10 Awesome Facts You Didn’t Know About Your Body

10 Awesome Facts You Didn’t Know About Your Body

10 Awesome Facts You Didn’t Know About Your Body

Your body is many things: a mechanical
device, a walking chemistry set, a
sustainable life form, and an ever-
changing biological phenomenon.
There’s a lot to know about the body.
Were you aware of these ten amazing
facts?
1. For every pound of fat gained, you
add seven miles of new blood vessels.
New tissue needs blood supply, so
your vascular system expands to
accommodate it. This also means
your heart must work harder to
pump blood through the new
network, which may reduce
oxygenation and nutrient
replenishment in other tissues. Lose
a pound? Your body will break down
and reabsorb the unneeded blood
vessels from the previous tissue.
2. Muscle tissue is three times more
efficient at burning calories than fat.
This is why possessing more muscle
should be a training goal for most
people. More muscle = more calories
burned = less fat = being more fit
looking. Simple goals and simple
math.
3. You are taller in the morning than in
the evening.
When you crawl out of the sack in
the morning you are at your tallest.
On average, you are approximately
one half inch taller when you wake
in the morning, thanks to excess
fluid between within your spinal
discs. While you are sleeping, these
fluids replenish. During the day your
body has to deal with the stress of
standing, so the discs become
compressed and the fluid seeps out.
This results in you losing a small
amount of extra height.
4. Your stomach manufactures a new
lining every three days to avoid
digesting itself.
As a part of the digestive process,
your stomach secretes hydrochloric
acid (HA). HA is a powerful corrosive
compound also used to treat various
metals. The HA your stomach
secretes is also powerful, but mucous
lining the stomach wall keeps it
within the digestive system. As a
result it breaks down the food you
consume, but not your own stomach.
5. Your body produces enough heat in
only thirty minutes to boil a half-gallon
of water.
Your body is the epitome of a study
on the laws of thermodynamics. You
produce heat from all that is going
on – exercise, metabolizing food,
maintaining homeostasis – and as
you sweat, exhale, excrete, and
urinate (lovely thoughts, all of them).
6. Human bone is as strong as granite,
relative to supporting resistance.
Would you believe a matchbox-size
chunk of bone can support 18,000
pounds? Compared to concrete,
human bone is four times greater in
support strength.
7. Your skin is an organ.
Just like the liver, heart, and kidneys,
your outer covering is an organ. An
average man has enough skin on his
body to cover approximately twenty
square feet. For an average woman it
is approximately seventeen square
feet. Approximately 12% of your
weight is from your skin. And, your
skin replaces 45,000+ cells in only a
few seconds. It’s constantly growing
new skin and shedding old skin.
8. By the age of eighteen your brain
stops growing.
From that age forward it begins to
lose more than 1,000 brain cells
every day. Only two percent of your
body weight is occupied by your gray
matter, but is uses up to 20% of your
overall energy output (it needs
carbohydrates). Your brain works
continuously and never rests, even
when you’re asleep. Aside from
producing REM dreams, your brain
works overtime to replenish its
ability to function normally during
your daytime waking hours.
9. There are more than 600 individual
skeletal muscles and 206 bones in your
body.
If all 600+ muscles contracted and
pulled in the same direction, you
could lift over twenty tons of
resistance. Additionally, the adult
skeleton is composed of 206 bones,
but at birth an infant skeleton
contains approximately 350 bones.
Over time, some of the 350 bones
fuse together and eventually grow to
the 206 adult figure.
10. You need to consume a quart of
water each day for four months to
equate to the amount of blood your
heart pumps in one hour.
Additionally, over a lifetime, at your
normal (resting) heart rate you will
have pumped enough blood to fill
thirteen oil super tankers. To further
expound on this fact, on average,
your heart beats 40,000,000 times
per year. Doing the math, over your
lifetime (both men and women
averaged), that results in
2,600,000,000 heartbeats (two
billion, six hundred million). This
does not even factor in your
increased heartbeats due to your
love of exercise.
Article originally appeared on
BreakingMuscle.com