In this video, Daniel Bourke explains what metabolism is, describing it as the body's process of converting food into usable energy (ATP) through catabolism and anabolism, and emphasizing the body's tendency toward homeostasis. He outlines the role of B vitamins in macronutrient metabolism, warns about alcohol’s priority in being metabolized (leading to fat storage), and breaks down the three main components of daily energy expenditure: basal metabolic rate (BMR, 60‑70% of total), physical activity, and the thermic effect of food. Bourke identifies two primary, evidence‑based ways to raise metabolic rate: increasing muscle mass and engaging in recent physical activity, noting that muscle raises BMR and activity creates a repair‑related metabolic cost. He also discusses factors that lower BMR (aging, loss of muscle) and critiques fad “metabolism‑hacking” tips and fat‑burner supplements, labeling them as unnecessary or potentially harmful. The practical takeaway is to focus on resistance training to build muscle and stay active, while keeping nutrition simple and avoiding over‑complicated tricks. He ends with a call for audience interaction via comments, email, and future content.
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What's going on, y'all? Welcome back. So, today we're going to sort of go over the topic of metabolism. We'll start with what is metabolism, just a general overview, and then give you some takeaways of what you can do to sort of increase it. And you probably won't be too surprised with what I'm going to give you at the end of this video, or by the end of this video. And I want to keep it short and to the point as best I can. And so, the reason why I'm making this is because I've received a few questions to my email from writing I've been doing on Quora and whatnot. About how do I increase my metabolism, or how do I improve a slow metabolism, and stuff like that. As well, tomorrow I'm actually going to be at Raw Training Australia helping run a nutrition seminar, and we'll be talking about things like metabolism there. So, check it out, Raw Training Australia. Let's go. What is metabolism? So, metabolism is the process of body taking in food and breaking it down to energy that it can use. So, funny fact is that the food we, we actually eat, like the form it comes in, the body can't use that for energy. So, it needs to convert that into usable fuel, which is ATP. That's the energy source of most cells, right, or all cells. And now, that's incredibly oversimplifying what the whole process of metabolism is, but that's not my goal. I'm not trying to dive too deep into how it works because First and foremost, I read a whole chapter in this, this my big nutrition textbook that I used throughout university, and still don't fully understand it. And I'm sure as we start to learn more about the body in the future, everything in this book will be changed. Well, not everything, but you get the picture. And so, that whole process is comprised of two main parts. You got catabolism and anabolism. So, catabolism is the process of breaking down and creating ATP, and anabolism is the process of using that ATP, the energy resource, to make new things in the body, right? To operate cells, to build bones, to build muscle, to develop structure. So, you can think of like going anabolic, like in terms of fitness and whatnot, is to build muscle, and going catabolic is to to lose muscle. But the thing about the body is that it loves being in homeostasis, which is a balance of anabolic and catabolic, a balance of building and a balance of breaking things down. So that's why any kind of transformation is so hard, because the body loves being in a balance. Once it gets used to being in a sort of a certain state, whether it be obese or fit or whatnot, it likes being in that state. Like, once it's been there long enough, it gets comfortable in it and it stays, it likes to stay there. So, the transformation, that's the hardest part, trust me. Like, if you ever lose weight and you sort of want to maintain it, like, that's, maintenance is a lot easier than transforming. So, that's metabolism in a nutshell. Essentially, the intake of food, breaking it down into energy that the body can use. And so, each macronutrient we intake, which is protein, carbohydrates, fat, alcohol, has a completely separate pathway to each other. And a pathway is just essentially how the body converts that macronutrient into ATP or into energy. So, I won't go too much into detail. I'll let you research, research those yourself. But, one thing that is sort of consistent with each pathway, maybe not so much alcohol, is the presence of B vitamins. So, B vitamins help with this breakdown of the certain macronutrient into the, like, the form it can be used, into the ATP. And so, if you're eating meat, you're probably getting enough B vitamins, or animal products, you're probably getting enough B vitamins. However, if you're on a plant-based diet, especially vegan-based diet, you may not be getting enough B vitamins. And you'll have to find this out yourself. I won't be able to diagnose you from over email or through the camera or whatnot. So you have to figure this out for yourself. I'd suggest going to see a doctor. But what are plant-based sources of B vitamins? Nuts, whole grains, fortified foods. You got fortified soy milk, fortified cereals and stuff like that. So, if you're lacking energy on a plant-based diet, it may be because of a lack of B vitamins. And I know a few people, a few friends of mine who had sort of a plant-based diet and they started taking B vitamins and their energy levels went up. And I have other friends that didn't need B vitamins because, or they started taking them and their energy levels remained the same. So, why am I talking about that? Well, that's just one, one trend that I sort of saw throughout each of the breakdown processes of each macronutrient. So that's why B vitamins in there. And a little bit more on alcohol, which is one of those 4 macronutrients that I was talking about. So, the body sees alcohol as a poison, right? So, it, in presence of excess alcohol, that the metabolism prioritizes, prioritizes getting rid of that alcohol, right? So, it's— it doesn't want it in the body. So, when you're sort of drinking, well, drinking in excess, alcohol is prioritized. So, what does that mean? Well, it means that anything that you have or anything that you consume gets immediately pushed to the side and stored as energy. And what is the main energy storage in the body apart from like glycogen and whatnot? It's fat. So, in excess alcohol, be careful with what you consume. I won't go too much in depth of this, but that's just one little takeaway you can think about with alcohol, is that in excess of alcohol, which is— I would say— there's not a number on it, but I think you can imagine what excess is to you. The food you consume during that time, just beware, the metabolism won't be focusing on digesting that. That will get stored straight to fat. It'll be focusing on removing that alcohol from the body. So, be careful what you drink, be careful what you eat, as always. And now, let's go on to what, like, how to actually speed up metabolism, or what it actually, what is the, what are the main expenditures of energy in the body? So, we've gone through a bit of, like, background or foundation information on what metabolism is, how each of the macronutrients are converted into energy, And now we're gonna go on to sort of what comprises the 3 main energy resources, well, 3 main energy expenditures in the body. So first and foremost, the largest one is the BMR, aka the basal metabolic rate. And this is 60 to 70%. It varies in people depending if you're sedentary or depending if you're really active. It can be higher. And then next is physical activity. And then the final one is the thermogenic effect of food. So, little known fact is that when you eat food and when the body digests it, absorbs the nutrients, converts it into energy, etc., etc., one of the offsets is heat. So, much like a car, it burns the fuel to drive, it gives— the engine gets hot, right? It gives off a lot of heat. And that sort of, that heat is effectively an energy expenditure of the body and part of the overall metabolic rate. And so, what are some ways to increase these? What are some ways to increase the basal metabolic rate? Well, the ones that I pulled out, there's a fair few ways to do it, a fair few ways listed in the book, but I pulled out the two ones that are, well, three or four that are most specific to to me and my experience. So, number 1, increased muscle mass. So this is, yeah, this is, this is what, like, relating to what I've experienced in the past. When I first started working out, I couldn't eat as much before I would start to put on weight. Now, after 6 or 7 years of working out, I've built up some muscle mass, and I can eat a lot more calories, and not put on as much weight as quick because I have an increased muscle mass and my basal metabolic rate is faster, is higher. So, just, oh, sorry, I should have said what a basal metabolic rate actually is. It's the minimum amount of energy your body needs to survive. So, if you were resting, just lying there, The BMR is what the calories or the energy it requires to keep your heart beating, to keep you breathing, to keep your liver functioning, to keep your kidneys working, just to essentially, yeah, keep you alive. So because I have more muscle mass, my BMR has gone up, uh, and thus I can intake not, not too much, not too much more per day. I, I don't want to put a number on it, but it is, it is more than what I could when I originally started gym. And so, that's one way, increased muscle mass. The other way is recent physical activity. So, when you do physical activity, your muscles get damaged, right? So, to rebuild those muscles, the body has to break down protein, which takes, which requires energy to break down the protein to repair the muscles. So, recent physical activity will increase the BMR. And what else? Well, growth stages of life. Yeah, that makes sense. So when you're a kid, your BMR is higher. When you're growing up, higher metabolism. And lower BMR. So how do you, what are some factors that will lower your base metabolic rate? Well, aging. Aging is the number one, right? So once you get older, sorry guys, all those over 30 or so, once you get to that certain stage, the body will naturally require less energy, or will actually burn less energy to sort of stay alive. And less muscle mass, less body surface, pretty much the opposite of what we just said to increase it. And so, that's BMR. So, more muscle mass and recent physical activity will increase your BMR. So, that's the majority of your metabolism, right? It's the, It's 60 to 70% in most people and sometimes more. So, an increased amount of muscle and a recent physical activity will increase your BMR. So, that's one way to increase your metabolism, as far as we know. And the other one is, of course, physical activity, right? It makes sense. Like, oftentimes, like, all these things like metabolism and how can we speed it up and all that sort of stuff. They become— you can overcomplicate them. And I'm guilty of this. Like, you've seen the articles that are like, "555 ways to increase your metabolism," and it's like, "Drink 65 grams of lemon juice at 7:13 in the morning and do all this sort of stuff." Look, some of those things may be right, but they're like, why overcomplicate things? Stick to what the majority of people know and what has worked for the majority of people and see if it does for yourself. Rather than try some outlandish stuff that you'll see in those BuzzFeed type articles and whatnot. And so, the other one is, of course, overall metabolic rate you can increase with physical activity. That's something we know. So, maybe if it's going for a walk, something extra per day, or just going to the gym or something like that, dancing, putting on a yoga video and doing yoga in your room on YouTube. That's kind of what I do. Running around with your dog in the park or something like that. All these things we know, like increased physical activity will increase your overall metabolic rate. But the BMR is the majority one, so the 60, 70, 80% in some people. Physical activity, thermo, thermo, thermogenic activity of foods, I wouldn't worry too much about that. There are some sort of fat burners out there, like supplements, that claim that they have a massive thermogenic effect, which is true in part because that's what they do, right? If you've— I know I was talking to a friend today. He took a fat burner and he felt sick, like he was— his heart rate was up and he was getting headaches and he was sweating and whatnot because that's what the majority of fat burners do. It's a massive dose of caffeine to increase your heart rate, to raise your body temperature, in attempts to burn more fat. And most often that fat that it burns, it does burn some, it's the visceral fat. So it's the fat that surrounds your organs rather than the adipose fat, which is the fat you can visibly see. So, I would never take a fat burner personally. Maybe something for you. I would never, probably never recommend them to any of my clients either, or future clients, just because I believe Keeping it simple is my philosophy. So, 2 takeaways: increase your muscle mass, that will increase your BMR, which is the majority of your overall metabolic rate, and physical activity. And don't forget, a little bit of— if you're in excess of alcohol, all those calories you're taking in, they get stored straight to energy. So, that's maybe 3 takeaways from this video. Or this podcast, wherever you're listening. So, what are some action steps you can take towards this? I think with the physical activity and the increased muscle mass, you can kill two birds with one stone by doing some resistance training. And resistance training is push-ups, well, not push-ups, what am I saying? Well, yeah, push-ups, sorry. Weightlifting, anything where you're working against resistance. So, that may be working against gravity or working against, well, it's always working against gravity. What am I saying? I'm going on, I'm trailing off too long. But yeah, resistance training, kill two birds with one stone, increase your muscle mass and increase your overall physical activity. And I, to be honest, in my opinion, don't worry too much about all those other methods to increase your metabolism or whatnot. Just focus on the basics. Nail them first and then maybe, maybe do some more of your own research and see what are other ways that can suit you. So, if you like this video, You like this podcast, shoot me a like, give me a comment. If I can improve in any way, I'd love to hear from you. Comment section. If I can answer any questions in the future, comments as well. Emails, my email is daniel@mrdbourke.com. You can see more of my stuff on Quora, all the writing I've been doing. I'll put it in the link in the description. But hopefully, you've got something from this. A challenge for you will be to, I don't know, Think about a way that— or do some research on how to increase your metabolism and tell me what you think. Send me an email or post in the comments. I'd love to hear from you. But thank you so much. We'll catch you next week. I'm going to start releasing more of these type videos at least once a week. That's what I'm hoping to do. Fitness and nutrition stuff alongside all the stuff I'm learning in tech. So we'll see what the future holds. But have an awesome day.
