Metabolism is a hot term now a days especially for health conscious people who tend to be in shape and lose excess weight. There are many scientific terminologies around metabolism and metabolic rate which is hard for average person to understand. So to understand it in simplest way, metabolic rate is the rate on which your body burns calories. Hence higher metabolic rate is required for fitness and high burnout of calories. High metabolic rate will helpful for weight loss too. High metabolic rate with proper diet will certainly help to lose weight and staying fit. Here I will share some ideas on how to increase your metabolism. Metabolism increase is elusive as it varies from person to person. There are several parameters like age, gender, lifestyle and eating habits which are affecting your metabolism rate. Usually men will burn more calories than women, and metabolism rate will slow down as you grow old.
Build Muscle
To increase your metabolism rate you should build your muscle and make it stronger. Even when we are doing nothing, our body constantly burn calories. People with more muscle has higher rate of this resting metabolism rate. Every pound of muscle in our body uses about 6 calories a day just to sustain itself, while each pound of fat burns only 2 calories a day and that small difference can add up over the time. Your muscles are activated all over your body and increasing your average daily metabolic rate after a bout of resistance training. So build muscle to boost your metabolism.
Workouts
Go for work out helps you to boost your metabolism. Compare to low or moderate intensity exercise, high-intensity exercise gives a longer and bigger increase in resting metabolic rate. So just push yourself for work outs. Go for aerobic exercise may not build big muscle, but it can rev up your metabolic rate in the hours after a workout. Go for high-intensity exercise classes or add short bursts of jogging during your regular walking to get more benefits. It will help you to boost up your metabolism.
Fuel Up with Water
Keep yourself well hydrated, because your body requires water to process calories. Even mild dehydration slow down your metabolism. People who drank eight or more glass of water a day burned more calories compare to people who drank four glass of water a day. Drink a glass of water or other unsweetened beverage before every snack and meal to keep yourself well hydrated. Instead of munching on pretzels or chips, eat fresh fruits and vegetables which are full of fluid, it will help to keep you hydrated.
Energy Drinks
Energy drinks also helps you to increase metabolism. Energy drinks contains some ingredients which boost up metabolic rate. They are full of caffeine that increase the amount of energy your body uses. They contains ingredients like taurine, an amino acid which speed up your metabolism and helps you to burn fat. But such type of drinks can cause problems like anxiety, high blood pressure and some people also find sleep issues. These are not recommended for kids and teenagers.
Enjoy Snacking
Instead of three big meals of day, take small portioned meals every three to four hours helps you to increase metabolism. Eating more often really help you to lose weight, because when you eat large meals with many hours in between your metabolism slows down between meals. But if you take small meals in regular intervals, then it keeps your metabolism cranking and you burn more calories over the course of a day. If you snacks regularly, it helps you to eat less at meal time.
Spice Up Your Meals
Spicy meals also helps you to boost your metabolism, because spicy foods contains chemical compounds which can boost metabolism rate into a higher gear. Eating a tablespoon of chopped green or red chili pepper can boost your metabolism. The effect is temporary, but if you eat spicy food more often, then you may get more benefits. So spice up your meals to boost your metabolic rate.
Power Punch of Protein
Protein rich food needs more calories to digest as it uses for fat or carbohydrates, your body burns more calories when you eat protein rich food. Although you want to eat balanced diet replace some carbs with lean, protein-rich foods which can boost metabolic rate. Low-fat dairy products, eggs, fish, lean beef, turkey, tofu, white meat chicken, nuts and beans are healthy sources of protein.
Booster Shot of Black Coffee
Coffee can increase your metabolism for short-term, when taken in moderation. Drinking coffee can increase energy and concentration that follows your morning ritual.
Recharge with Green Tea
Green tea is beneficial to increase your metabolism. Green tea offers the combined benefits of caffeine and catechins, substances which rev up the metabolic rate for a couple of hours. Study shows that drinking two to four cup of tea may push the body to burn 17% more calories compare to normal during moderately intense exercise for short period of time.
Avoid Crash Diets
If you think crash diets helps you lose weight fast then it is not true. Eating less than 1,000 calories a day are disastrous for anyone who hoping to quicken their metabolism. So avoid crash diets because such type of diets may help you to lose some pounds at the expense of good nutrition, a high percentage of the loss comes from muscle. Lower muscle mass slows down your metabolism. So finally your body burns fewer calories and gains weight faster than the one you had before the crash diet.
Best Bets
To boost your metabolism, your best bet is to build muscle and stay active. The impact of different foods and drinks on the metabolic rate is small compare to what you need for sustained weight loss. Be active during a day, it helps you to burn more calories and morning work out also has the benefits of boost up metabolism for hours.
