Demystifying Metabolic Rate

People make a lot of assumptions — and read a lot of clickbait articles — about metabolism and metabolic rate. “It slows down in your 30s.” “You can't change your metabolic rate.” “You can change your metabolic rate.” “Your resting metabolic rate is what actually matters.” “Don’t forget about NEAT.” 

It's understandably impossible to keep it all straight. 

As a personal trainer, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a client say, “My metabolism is slow.” My answer to that is always two-fold. First: “How do you know?” (you probably don’t for sure) and second, “You have (some) control to change it.” 

But before getting into how to improve one’s metabolism, let’s talk about what metabolism is in the first place.