Why Do Fit People Have More Energy and Burn More Fat?

Have you ever notice that fit people tend to eat normally and even more than the average person, and still not gain weight?

Do you feel like sometimes you are just too tired and you imagine that there is something wrong with your thyroid?

If you think that your metabolism is different from that of a very fit person (a person who exercises regularly and have been active for many years) you are absolutely right.

You have probably heard somewhere that the added muscles of a fit person keeps their metabolism going faster, which is partially true and you SHOULD be lifting weights for many reasons, but there is more to the story of the physiology of a fit person that makes them a fat burning machine.

SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND

If you are anything like me, you probably were bored enough on Biology classes to draw characters on your notebook while looking at the clock, so I am going to try and make this Biology lesson as simple as possible.

Inside every cell of your body, there is an organelle called mitochondria.

Evolutionarily speaking, this organelle was an organism by itself with its own DNA that for some reason developed a symbiotic relationship by immersing itself into a cell. A gazillion years later, here we are, breathing and making those little guys work to make us live and survive.

If you can picture the cell as a car, the mitochondria is the engine. Better yet, picture the cell as a village, and the mitochondria as the power plant. Without it, the city doesn’t evolve and the car dies. With it, you can cause pollution. I will talk about both sides of this story.

First, lets talk about what it does optimistically for you.

The mitochondria creates energy in the form of something called ATP in a very complicated (and boring explanation) process called the Kreb‘s cycle. This energy is stored in every muscle of your body.

The process of creating this ATP requires that the body feed the mitochondria: oxygen, water, sugar and fat. The byproduct of this creation is carbon dioxide and other free radicals.

While you read this, the cells of your body are busy creating ATP with every breath you take and storing it. You will need this ATP once you get up to do something else besides reading.

Now, let’s suppose that you are busy here reading, when you notice that your room is on fire and you need to evacuate the premises as far and as fast as you can.

Every muscle of your body will tense up as you take off running and because you are running so fast and so far, it will eventually burn every ATP you have stored.

Your cells will now work much harder to create new ATP, but as you have a limited number of mitochondria per cell, guess what? It cannot produce ATP fast enough and you will tire out sooner. You will slow down and try to catch your breath, while your fit neighbor passes you.
THE CELLS OF A FIT PERSON

Your fit neighbor has several things that are different from a sedentary person. He or she has more muscle, more blood volume, more capillares (which makes it easier for the cells to absorb oxygen) and more mitochondria.

People who exercise regularly and push their hearts to its threshold at least 3 times a week for at least 15 minutes, have more and bigger mitochondrion. Therefore, the fit person, having so many engines working, (and remember that this engine needs fat and sugar to keep going), will burn more fat even at rest than their unfit counterparts.

HOW TO WAKE YOUR ENGINES UP

When you start an exercise program, your engines are not used to working this hard and it will feel tiring and dreadful to exercise. Eventually (TRUST me on this) your body will start missing movement. On Sundays, when I allow myself to rest, I actually feel fidgety to go do something.

This feeling of dread when starting an exercise program is very normal and expected. There are a lot of physiological changes happening in your body and it is just not used to the physical stress.

I always say that stress making you stronger applies to life as well as your body. When you put stress on your bones (by weight lifting) they will get stronger and thicker. When you put stress on your muscles, they will grow stronger and bigger. When you put stress on your cardiovascular system, it will become more efficient. When you put stress on your cells, it will produce more mitochondria and the existing ones will become more competent to be able to handle the continuing demand for energy.

Based on this, keeping up with an exercise program, pushing yourself and having faith in the process is key.

MITOCHONDRIA AND AGING

Having said all that, I have to tell you another side of mitochondria.

This organelle is a pollutant. Exercise, however, is not the main cause of this pollution. More than anything that any study has ever found, overeating will create “pollution” within a cell, starting at the mitochondria.

When I say pollution, I mean free radicals.

Free radicals are byproducts from the mitochondria. They are atoms that for some reason are lost inside the cell . They are unstable, in the search for a missing electron in order to neutralize itself. The free radical will attempt to destroy everything in order to become more balanced.

Imagine that the free radical is an out of control crack addict who will try to rob people’s homes, banks, and will even try to destroy the power plant of the “cell” town to get a “fix.” If this crack addict (the free radical) gets to the DNA of a cell or the DNA of the mitochondria, it could change its code.

If the free radical gets to that point, it is usually called cancer. Sometimes it is called mitochondria disorder, which means that basically your engine is failing.

If the engine does not work properly, it cannot produce enough energy. Can you guess what part of your body needs energy? EVERYTHING. From your hormone production, to cholesterol extraction, to heart beat, to thinking, to moving, to sleeping, to growing hair, to digesting, you name it, you need ATP.

Now, imagine that there is a good Samaritan in the “cell” town, who has an extra electron to bestow to this crack addict, so there can be peace for a second.

This good Samaritan is called antioxidant.

Antioxidants are mostly produced by the body and many can be found in fruits, vegetables and teas.

The cells of your body are attacked by millions of free radicals every day.

Those free radicals come mainly from lifestyle choices, such as drinking, smoking (specially) and overeating. Many of them can also be due to genetics. If your family has a history of degenerative diseases, you have to be specially careful with the choices you make.

For some reason, when you overeat, something happens to the enzimes inside of the mitochondria that produce even more pollution in this little town called cell. The more pollution a mitochondria suffers, the less energy it will produce and the faster the cell will age.

More and more studies are showing that people who eat sensibly live longer and look younger.

THE COENZIME Q 10

Even though there are no studies to date that prove that Coenzime Q10 has medicinal purposes as a supplement, I’d still like for you to know about what it is and what it does.

Coenzime Q10 is an enzime naturally found in cells that decreases with age. People who live longer usually have more functioning Coenzime Q10.

This enzime is the spark plug of the mitochondria engine. For that reason, there has been associations made to this enzime as an energy booster and functioning of the heart (the heart and the liver have the highest percentage of Coenzime Q10).

Coezime Q 10 is being studied in the treatment and prevention of cancer, heart diseases, liver diseases, mitochondria disorders, blood pressure, migraine, and longer lifespan.

MAKING YOUR ENGINES HEALTHY

I can’t tell you how to get your body to produce more Coenzime Q10, but I know that good fats, fruits, vegetables and teas can help, in addition (and predominantly) of aerobic activity.

Studies have shown that a training for a minimum of 15 minutes, three times a week, at heart rate at 85% of its capacity can increase the size and number of mitochondria.

(Please read my blog on Heart Rate Training on http://www.hffitnessandhealth.com/Training-With-A-Heart-Rate-Monitor.html . You should not attempt go push yourself beyond your limits and using a heart rate monitor might help you figure this out)

The size and number of mitochondria will reverse if activity is stopped for several weeks.