Muscle versus fat
Muscle cells are as much as eight times more metabolically active than fat cells. So the greater the proportion of muscle to fat, the more efficient your metabolism is at burning fat. Ric Rooney and Bart Hanks of the Physique Transformation Web site say that a pound of muscle costs up to 50 calories a day to maintain, and a pound of fat costs just 2. One study actually found that lifting weights boosted the resting metabolic rate by 9% over 18 weeks by adding 4 pounds of muscle mass. By the time 2 pounds of muscle is gained—usually over 3 months or so—your extra muscle can burn as much as an extra 65 calories a day.
The amount of weight-bearing exercise you do has an effect on your metabolism. Building muscle mass usually requires some sort of weight-bearing or resistance work such as lifting weights, using exercise bands or hand weights, and other similar forms of exercise.
According to Stephen Langer, an expert on weight loss and thyroid function, one lesser-known aspect of metabolism is brown fat, also known as brown adipose tissue (BAT). BAT is a special kind of adipose fat that collects below the neck and extends down the back. It helps convert deposits of body fat into heat. The hypothalamus helps your nervous system trigger the action of brown fat, whose specialized mitochondria are particularly effective at generating heat and energy. People who are overweight may have lost the assistance of brown fat, and their excess calories go into fat storage. To avoid this, buy xenical, one of the most popular medication on the market.
