For many people, the term metabolism really means metabolic rate — the speed at which your body burns calories to keep its basic functions running. Your metabolic rate does change during your early life, but it plateaus between the ages of 20 and 60, and only decreases by around 1% per year after that.
Your metabolic rate peaks in your early 20s, according to Women's Health Magazine. At this age, you tend to have a higher muscle mass and have a fair amount of physical activity built into your day. As early as age 30, however, men and women begin noticing a dip in their ability to lose weight.
Why Does Metabolism Slow Down as You Age? Loss of muscle mass. As you age, you naturally lose muscle mass. As a result, you burn calories at a lower rate.
As we age, our metabolism slows and the rate at which we break down food decreases by 10 percent each decade after age 20. Metabolism is the amount of energy (calories) your body uses to maintain itself.
A slow metabolism has many symptoms, and you're likely to have one if you find it difficult to lose weight and easy to gain weight. Other symptoms include fatigue, poor digestion, constipation, low mood, and a colder than average body temperature. All of these are caused by the lower production of energy and heat.
A new study accepted for publication in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism claims that people with higher metabolic rates age faster and die younger than people without them, Science Daily reports.
A good metabolic age is your age in real life. If you're 40, your metabolic age should really be 40 too. Those that are fitter will find their metabolic age reads much younger than their chronological age.
That is, metabolic rate is thought to be inversely proportional to maximum lifespan, which means that species that live fast will die young while those that have a slower metabolic rate live slower and longer.
Metabolism levels are steady between roughly age 20 to 60. Metabolism declines again around age 60 and continues to decrease at a rate of 0.7% annually.
If you don't eat enough, your metabolism switches to slow-mo. Severe diets, especially when you also exercise, teach your body to make do with fewer calories. That can backfire, because your body clings to those calories, which makes it harder to take weight off.
If you're seeing weight gain in your 30s, this may well be why. As you get older, your metabolism starts slowing down - meaning you don't require as much energy to fuel yourself, despite still having a 25-year-old's appetite.
A metabolic test is performed in order to estimate your BMR or basal metabolic rate. Rather basic and simple, the test commonly involves having the patient breathe into a tube for up to 10 minutes. This is supposed to help calculate the amount of oxygen that was inhaled to the amount of carbon dioxide that was exhaled.
After age 30, people tend to lose lean tissue. Your muscles, liver, kidney, and other organs may lose some of their cells. This process of muscle loss is called atrophy. Bones may lose some of their minerals and become less dense (a condition called osteopenia in the early stages and osteoporosis in the later stages).
Why does metabolic rate slow down for women? Over time, studies have shown that metabolic rate (how fast we burn calories) starts to slow down by 2 to 3 percent each decade, beginning in our 20s. It becomes more noticeable between ages 40 and 60.
Epidemiologists have observed that the average person typically puts on 1 to 2 pounds a year from early adulthood through middle age. The CDC's numbers show that much of the increase is concentrated in the 20s, for men and women.
Your Metabolism Is Slower Than Before
Having more fat and less muscle reduces calorie burning. Many people also become less active with age for various reasons, which further slows the number of calories you burn.
“In your 20s, the main culprit to weight gain is stress, which causes high cortisol, one of your body's key fat-storage hormones,” says Dr. Sara Gottfried, bestselling author of “The Hormone Cure” and “The Hormone Reset Diet.” Cortisol, a hormone released in response to stress, can wreak havoc on our bodies, she adds.
The initial weight gain of roughly 17 pounds that the average person in their twenties gains often isn't enough to push most people into the obese category, but if an adult adds the average number of pounds gained during each decade of adult life, that equals over 45 pounds.
Plan to eat breakfast within an hour of waking. This way, your breakfast doesn't blend into a mid-morning snack or grazing followed closely by lunch. Lunch should be about four to five hours after breakfast. For example, if you ate breakfast at 7 am, eat lunch between 11 am and noon.
Hyperthyroidism (overactive thyroid) – the gland releases larger quantities of hormones than necessary and speeds the metabolism. The most common cause of this condition is Graves' disease. Some of the symptoms of hyperthyroidism include increased appetite, weight loss, nervousness and diarrhoea.