If you’re under 5’3” you may or may not have heard that petite women typically have slower metabolisms than every other human out there.
Of course, there are always outliers. We all know that tiny petite girl who can eat anything without gaining an ounce.
But for the sake of this conversation, I’m talking about petite women as a whole generally have slower metabolisms than taller people and here’s why:
There are many things that play role in someone’s metabolism including age, gender, height, muscle to fat ratio, sleep, hormones, and the list goes on…
So what I’m not saying is that metabolism is directly correlated to your height, I’m saying that it is one of the key factors that determines how fast or slow.
Some of the factors we cannot change, like our height and age, but theres one factor we can change and I’ll get to that soon but first, you need to know:
The more lean mass you have, the faster your metabolism works.
Lean mass is basically everything on your body that isn’t body fat (so that’s your bones, organs, muscles, and so on).
A taller person will naturally have bigger organs, bones, and muscle than a shorter person.
Lean muscle mass has an impact on your basal metabolic rate (BMR), which determines how many calories your body burns at rest.
And when you have more lean mass that requires more calories then your body is going to have to work harder to process is — which means they will typically have a faster metabolism than a shorter person (even without much muscular development.)
Therefore, we can conclude the smaller the body, the smaller the organs & bones, the less energy the body needs.
Now, There may be a time when a shorter person does not need to eat less than a taller person – since height is only one factor in the equation. For example, if the shorter person has a higher percentage of lean body mass, then they can probably consume the same number of calories as a person who is taller with less muscle mass.
There are ways to outsmart your short stature to get your body working with you and not against you.
Aside from getting good sleep and balancing hormones, The easiest way to do that is to create more lean muscle mass by lifting weights.
It’s definitely a lot easier said than done but there are a lot more advantages for short people like…
- Your lower center of gravity is more beneficial for sports.
- Your short-limb length means there’s less torque on muscles so you’re less likely to get injuries, it also means your muscle bellies are shorter which makes a teeny bit of muscle much more noticeable on your small frame.
- You don’t have to spend as much time adding muscle to achieve a certain look compared to someone who is taller.
- You also requires less weight to lift. It doesn’t take more than 15lbs to build your biceps but for a guy just 6 more inches taller than you, he has to lift at least double if not triple that amount.
- Which also means that we have MUCH more effective workouts with minimal equipment at home than anybody else!
So basically, when it comes to working out, we have a much better end of the deal. When it comes to metabolism though, they usually win.
But look at it this way! We at least have the ability to increase our metabolism – they can’t do anything about their long-limbs putting them at high-risk for injury and taking longer to show visible results.
That’s some real short girl perks right there!
So now that you understand how your metabolism is different than taller folks, it probably makes sense why it’s been so dang hard for you to lose body fat!
But understanding WHY is the first step to doing something about it! And you certainly can do something to speed it up!
Remember how I said there are many factors that affect your metabolism? Well, here are the factors you can manipulate:
⭐Eating the right combination of nutrients (aka macros) at the right time of the day
⭐Exercising with the goal to build muscle — not to burn fat (although, that will be a huge side effect!)
⭐Getting proper recovery (6-8 hours sleep per night)
⭐Practicing self care including limiting inflammatory foods, ditching toxic relationships, and so much more
If you wanna start working WITH your petite bod, instead of against it, apply for my 1:1 program designed for women under 5’3″ to increase their metabolism, energy, & overall body confidence!
