If you’ve ever had a fat loss goal, I’m sure you’ve heard at one time or another how having a fast or slow metabolism can affect your results.
Generally, people who struggle with weight loss think they have a slow metabolism. People who stay lean with very little effort are said to have a faster metabolism.
The truth is, while that may be the case for some, it’s not always that simple. Yes, genetics can play a role, but so does diet and physical activity.
When it comes to your body weight, how many calories you eat on a daily basis matters a whole lot. Thermogenesis is another huge factor at play in determining how much you weigh.
But what is thermogenesis? How can you use it to your advantage to help you lose weight?
To put it simply, thermogenesis is the production of heat in the body. There’s more to it, but we’ll get into that in a second.
In This Article:
• What is Thermogenesis?
• Types of Thermogenesis
• How to Increase Thermogenesis
• Can Supplements Increase Thermogenesis?
• Thermogenesis: A Quick Recap
What is Thermogenesis?
Thermogenesis is the process by which your body produces heat and burns calories. It occurs through three main mechanisms:
• Resting metabolic rate (60-70% of daily calorie burn)
• Daily physical activity (15-30% of daily calorie burn)
• Thermic effect of food (8-15% of daily calorie burn)
When I say thermogenesis is the production of heat in the body, it’s not just about keeping you warm. It has to do with how the body uses energy.
Heat isn’t only about temperature. Heat is a form of energy, and when we use energy in our bodies, we create heat.
I’m sure you’ve heard of calories before. Calories are just a measurement of thermal energy.
They’re stored in the foods we eat, and we burn them off in various ways. So when you ask, “What is thermogenesis?” the answer really has everything to do with how our body is burning calories.
Let’s talk about the different ways we burn calories.
Types of Thermogenesis
Our bodies all burn calories in millions of different ways. With that being said, we can break down every one of those ways and put them into 1 of 3 categories:
1. Resting Metabolic Rate
2. Daily Activity
3. Thermic Effect of Food
The total amount of calories we burn in a day is called total energy expenditure (TEE). Your TEE would include all 3 of those categories.
1. Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR)
Our RMR encompasses all calories that we burn while at rest. This includes essential functions like breathing, circulating blood, maintaining body temperature, etc.
So if you were to lie in bed all day and not move, you would burn whatever your RMR is. Believe it or not, your RMR makes up 60-70% of the calories you burn on any given day (1).
Most people don’t realize how many calories they have to burn to keep themselves alive. There are ways to calculate this, but the calculations can be a bit complicated.
An easy estimate that will get you close is multiplying your body weight by 10. You could also say it’s plus or minus 10% as well, depending on your body composition.
If you’re lean with more muscle, maybe add 5-10%. If you have a good amount of body fat to lose, maybe subtract 5-10%.
Muscle requires more energy to be maintained than fat does. That’s the main reason for the variance.
So while that’s not an exact calculation to get your RMR, it’s a good estimation to give you an idea of where it is.
2. Daily Activity
Your daily activity includes any and all movement. So, walking to the bathroom and even fidgeting in your seat count. Your intentional workouts obviously count as well.
Any movement you have throughout the day contributes to the calories burned. They might not seem like much, but they add up quickly.
We could split this up into two categories if we wanted to. Those would be:
• Exercise activity thermogenesis (EAT)
• Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT)
EAT is highly variable depending on how much you exercise. It can be as low as 1-2% of your TEE, or as high as 15-30% (2).
NEAT can be highly variable, too. If you’re mostly sedentary, it may only contribute to 6-10% of your TEE. If you move a lot throughout the day, though, it could make up as much as 50% or more (2).
Here’s a common question that I get when I explain this. “How could you burn so many more calories from just moving throughout the day vs actually going to the gym?”
Think about it. When you work out, you might be in the gym for an hour or maybe 2. The rest of the 14-16 hours you’re awake make up a much larger portion of the day.
So if you work an active job, for instance, you’re on your feet and constantly moving and burning calories. If you sit at a desk all day, you’ll burn a lot less.
No matter how hard you push yourself in a 1-hour workout, walking around all day most likely will burn more overall calories. So if you are trying to lose weight, getting a lot of steps each day makes a HUGE difference.
Thermic Effect of Food (TEF)
The thermic effect of food refers to the amount of calories we burn digesting, absorbing, and storing our nutrients. The amount we burn doing this is very different depending on the food.
The total amount of calories we burn from the TEF is generally between 8-15% of our TEE (2). The variance depends on the macronutrient makeup of the food we eat.
When you eat protein, 20-30% of the calories in it get burned off via the TEF. For fats it’s 0-3%, and for carbs it’s 5-10% (3).
All of this together ends up accounting for roughly 10% of our TEE. While it’s not a huge number, this does add up over time.
With all of that being said, how can we increase thermogenesis?
How to Increase Thermogenesis
Now that you know the 3 types of thermogenesis, how can we increase them?
Let’s start with the thermic effect of food.
Increasing Thermogenesis Through the TEF
When you are choosing the food you eat, keep in mind the calorie-burning potential of each macronutrient.
When you eat more protein, you’ll absorb less of the calories from it because of the digestion cost. Carbs come in second, and fats come in last.
So if you want to increase thermogenesis through the TEF, eat more protein. I always recommend eating 1 gram of protein per pound of your goal body weight each day.
You could also keep your fat intake on the lower end since it’s more calorie-dense, and its TEF is extremely low.
You shouldn’t try to cut fats out completely, though. We still need healthy fats to live.
It may benefit you to keep them on the lower end. For a low-fat diet, I recommend no less than 40g for women, and 50g for men per day.
Increasing Thermogenesis Through Daily Activity
This one is a bit obvious, but there’s more than one way to do this.
When it comes to your workouts, you could always find ways to add in more workouts per week. Bodybuilders do this all the time during prep.
They will resistance train once per day, and come back a second time to add in cardio. When they’re cutting body fat to get stage-ready, this works tremendously.
That’s why they’re so lean on stage! Obviously, they’re dieting too, but you get what I mean.
When it comes to non-exercise activity, just find ways to move your body. For instance, at work, I find reasons to walk around.
I’ll get up to refill my water bottle. If I can’t focus, I’ll literally get up and walk around for a few minutes just to reset my focus.
When I go to the grocery store, I use it as an excuse to walk around and get more steps in. I’ll go down every aisle for this exact reason, even when I know there’s nothing I need there.
You don’t have to do that, but you get the picture. You could also just take an intentional 60-minute walk per day.
If you want to increase thermogenesis, find a reason to move around more, and you will!
Increasing Thermogenesis Through RMR
This is a tough one, and it’s not a short-term thing. The only real way to increase your RMR is to add muscle tissue and to get enough sleep.
Muscle is the one part of your body that burns calories every day that you can increase or decrease. Well, you can add or lose fat too, but muscle is much more effective.
…and I’m guessing if you’re reading this, adding fat for this purpose is a little counterintuitive.
If you want to add muscle, you need to do resistance training. You also need to eat a proper diet that will help you do that.
Although, a muscle-building diet may add a little body fat as well. As long as you don’t go overboard on your calories, you can add some muscle while minimizing fat gain.
Don’t forget, I also mentioned the importance of sleep for your RMR. While sleeping more might not increase your RMR, getting too little sleep may decrease it (4).
So make sure you’re getting your 8 hours and lifting weights regularly. Do that, along with the right diet, and you’ll maximize your RMR!
Can Supplements Increase Thermogenesis?
Believe it or not, yes! In my experience, supplements can help support increased thermogenesis, and different ingredients can be synergistic to help you do this.
For instance, caffeine alone can increase your RMR by 79-150 calories (5). Bitter orange extract alone has been shown to increase RMR by 65 calories (6).
Taking both of them together before exercise, or at rest, has also been shown to increase fat burning (7). Those are just two of the ingredients you might find in a quality thermogenic supplement.
Other ingredients you'll find may be:
• Green tea extract
• Green coffee bean extract
• Grains of paradise
• Acetyl-L-carnitine
...All of which may help you increase the amount of calories you burn at rest or during exercise. So if you’re trying to lose body fat, taking a quality thermogenic could help you burn more calories.
If you’re burning more calories every day, you might just get to your goal faster and easier! I’ve personally used them, and I can say firsthand that I’ve seen great results with supplements.
Back when I used to manage a supplement store, we had several different brands of thermogenics. I liked to try everything I could so I could give honest recommendations when customers would ask about them.
While there were many I liked, the best one I ever used has been the 1-Db Overdrive.
If you’re a female, I recommend the 1-Db Goddess. It’s a little lighter on the stimulant blend than the overdrive, and has an ingredient profile designed to help support balanced estrogen levels, too.
Thermogenesis: A Quick Recap
Hopefully, by now, you can answer the question, “What is thermogenesis?” There are multiple ways our bodies burn calories, and we can use them to our advantage if we’re smart.
You don’t even have to have a fat loss goal to use them either. They can help you stay leaner and healthier if you adopt the right lifestyle habits.
Move your body more throughout the day. Lift weights to build muscle. Eat a higher protein diet and fewer calories. Get plenty of sleep every night.
Do those things, and you’ll be in a better position for long-term fat loss. The dieting part can be difficult for some, but understanding how to eat in a calorie deficit isn’t impossible.
You just have to know some key principles and how to adjust your diet over time. Once you have that part down, using the right thermogenic supplement can make a big difference.
If you really want to take it up a notch and throw some gas on the fire, check out the 1-Db Overdrive Fastpack or 1-Db Goddess Fastpack. Those contain the thermogenics I talked about in the last section, but there’s more.
They also contain two additional products called Thyro-Drive and Opti-Greens 50.
Thyro-Drive is a product that is designed to help support the thyroid (AKA: the master regulator of metabolism). It includes ingredients that can help support optimal thyroid hormone production for metabolic health.
Opti-Greens-50 is a greens superfood powder that can help support optimal gut health, balanced energy, and has also helped me personally with digestive issues like bloating. Check the reviews for yourself if you don't believe me!
Together, all 3 of those products work synergistically to help support greater calorie expenditure (burning). They can also help keep cravings at bay, which in turn could help with better diet adherence.
I’ve literally seen it help hundreds, if not thousands, of people at this point lose weight. If you don’t follow the right diet, though, I’d hold off on it.
It’s only going to help you, but it’s not magic. It can’t go to the gym and work out for you, or eat the right diet either.
… But if you’re willing to put in the work, it can work wonders at helping you earn real and long-term results!
If you have any questions in the meantime, don't hesitate to reach out. We have a full team of NASM Certified Personal Trainers and Nutrition Coaches right here in St. Louis, Missouri.
Just give us a call at 1-800-409-9732 or send us an email at CustomerService@1stPhorm.com any day from 6 AM to 10 PM Central. We'll be more than happy to help any way we can!
Shop all 1st Phorm Thermogenic supplements here!
References:
(1) Plaza-Florido A, et al. Resting Metabolic Rate of Individuals. Metabolites. 2023;13(8):926.
(2) von Loeffelholz C, Birkenfeld AL. Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis in Human Energy Homeostasis. Endotext. 2022.
(3) National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy. National Academies Press. 2023.
(4) Spaeth AM, et al. Resting metabolic rate varies by race and by sleep duration. Obesity. 2015;23(12):2349-56.
(5) Dulloo AG, et al. Normal caffeine consumption: influence on thermogenesis and daily energy expenditure in lean and postobese human volunteers. Am J Clin Nutr. 1989;49(1):44-50.
(6) Stohs SJ, et al. Effects of p-synephrine alone and in combination with selected bioflavonoids on resting metabolism, blood pressure, heart rate and self-reported mood changes. Int J Med Sci. 2011;8(4):295-301.
(7) Ratamess NA, et al. The Effects of Supplementation with p-Synephrine Alone and in Combination with Caffeine on Metabolic, Lipolytic, and Cardiovascular Responses during Resistance Exercise. J Am Coll Nutr. 2016;35(8):657-669.
