Understanding Your Metabolic Health and How It Impacts Your Body

Fundamentally, your metabolic health is about how well your body responds to and processes food. Our metabolism’s job is to convert what we eat and drink into energy to power your body’s functions. When everything is working well, your body has the energy to do a range of amazing things – from breathing to circulating blood to creating and repairing cells to movement and exercise.

Unfortunately, abnormal chemical reactions in your body can disrupt this process. This is called a metabolic disorder, and when it occurs, your body can end up with too much of one thing and not enough of another, resulting in poorer health.

Your unique metabolic health is shaped by some things you cannot control – your age, gender and genes – as well as things that you can, including your gut microbiome, your stress level, mental health, sleep, diet and exercise. It’s a complex mechanism that can be difficult to fine tune for good health.

However, there are positive approaches you can make to maintain and maximize your metabolic health status. First, let’s look a little deeper at metabolic health.

Metabolic Health 101
At its most basic but also most critical level, metabolism sustains the minimal energy required for life, providing constant fuel for essential bodily functions. Think of it as all the systems that our body powers without any thought or action on our part – all the functions essential to life even when we’re resting that still require calories: breathing, digestion, thought, body temperature regulation, blood circulation, cell growth and repair, and hormone level management.

How much energy your body needs to perform these tasks has a name: basal metabolic rate (BMR). BMR is the minimum amount of calories your body needs to function when you’re at rest and not doing anything. Typically, those processes above use 60 to 70 percent of the fuel we consume. Your digestive system uses about 10 percent to process foods and the rest fuels physical movement.

Though there are averages, this mix is unique to individuals. An athlete might consume more calories to fuel movement and the percentages change. Someone who lives a sedentary life may consume fewer calories because they move less.

These adjustments can be frustrating, especially if you struggle with weight. For example, a fast metabolism makes it easy for some people to eat a lot of food and not gain weight. A slow metabolism may make it hard for people to lose weight just by cutting calories.

Since your metabolism naturally regulates itself to meet your body’s demands, this is also why weight loss can stall, slow down or plateau due to significant calorie intake reduction and rapid weight loss decreasing your BMR. The relationship between metabolism and weight is complex.

Things That Affect Your Metabolic Health

Ironically, how much you weigh and how much fat your body has are some of the things that most affect your metabolic health. For example, abdominal fat cells can raise levels of free fatty acids. These are chemicals that can raise the levels of hormones that affect how your body controls blood glucose levels, the basic energy blocks our metabolism creates from food.

For example, if you have too much adiposity in your midsection, your body may not respond well to insulin, which is the key to getting glucose from your bloodstream and into your cells where it can power your body. This is called insulin resistance.
These same free fatty acids can raise your bad LDL cholesterol levels and lower your good cholesterol levels, putting you at risk for heart disease. Insulin resistance can cause hypertension and raise triglyceride levels, which can cause artery walls to harden. 

These extra fatty acids can also cause increased inflammation, which can cause plaque to build up inside your artery walls. This plaque can break off resulting in a heart attack or stroke.

So, high blood sugar, high LDL or bad cholesterol, low HDL or good cholesterol, high triglycerides and hypertension can all be signs of poor metabolic health – any three of this combination is called metabolic syndrome. 

How to Support Your Metabolism and Your Metabolic Health

It may naturally regulate, but that doesn’t mean your metabolic health is just on autopilot. For your metabolism to perform efficiently requires some focus and action on your part. Mainly you need to eat a well-balanced diet that provides all the essential nutrients your body’s complex biological functions and processes need.

Eat at regular times and eat the right amount of calories. Your doctor can help you determine your Basal Metabolic Rate and help you calculate how many calories per day is appropriate for your BMR and your activity.

Beyond diet, you need to get enough exercise (resistance and interval training) and sleep — at least seven hours per night. Shorter sleep is associated with more belly fat and metabolic disorders.

You also need to manage your mental health and stress. Though not directly linked to metabolic rate, stress can impact how much we eat and how much (or little we sleep).

If you’re struggling with any of these things, partner with your doctor to assess lifestyle changes and medications that can help turn your metabolic health around.