"Metabolism" is a word the foodies, charlatans and quacks love. It is impossible to go anywhere in our food-and-fat obsessed culture without seeing headlines screaming about the latest easy way to "boost your metabolism". Bah-low-nee!!
Metabolism consists of anabolism, which is the process of taking in (in chemical or nutrient form) and storing energy, and catabolism, which is the conversion of this stored energy into kinetic energy, or "heat" as the diagram calls it. This energy is used by the body to do all of its work, internal and external. More in than out = weight gain (stored energy); more out than in = weight loss (excess energy expenditure).
In between anabolism and catabolism lie a number of genetically programmed and environmentally influenced (epigenetic) PHYSIOLOGIC processes, like digestion, absorption, transport, protein synthesis, and on and on. None of them can be magically bypassed by blueberries, complex carbs, non-gluten pretzels, or anything else. Supply and demand is the rule, via an organism that evolved mostly in nutrient-poor environments and so is highly effective in absorbing and storing calories (energy). This energy can only be used as such--it cannot be willed, wished, eaten, or otherwise magically shifted to the non-existent "away". Anyone who says otherwise is either ignorant or lying or both.
The first law of thermodynamics says that there is no such things as a free lunch, i.e. energy/mass--which we now know are the same thing thanks to "dearest Albert" #2 (#1 was Queen Victoria's consort)--can neither be created nor destroyed. All those calories have to be used by work-creating processes or stored; one food cannot cause the "metabolism" of another, for example. This latter myth is a favorite of the diet quacks because it sounds so plausible. If something sounds too good to be true, especially in biology, it is
Metabolism. Live with it...or don't, in which case it won't matter one way or the other.
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