A fast metabolism means your body is burning off calories at a higher rate than usual. It’s common to hear people who don’t gain weight easily say how the food passes through their bodies no matter how much they eat.
Metabolism is a chemical process that occurs within living organisms to maintain life. This process involves turning food into energy and utilising that energy by the body. The body tends to use this energy differently depending on your metabolism rate. While some people’s bodies need a lot of energy formed for various body functions, others need only a tiny amount of that energy to function, and the rest is stored as fat.
Metabolism can be categorised into two main types:
- Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR): BMR is the energy used by the body at rest to maintain essential psychological functions. These functions include breathing, cell production, and circulation. Factors influencing BMR include age, genetics, body composition, and gender.
- Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE): TDEE includes BMR and other additional calories the body burns when you perform a physical activity. It also provides energy expended during the digestion and absorption of food. Physical activity and exercise can contribute hugely to your TDEE.
With a fast metabolism, your body depletes calories at a higher rate at rest (BMR) and during physical activity. Because of this, people find it easy to maintain a healthy weight. Unfortunately, these people can also find it hard to gain weight even after adding a surplus number of calories to their daily consumption.
Several factors determine the type of metabolism you have. These include:
- Genetics: Some people inherit their parents’ genes regarding metabolism. So, one may inherit those genes if a parent has this ability.
- Age: Young individuals may experience after metabolism compared to older adults. As one age, their metabolism tends to slow down.
- Gender: Men generally tend to have a higher muscle mass and less body fat. Their metabolism is also often faster than those of women.
- Body composition: It maintains muscle tissues; the body requires more energy than fat tissues. Therefore, individuals with higher muscle mass tend to have a faster metabolism.
- Physical activity: Regular exercise or physical activity tends to boost metabolism by elevating energy expenditure and the body’s muscle mass. It’s the best way to expend energy and build muscles.
Fast metabolism can be advantageous when it comes to weight management. However, it is necessary to note that metabolism is a complex and individualised process. People’s metabolic rates can vary, and factors such as diet, lifestyle, and overall health can play essential roles. Focusing on general health and well-being rather than one’s metabolism rate is the best way to consider fitness and weight management goals.
Difficulty gaining weight
Since people with fast metabolism require more energy to run normal body activities, having extra energy stored in the body as fat is hard. Also, people tend to exert more energy when doing physical activities. These factors contribute to the fact that they will have difficulty gaining weight.
So, for people with high metabolism to gain weight, they must eat more than usual. Sometimes, this can be very hard, but with the help of a dietitian, one can eat the required amount of food that the body needs to not only do basic functions but also form muscles.
Constant hunger
Due to a fast metabolism, those with this type of metabolism always need food or snacks shortly after they’ve consumed something. It may be a sign of a fast metabolism if you’re constantly feeling hungry.
Your body requires more energy frequently as it has already used the energy from the food you consumed earlier. While people with fast metabolisms eat more regularly than others, they remain lean.
The constant hunger that people with fast metabolism experience is due to their body’s efficient utilisation of energy, which leads to a quick depletion of stored calories. This then leads to more meals per day than usual for others.
High energy levels
Often, we require a puck me up in the afternoon and probably some coffee to wake up in the morning so we’re ready for the day. A sign of a fast metabolism is always feeling like you have energy. People with fast metabolisms always feel consistently energetic throughout the day without needing stimulants to keep their energy levels up.
When your metabolism is working at a faster rate, you always have a constant supply of energy in your body throughout the day, which keeps you chirpy and on top of things. This is an excellent advantage for people with fast metabolisms.
Therefore, you could experience a sustained and consistent level of energy. Increased energy levels for those with a fast metabolism contribute to a general sense of vitality and awareness.
Feeling warm
You may end up feeling warmer than those around you all the time. A faster metabolism means your body generates more heat, resulting in a sensation of warmth. Due to an increased metabolic rate in the body, it’s therefore common for those with a fast metabolism to stay warm no matter the environment.
Quick digestion
This means that the body processes and absorbs nutrients quickly. Because of this, people with fast metabolism have a short duration between feeling full and having an empty stomach. Their bodies use food quickly, leaving them empty stomachs and a high demand for food.
Frequent bathroom trips
Food is quickly broken down, nutrients are absorbed, and the body uses energy. Additionally, more frequent waste will result in more bathroom trips than others. People with fast metabolisms need to use the bathroom shortly after eating as the body processes food and eliminates waste faster.
Difficulty gaining muscle mass
Those with fast metabolisms always find it harder to gain muscles after spending hours each week doing resistance training. Because their bodies use up calorie fats, having a calorie surplus needed to grow muscles is hard. This interferes with the body’s ability to develop lean muscle mass. With the help of a professional, one can be able to build muscle mass eventually.
Final thoughts
A fast metabolism can result from various factors, including genetics, diet, and lifestyle. You can look for signs of fast metabolism to determine one’s metabolism rate. Just because you have a fast metabolism doesn’t mean you’ll be lean. Even though most people with fast metabolisms are lean, others have high weight, and that’s because they found ways to surplus their daily calorie needs. When deciding which diet you need to partake in to add more weight, you must also consider your food Sensitivities. You can do this by taking a food Sensitivity Test.
