You’ve heard people talk about how their metabolism caught up with them once they hit their 30s or 40s, but is it true?
Unfortunately, it is.
According to Dr. Bradley Eilerman, an endocrinologist with St. Elizabeth Physicians, there is a reduction in our basal energy expenditure as we get older, which means, as we age, we don’t require as much energy to keep our bodies going.
There are a variety of reasons our metabolisms slow down as we get older, Eilerman said, but the biggest reason is because our muscle mass drops, so the amount of calories required to maintain our muscle mass drops, too. Also, in general as we age, we’re less active, so we expend fewer calories.
In women, another contributing factor to a decreased metabolism is menopause.
“The process of ovulation is energetically expensive,” Eilerman said, “so if women don’t change their eating behaviors or increase their activity, it’s very common for them to gain weight after menopause.”
Men tend to burn more calories than women, even while resting, so women shouldn’t compare themselves to men to try to gauge whether their metabolism is fast or slow.
“A lot of women make a mistake when they say they have a slow metabolism,” Eilerman said. “They’re comparing themselves to someone who isn’t the same usually. If their husband has more muscle mass and is taller than they are, he’s expending a higher number of calories.”
If you truly want to form an educated guess about whether your metabolism is fast or slow, make sure you’re comparing yourself to someone who is the same gender, height and age as you, and someone who completes the same level of activity each day.
But keep in mind that how much energy you expend also varies by the amount of brown fat you express. Brown fat is used to create body heat. The less brown fat you have, the fewer calories you typically burn throughout the day.
Eilerman also notes that people who are always moving ““ tapping their toes or fidgeting or moving their arms around ““ burn more calories.
“It’s a form of exercise that people are doing without even knowing it,” Eilerman said. “When you exercise, you expend more calories, even when you’re at rest. That’s why exercise is so vitally important, because it offsets the slowdown of metabolism.”
If you’d like more tips on how to speed up your metabolism, talk to your doctor at your next appointment.
