head bobbing
4:05
to music even fewer facial expressions
4:08
they kind of turn into robots only
4:09
moving for the most essential tasks next
4:12
you have the thermic effect of food or
4:14
tef
4:15
this is the energy that you burn just
4:17
processing your food and that varies
4:19
based on the macronutrients that you
4:20
consume so for example
4:22
fat requires the least energy to process
4:25
somewhere from one to three percent of
4:27
the energy contained in the fat is used
4:29
for digesting it carbs are a little
4:30
higher at five to ten percent of the
4:32
energy content and protein is by far the
4:35
highest with about 20 to 30 percent of
4:38
the energy contained in protein being
4:40
needed to digest and process it this is
4:42
a small part of the reason why high
4:44
protein diets tend to be so effective
4:46
for fat loss some of the calories in the
4:48
protein are used just by eating it
4:50
finally you have exercise activity
4:52
thermogenesis or eat this is all the
4:54
energy that you spend when intentionally
4:56
exercising obviously enough this can
4:58
vary a lot between people and in
5:00
athletes who exercise multiple hours
5:02
every day eat can be enormous that
5:05
partially explains why for example
5:07
michael phelps was able to eat over 8
5:08
000 calories a day while training for
5:10
his last olympics and still maintain a
5:12
lean physique i said partially explains
5:15
it because his bmr would also have
5:17
increased a lot just to keep him warm
5:19
while spending all that time in water
5:21
and that would have burned a lot of
5:23
excess calories too all of these
5:24
components together make up your total
5:27
daily energy expenditure or tdee
5:30
and this is all the energy that you need
5:32
to support the different parts of your
5:33
metabolism a lot of people simply call
5:35
this your metabolic rate before i finish
5:38
no video on metabolism would be complete
5:40
without talking about what you can do to
5:42
increase your metabolic rate right i'll
5:44
keep this brief you technically can
5:46
increase your metabolic rate by being
5:47
bigger and the most realistic way of
5:49
doing that is by building more muscle
5:51
the thing is
5:52
more muscle especially with the amount
5:54
that most people can realistically build
5:56
is not going to increase your metabolism
5:59
a whole lot it does however have a small
6:02
effect the next thing you could do is
6:03
work on your thermic effect of food as i
6:06
mentioned earlier if you replace some of
6:08
the fat and carbohydrate calories in
6:09
your diet with protein your tef will be
6:12
higher but again it's not going to be a
6:14
really huge amount either there's also
6:15
some evidence that meals higher in whole
6:17
unprocessed foods have a slightly higher
6:19
tef compared to the same amount of
6:21
calories from processed food
6:23
again it's going to be a very small
6:25
effect with neat
6:27
well you can't really ask someone to
6:28
fidget more which means the last and
6:30
probably best way to increase your
6:32
metabolism is the last thing anyone
6:34
wants to actually hear exercise yeah
6:37
surprise surprise you can also increase
6:39
your metabolism by exercising more but
6:41
not many people really want to do that
6:43
that's why when it comes to things like
6:44
weight loss it makes a lot more sense to
6:47
focus on the calories inside of the
6:49
equation
6:50
by that i mean reducing how many
6:52
calories you eat overall but that's
6:54
another video entirely so did this
6:56
answer your questions about metabolism
6:58
as always if you have any more let me
7:00
know in the comments below and remember
7:01
to like and subscribe to the my protein
7:03
youtube channel for more great
7:05
evidence-based nutrition information
7:09
[Music]
7:16
you
#Fitness
#Nutrition
#Weight Loss