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Mitochondria

What are mitochondria? These are the tiny "power plants" of our bodies. We are made up of about a hundred trillion cells - skin cells, muscle cells, nerve cells, brain cells, lung, kidney and stomach cells, etc. Every one of those cells needs energy to perform its individual functions and that energy comes from the mitochondria. Mitochondria are the tiny "power plants" that create a chemical form of energy known as ATP. We use ATP to fuel all functions of our bodies from moving to thinking to breathing. The mitochondria make ATP from our food by a chemical process similar to internal combustion in your car engine, instead of using gas and oxygen to release energy, we use food and oxygen.

The cells that require the most energy to do their job, like the muscle cells, heart cells and liver cells have the most mitochondria - up to 2000 or more per cell! Cells that don't do much, like a fat cell that just sits there storing fat, have only a hundred or so mitochondria.

To lose weight, you need lots of mitochondria to burn lots of calories. People with the most mitochondria have the highest metabolism. If you want to know how many mitochondria you have you could simply calculate your muscle mass - the more muscle, more more mitochondria. The more fat, the fewer. You can do this by measuring your body composition.

You can increase the number of mitochondria in your muscle cells (and improve your metabolism) with exercise. We recommend a combination of strength training 2 days a week with aerobic conditioning including some interval training 3-4 days per week. This is the best way to supercharge your metabolism.