Understanding The Role of Basal Metabolism in a Healthy and Active Lifestyle

In general, the metabolism can be understood as being the rate at which your body burns calories just to keep itself alive.  You need calories to keep your heart beating and the blood pumping through your arteries. It is a fallacy to think you are not burning calories when you are at rest.

Your body is burning calories all of the time, even when you sitting as still as possible or asleep. In fact, you body burns a certain amount of calories per pound just to maintain body weight every day. The average woman burns about 10 calories per pound every day and the average man, about 11 calories per pound.

You Burn Calories When You Eat

Not many people realize this but you actually burn calories when you eat. About 30% of the calories that you burn each day are actually burned by the act of digestion. However, your body uses far more calories to digest a protein then it does a carbohydrate. You burn about 25 calories for every 100 calories of protein consumed and only about ten for every fat and carbohydrate you burn. This is why it is recommended that you eat lean healthy proteins to lose weight.

You Burn Calories Through Exercise

Every day you burn ten to fifteen percent of your calories as the result of moving your muscles. It does not matter what activity you do, you are burning carbohydrates every time you run, walk, lean over, flip a page in a book or press a key on the remote.  It is not really possible to burn more calories than fifteen percent a day, which is why it is important to lead a happy and healthy lifestyle and exercise as much as possible on a regular basis.

The Importance of Basal Metabolism

When fitness experts talk about the basal metabolism, they are referring to the calories that you burn per day when you are doing nothing at all.  Sleeping, watching television and sitting at you desk burn up between sixty and eighty percent of your available calories. That is because your body is at work all of the time, dividing cells, engaging in cell respiration and disposing of toxins.

The basal metabolism rate refers to the calorie burn that comes from the physiological functions that we don’t even think about or are not aware of it. That is why it is so important to eat foods and adopt a lifestyle that raises the basal rate of your metabolism so that all of your downtime is actually fat-burning time.  This is also why restricting calories works better than trying work off calories through constant exercise. Constant exercise works in shedding off the pounds to some extent but if you really want to lose weight it comes down to consuming less calories.

For more information about the Healthy & Active Program please visit our website at www.healthy-active.com. You may also call us in Toronto at (41)440-2217 and ask for Adrienne Wright Bulow or Dr. Micheal Rahman or email us at adrienne@healthy-active.com.

How Jumping Rope Boosts Metabolism

You do not have to join an expensive gym or buy the latest trendy bike in order to boost your metabolism. One of the simplest and cheapest ways to boost your metabolism is to simply get in the habit of jumping rope.  Your overhead is very low in this case. Just simply visit your local department store or toy store and buy yourself a skipping rope. Skipping ropes that have sturdy handles with firm rubber grips are best.

It is also a good idea to invest in a good pair of cross-trainers to absorb the shock of the constant jumping you are going to do as you turn the rope.

The Benefits of Jumping Rope

Jumping rope is one of those rare activities that offers the dual benefits of both aerobic and anaerobic activity. The main benefit is that it increases your cardiovascular lung capacity. The better able you are to breathe, the more able your body is to take in and retain oxygen; a capacity that is important for both calming the nerves and fighting free radical damage to cells in the blood stream.

There is a lot of jumping up and down when you skip rope, so this is also considered to be a mild impact exercise, which means that it helps build, strengthen and preserve bones.  Not only does it strengthen the bones in the ankles, knees and hips it also helps strengthen the spine.  It is also an activity that prevents osteoporosis and other diseases that cause bone loss.

 Jumping rope is also considered to be a plyometric type of exercise, which means that it is excellent for conditioning the body, making it more resistant to stress and strengthening all of your muscles at once. It is an especially good activity for building strong, shapely legs.  This is why military personnel, gymnasts and body-builders jump rope. It just simply keeps them in shape on all levels so they are ready for anything.

When you jump rope you become a lean, mean fat-burning machine. Jumping rope burns 1000 calories an hour. It takes most people an hour just to burn 350 to 500 calories on a treadmill or stair climber at the gym, so you can see how jumping rope from fifteen minutes to half an hour every day could have incredibly speedy weight loss results for anybody.

Yet another perk of jumping rope is that it is an anti-aging activity.  Not only does it put us in the mindset of when we were younger and much more carefree, it also improves our hand and eye coordination, agility, timing, balance, reflexes and sense of rhythm.

You Can Take A Skipping Rope Anywhere You Go

One great thing about a skipping rope is you can take it with you on a plane, train or on a stroll with you to the park. It is easy to park and you can exercise with a skipping rope in a hotel room, by a pool or at your office.  The skipping rope is easily one of the most portable and effective workout and weight loss aids that has ever been invented.  Just to be safe, avoid skipping on hard concrete, just in case you trip on the rope and take a fall.

For more information about the Healthy & Active Program please visit our website at www.healthy-active.com. You may also call us in Toronto at (41)440-2217 and ask for Adrienne Wright Bulow or Dr. Micheal Rahman or email us at adrienne@healthy-active.com.