Does your metabolism slow as you age?
Good morning everybody, so today I want to jump in with an important topic of what the hell is a metabolism and does it change as you age. So some of you if I asked you a question what is metabolism or what is your metabolic rate? What would your answer be? So we throw this word around metabolism, metabolic rate, but what we really mean for this is total energy expenditure. Okay so it's an easier thing to understand.
Speaker 1:People will say my metabolic rate has slowed down, my metabolic rate has gone up. Instead of saying those words maybe say has my total energy expenditure gone up or down? What's going on? We think does my total energy expenditure go down as I age? Is this something that goes down naturally?
Speaker 1:Is this something that goes down without any of my control? The thing to look at here is split into four parts and I mentioned this before but for clarity you got your base metabolic rate, or resting metabolic rate. All you need is just function, the body just to work, heart pumping, everything moving, that's about 50% of your total energy expenditure. Then you've got thermic effect of food, it's about 10% of your metabolism or total energy expenditure is the calories earned from digestion. Then you've got physical activity and then you've got non physical activity.
Speaker 1:So you've got your workouts which is a small part but depending on if you work out every day maybe it's a big part and you've got your non exercise, you walk and you're fidgeting, you're moving, you're stuff like that, okay standing up as opposed to sitting down. So when we think of metabolism or metabolic rate we should say instead just to make more sense of it total energy expenditure. And we can check our total energy expenditure during a metabolic chamber, so it's a DLW, double labeled water. So this started in the 80s and there was a study now that went back to the 80s until 2021 to look at metabolic rate studies and they found 6,421 subjects in 29 countries, and they use this measure of total energy expenditure, okay, which is a good quality one. So they looked at participants from as young as eight days old, and if we are as an eight days old to 95, and sixty four percent were female.
Speaker 1:So what they found was when you adjust for body size newborn infants have got a similar total energy expenditure to adults, but after one month, total energy expenditure dramatically speeds up to 50% more, than adults when you adjust for body size. So you know obviously building, growing takes a lot of energy. But then you got children now that's adolescents, they say you grow like weeds, this and that, but the body's growing fast. But their total energy expenditure kinda stay the same, starts actually slowing down a bit. Okay?
Speaker 1:And then when you get to age 20 to it basically stabilizes. Total energy expenditure stabilizes between age twenty-sixty. And there's three things this study found that goes against the grain a bit and might shock you. So there's no difference between men and women once you adjust for size and fat free mass so like muscle but obviously men have got more muscle than women in general so men will have a higher metabolic rate or total energy expenditure than women. That's why men find it easier to lose weight initially because it's easier to get into a deficit.
Speaker 1:So men will burn three four thousand calories a day sometimes as a base, cut 500, there's no real big difference, but there'll be some women who are five foot tall, are burning 1,800 calories per day is their total energy expenditure, and to create a deficit it's like oh it's bit harder, right? It's a bit more difficult. Here's one that's a big one they found. There's no change of menopause. So whilst the hormones go rogue and you you feel like eating every piece of chocolate is going to go straight into your hips, studies didn't stack a change in adjusted total energy expenditure nor there was a change in metabolism middle aged men.
Speaker 1:Then years 60 and beyond it did show a 0.7% decrease per year beyond 60 so at 95 your metabolic rate or total energy expenditure is going be about 20% less than if you were in your late 50s. What's important to know is the muscle does burn more calories per pound than fat. So fat burns about two calories per pound per day, muscle burns about six calories per pound per day. So three times more calories burned with muscle than fat. That's why people say fat burns more calories than muscle, you to get more muscle, having more muscle mass will help your metabolic rate go up and all this stuff right, and whilst it is important that we realise that yes muscle is more metabolically active, it does burn more calories for the more muscle you have, it is significant but don't overplay it.
Speaker 1:It's meaningful but don't overplay it. So of course by adding muscle mass we're gonna burn more calories, we're gonna more calories when we do an activity so we've got more muscle to work. But it's not as big as people first made out, were saying first fifty calories per pound. That's the myth was, you burn 50 calories per pound of muscle, you're extra pound of muscle, but it's just six calories per pound. Doesn't mean it's negligible, but it's important to know.
Speaker 1:Here's a few facts as well, how many calories does your heart burn today on average? Have a think about it. For men it's between 102 to 163 calories per day and for women it is 65 to 130 calories. The brain, I'm talking about the brain. So the brain is two eighty five to three ninety four calories a day for men and two fifty two to three forty calories for women.
Speaker 1:So men have got bigger brains. It's not really shown in it's not really shown these days is it? I think men have got maybe bigger brains but more filled with, empty air. And then kidneys, kidneys actually hey they're working. Kidneys are nearly double the calories burned per day than the brain.
Speaker 1:So you go the heart and the kidneys are working more per pound you know, but not in total. In total you burn more calories from the brain per day than any other organ. But as a as is weight, heart and kidneys are up at two zero one calories and 200 calories per pound versus weight. So kidneys 35 to 78 calories a day. But women have got women 15 to 85.
Speaker 1:Interesting, yeah, these organs are working away for us each day. Quite mad when you think about it. Heart, our liver, brain, kidney, all chugging away there. So what does this really tell us about metabolic rate and total energy expenditure? Like what do I want to confuse you with this?
Speaker 1:Am I speaking nonsense about this? Like what's the takeaway from it? The takeaway really is that don't naturally jump to the fact that you're getting older means your total energy expenditure is going down. We do see that obviously like people's activity levels drop as they get older, perhaps injuries, perhaps work, things like that. But you know, going into menopause makes you demotivated, you walk less, you don't have to work out, of course this is going to impact.
Speaker 1:But when you do the exercise and do the walking and you do raise your walking and activity, you find that you're not at a disadvantage. It's not that there's something magical changing things making it harder for you to lose fat, it's just that indirectly it's making it harder if that makes sense. So if you can realize that, okay, I might not feel like I did a 20, but maybe if I do become more active each day, maybe if I do two workouts a week, I'll start gaining some muscle and strength and then maybe that'll give me some lease of life, more energy, and maybe then I'll feel more, you know, feel younger as I age. And you see this a lot. You see this a lot.
Speaker 1:But what the research says, and I quote, this suggests, okay, so says on, let me some quote, perhaps the most unexpected feature was the constancy of metabolic rate constancy of metabolic rate in both males and females between the ages of 20 and 60, wrote one of the study's co authors. This suggests that if you're experiencing middle age spread it's more likely to be because you're eating more rather than expending less. Okay? Interesting. You know when we face these facts we just got to look at them and go okay the research is saying this I can't blame my metabolism, I can't blame it's a damaged metabolism, I can't blame this and that anymore.
Speaker 1:We know that, damaged metabolism is a myth as well. Your metabolic rate or your total energy expenditure adjusts as you lose weight it will adjust down. It doesn't really, your body doesn't really want to lose weight so it makes adjustments as you lose weight. So it makes you more efficient moving perhaps. It make you know you burn less calories doing this and that.
Speaker 1:So your body you can use the word perhaps fight spark. But not in the sense that it gets damaged. Right, so we can throw those away and this frees us up and he goes, you know what, if I'm between the ages of 20 and 60 the main thing I need to look at is my total energy intake and what I'm actually eating each day. That's why tracking consistently is important. If you're not tracking consistently to understand your energy intake you're missing the biggest part of the puzzle you try to work out.
Speaker 1:And a lot of people are thinking well I can't be this I'm just gaining weight out of nowhere, I've taken this pill and I'm gaining fat out of nowhere. These things can impact your motivation, your ability to move perhaps. But once you realize actually if I do move when it's a bit harder, I overcome those adjustments and I get back to base, if that makes sense. So you know like some people do have different metabolic rates compared to what's predicted. Know there's some people who have got 25% above what is predicted and some people have gone lower what is predicted.
Speaker 1:So I'm not saying you may not have this. So that's why in the HAP it gives you your targets, but there's a weekly check-in that will review if that is correct and will tweak your targets based on your actual data because of these outliers. Your metabolic rate might be 10% slower than predicted, okay? And then after a weekly check-in or a few weeks it goes hey actually we see this now, we got your weight data, we got your calorie intake, we got that, got your protein intake, stuff like this, we can now see that actually your target's a bit high, it needs to come down. So that's why the weekly check is important to do otherwise.
Speaker 1:Going off the initial estimation is great and most cases is fine, but you do need our weekly check and you do need those tweaks and some people pay a coach for this, probably it's built into the app, so you don't need to do that for you. Right? So, yes, it comes down to calories in calories out. We know this, and you all know this. It does it's not more complicated than on the surface in terms of like the actual facts, but obviously emotions come into it, stress eating, emotional eating, if you're on certain different drugs it's gonna cause your appetite to go up or down, it's gonna cause your motivation to go up or down, and it's important to put all of this on the table, and it might be something you wanna look at today in journal.
Speaker 1:You're gonna go, right, well, let's have a look at my lifestyle right now. Am I doing the big things first? Am I tracking my calories? Yes. I am.
Speaker 1:Am I is my step count decent, like, 8,000 steps a Can I get to that place first? Yeah, okay there. Maybe, I might do one or two workouts a week that I enjoy. If you haven't yet, maybe start doing them, add them in, you can go to your village class or you can go to your local gym where you do a homework, okay? And then you go, okay, what medication am I on?
Speaker 1:You look at them, you go maybe that's caused this insane, this, okay that, what any injuries have they have, any chronic illnesses, you put all these together and you go right okay so this is really impacting my movement, I'm not getting many steps in because I've got chronic pain stuff like this, what can I do to maybe increase my metabolic rate or my total energy burn per day? Maybe I can just stand up more each day, maybe that's all I can do. Maybe I can't go for long walks but maybe I can stand up more, maybe I can take all the phone calls I have standing as opposed to sitting down. Maybe every evening I make a thing where while I'm watching TV or something I'm watching a half of me standing up and half of me sitting down. There's always something you can do to slightly improve what you're currently doing as your total energy expenditure.
Speaker 1:But the main thing is your energy in. If you got the RTIC down, you want to look at the incremental changes and how you can increase your energy out. And it's never big stuff like, oh, let's go and do six workouts a week. Let's be honest, none of us are going to jump into that. Some of you will, it's not something you could do long term.
Speaker 1:So you do two workouts a week, do you think that has much of an impact on your metabolic rate or your total energy expenditure for the week? Minuscule. But it can enable you to gain muscle which can over time build and help you burn more calories because you've more muscle but it's not huge but it's these little things. So think little, you've got to start very near to get very far. Remember this, it's not about creating like an illusionary lifestyle you think you're gonna hit in the like I'll do this, this and this and this and then everything will fall into place.
Speaker 1:It's more so looking at where you are now, looking at the facts, okay, I'm age 20 to 60, likelihood I just need to move more and I probably need to track my food intake and make sure I'm eating, I pay less than I'm usually eating, I'll probably get results and then things and then I can look at other things. Does that make sense? And this is not to say these things don't matter, they do. I know I speak to people, I've been speaking to people for six years about weight loss and struggles and they often often am quite how was the word? Not shocked, but like, my eyes are open to like, wow, you know, there's people that are going through certain health condition struggles.
Speaker 1:They really have got they they have it difficult. There's definitely certain drugs out there that can impact people's lifestyles for sure. For sure. And that's up for you to look into and and check up on, speak to your doctor, get the professional help, make sure that you know the impact of them because otherwise, you can make your life a lot harder if you're taking this and this and this and this, right, you're taking different drugs and sometimes you have to and sometimes you blame your willpower, sometimes you blame you and sometimes it's not you, sometimes actually is some of the medications you're taking are really impacting things. You know, remember one, nurse, medical nurse was speaking to us last year on a challenge and he was saying, you know what?
Speaker 1:A lot of people think they need antidepressants but what they need is, HRT or TRT or, you know, it's more of a whole thing. And he's saying so many people's lives have seen change when they get their hormones back in check. Hence why HRT a lot of people say changes their life. Same for men with TRT which is testosterone replacement therapy. I'm not saying this is right or wrong for you to take.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying that these things can have a huge impact on how you feel, how you feel impacts how you move and how you're motivated to do stuff. Okay, so what's these studies say yeah okay you adjust everything, yeah we can look at the data and say yeah the menopause actually when you adjust for it there is no impact, menopause itself doesn't lower your total energy expenditure, When it's adjusted back to normal, when you actually get your steps back up is fine, but it makes those things harder, so it kind of does. Also the good news is once you get those things back in, that maybe you did when you were 13 or 40, things go back moving how they were, which is great news for all of us. Anyway, that's the little overview on the metabolic rate for you guys, but remember, if you're feeling overwhelmed, you've got a bad weekend or a good weekend, and I don't like using those words, but you know what I mean, if you feel like, oh, I haven't tracked at all, or I've consumed too much food, I've had too many drinks, or was hungover on a Sunday, oh I haven't had any time, I've been with the kids, I feel stressed.
Speaker 1:You have to focus back today, look at what you can do today only because if you focus on my god and go through all of this, just look at today, what's your one big thing, one thing you can do today for your health track your calories if it's one voice note one way to track whatever it is maybe write it down whatever it is one thing because that's just gonna kick start everything. Anyway, I want you all to, have a focus on that and I'll be speaking to many of you in Book Club, of course, but this week is run week. Okay? So for you for many of you who aren't run runners, use it as a challenge. For those of you who are runners, again use it as a challenge.
Speaker 1:But have a smile on your face for these challenges, man. Don't take it so seriously. Also what? You can't run within five minutes. Who cares?
Speaker 1:You know, no. Okay. I've run five minutes. Everything is hard. Okay, what's next?
Speaker 1:Okay, well I'll try and run six minutes. At the end of this week, see if I can run six minutes. At least I know where I stand and I can move from there. That's the whole point of this thing, these things, is to get a baseline and move it slowly. Anyway, have a good day guys, I speak to you soon.
