Your metabolism

Drastic dieting can slow down your metabolism. This may be the body's way of vigorously defending a certain weight range, called the set point.

Researchers don't fully understand why this metabolic slowdown happens though.

Metabolism can vary a lot between people, and researchers don't understand why.

2 people with the same size and body composition can have different metabolic rates. One can consume a huge meal and gain no weight, while the other has to carefully count calories to not gain weight.

There's a lot of hype around" speeding up your metabolism for weight loss, but that's just a myth.

While there are certain foods (coffee, chili, and other spices) that may speed the basal metabolic rate up just a little, the change is so negligible and short-lived, it would never hav...

There are 3 main ways:

• the basal metabolism, the energy used for your body's basic functioning while at rest
• the energy used to break down food (also known as the thermic effect of food)
• the energy used in physical activity.

Most of t...