Our body, decreases our metabolism rate as much as 5% per decade. At what age does this drop starts was never mentioned, but I suspect it starts after the peak period of puberty. Which is probably around 16~18 years old for a girl and 18~20 year old for a boy.
Is 5% that significant?
If you're 20 years old and burning about 2000 calories per day, you'll burn 100 less calories per day when you reach 30 years old. That's 1900 calories per day, all thanks to aging! And what's worse, this 5% does not come as a once every 10 years dose, it's built up on a daily basis. So we're effectively burning lesser calories each day.
What can you do?
I highly recommend anyone who wants to overcome the effect of aging to do two significant task.
1. Build muscles - 1kilograms of muscles equate to 120 more calories burn per day, it sure sounds like a perfect weapon to combat the effect of aging! It dosen't take very long to put on 1kilograms of muscle. Head to the gym to pile some muscles up and you can easily overcome this drop of metabolism.
One thing about muscle though, if you don't use them, you lose them. So it requires some maintenance to really get this going.
2. Drink Green Tea daily - Studies have shown that green tea can raise one's body metabolism as much as 4%. The research was conducted using green tea extract but normal drinking green tea works fine. Just take a couple of cups and you'll do good! (1)
Reference
1. Efficacy of a green tea extract rich in catechin polyphenols and caffeine in increasing 24-h energy expenditure and fat oxidation in humans http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/70/6/1040 [retrieved 11/6/09]
0 comments
Post a Comment