How You Can Tell If You Have a Slow Metabolism By Juliet White At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Your metabolism determines how efficiently and quickly your body burns the fuel you give it-the food you eat. A person with a fast metabolism burns through calories quickly. But those with a slow metabolism may have trouble burning off excess calories, even with daily exercise and proper eating habits.

Slow metabolisms are rare, but certainly not unheard of. So, how do you know if you have a slow metabolism? By measuring your Basal Metabolic Rate, your BMR.

You can determine your BMR, the number of calories your body burns during your normal daily activities, by measuring your weight, your height, your age, and estimating how much exercise you get in the course of a day. Calculators for BMR can be found online, or you can use this formula:

655 + (9.6 x weight in kg) + (1.8 x height in cm) - (4.7 x age in years)

Take the figure you get from the above calculation and multiply by one of the following exercise categories, that is, how much exercise you engage in:

Sedentary: x1.2

Exercise 1-3 times/wk: x1.375

Exercise 3-5 times/wk: x1.55

Exercise 6-7 times/wk: x1.725

Exercise a lot every day: x1.9

The number you receive from this multiplication will tell you how many calories you should be able take in to maintain your current weight. If you are gaining weight at this level of caloric intake or if you are taking in 500 to 1000 less calories than your BMR would indicate, and you still cannot lose weight, you may be suffering from slow metabolism.

Slow metabolism can be caused by a number of factors, both medical and lifestyle related. Those people with Cushing's Syndrome or hypothyroidism may have underlying medical causes for their slow metabolism. Tests for these conditions are available through your doctor.

People can also slow down their metabolism through choices they make in daily life. A person who does not get enough exercise will decrease their metabolic rate. Daily exercise not only burns off extra calories, it also makes your body more fuel-efficient. What's more, getting too few calories will slow your metabolism.

When you go on one of those crash diets and eat nothing, or when your caloric intake is irregular, with lots of calories one day and none the next, your body may think it's entered a period of famine, encountered a shortage of food. To protect itself and make sure it has enough calories to last out the famine, it slows its metabolism, thus conserving energy.

The key to maintaining a healthy metabolic rate is to get regular exercise and to get enough calories to keep your body running well. The trick to losing weight, however, is to get enough calories to keep the body moving but to lessen your food intake to where you burn more calories than you take in.

Daily exercise and good, nutritious foods, including plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, are key. The kind of food you eat and drink has a very large impact on the success of a diet regimen, and on how well your body uses the calories it takes in. You can speed up a sluggish metabolism.

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