Myths Holding You Back

These metabolism myths refuse to die:

• Small meals boost metabolism — meal frequency barely changes your metabolic rate. Six small meals burn the same as three larger ones.
• Certain foods speed it up — green tea and chili peppers add only a trivial number of calories burned.
• Starvation mode shuts it down — your body lowers its rate during restriction, but it never stops burning fat.
• It crashes with age — it stays stable from 20 to 60, then declines only slowly.

The truth is less exciting but far more empowering: you have more control than these myths suggest.