If you’re going to be testing your metabolic age to see how it compares to your age in years, you’re also going to want to know what makes your metabolic age high or low. If you can adjust some factors, you may improve your results (https://longevity.technology/lifestyle/7-factors-that-influence-your-metabolic-age-test-results/).
Diet is always going to be a priority for your health. In the context of metabolic age, you’re looking at how the specific balance of nutrients, including at the macro (carbs, fat and protein) and micro level, influences how efficiently you manage to process the energy you gain from food. It also means portion control and trying to maintain regular mealtimes to keep energy levels stable. Don’t forget hydration. Water facilitates all kinds of chemical reactions in your body, in addition to helping temperature regulation and digestion, all of which can contribute to metabolism.
Exercise is another essential. Aerobic exercise is particularly useful for metabolic age as it boosts your metabolism, along with your circulation and heart rate. However, you still need anaerobic exercise, as well as activities to boost strength and flexibility. It’s another area where balance is important. Aerobic sessions can be medium or high in intensity, lasting 150 or 75 minutes a week, respectively, and should be interspersed with strength training. Diet and exercise together can influence your proportion of lean body mass in relation to fat, another important metabolic influence.
If you want to conserve energy, you need to ensure you receive enough sleep. Sleep is also when your body repairs any faulty processes. Disrupted or irregular sleep, sometimes caused by poor sleep hygiene, causes imbalances in the body and stops you from functioning effectively, whether physically or mentally. One thing that can interfere with sleep is stress, a major contributor to metabolic problems. Stress doesn’t only damage sleep; it messes with our appetites (and therefore diets). It also releases hormones like cortisol that impact our energy levels and other metabolic functions.
Hormones are a big deal in metabolic regulation. It’s not just cortisol, but also thyroid hormones, insulin and leptin, all of which influence how we process, store or regulate energy. There are a lot of conditions that can affect hormones, but if effectively diagnosed, treatment is often possible.
Understanding what influences your metabolism can help you make informed decisions about how to improve the results of your metabolic age testing.
