This might be the only thing you read about metabolism that isn’t trying to sell you something.

Your metabolism is the rate at which your body burns energy. Your body uses calories for energy, like your car uses gas for energy. You need energy (calories) to power your body’s systems, such as digestion and circulation. But you also need calories to move.

When you eat too many calories, you store them as fat. This is where things get complicated: Calories from sugar are more likely to be stored as fat because sugar tricks your body into thinking “here come a lot of calories.” And it’s usually right: It’s easy to pack a LOT of calories into sugary foods. But I’ll keep this at a high level for now.

You want a FAST metabolism, meaning your body burns a LOT of calories. If you’re trying to lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you eat. Obviously, you should eat less. But there are three ways you burn calories:

Basal metabolic...