How To Increase Your Metabolism And Burn More Calories

What Is Metabolism?

Metabolism means a change or transformation that can occur in the human body. This is a biochemical process that occurs in your body when nutrients are broken down in your bloodstream. It is the amount of energy or calories your body burns to maintain vital functions.You really can control and speed up your metabolism by eating certain foods, using weights while exercising, doing aerobic exercises, walking and keeping active during your day.

How To Increase Your Metabolism

1. Breakfast is your most important meal of the day. You are actually “breaking the fast” that you had after you fell asleep and woke up 6 to 8 hours later. Your body then thinks it’s starving after such a long interval between meals, so never skip breakfast or any meals for that matter.

The majority of your calories should be eaten earlier in the day so you will have the rest of the day to burn them off. You definitely should eat your largest meal in the morning. Breakfast should include more fat than at lunch or dinner time. You want to eat less total calories as the day goes on, and do not eat anything right before bedtime unless you are having trouble sleeping. Refer to the post about insomnia: Got Insomnia? Natural Supplements May Help Allow at least 2 hours after you eat, before you go to bed.

Another good tip is to try and eat dinner before 7:00 p.m., so you can have a few hours to burn off the calories before you retire at night. Walking for 10 minutes right after a lunch and/or dinner is a great way to burn more calories too.

2. Never eat less than 1200 calories a day. If you go below this amount, your body will try to conserve energy and lower your metabolism because it thinks you are going into starvation mode, and if you eat too many calories, the excess will be stored as fat.

If you eat certain types of foods such as hot peppers (Jalapeno, Cayenne), and green tea, it can also help to speed up your metabolism.

3. About 50 to 60 percent of your daily calories should come from complex carbohydrates such as fruits (easy on the fruit though because of the sugar) and vegetables.

4. Drink water! You can help to speed up your metabolism by increasing your water intake which indirectly increases your metabolism. When you are properly hydrated, there is an increased blood volume which helps move oxygen to cells and rids cells of waste products. Hydrate your cells so they can function at top levels. Drinking water also increases thermogenesis which is the process of heat production in humans (thermogenesis helps burn calories). Also drinking cold water may help your body burn more calories.

If you eat a healthy diet, about 20% of your water may come from the foods you eat such as fruits and vegetables. Also remember that soda, coffee, or alcoholic beverages are actually dehydrating fluids.

Sedentary people should drink 50% of their body weight in ounces and for active people, it should be 75%. Multiply your body weight by 75% (or 50%). Add 16 ounces if you live in a dry climate and/or participate in strenuous exercise. Divide the total by the number of hours you are awake to get your daily water requirement. (information for water intake calculation from Naturo Doc web site).

5. Participate in some kind of cardio (aerobic) exercise on a daily basis (try for this, but definitely no less than 3 times a week, minimum) such as walking at a moderate pace, running, biking, tennis, swimming, aerobic classes, elliptical machine, treadmill and rebounding (mini trampoline). Doing an aerobic activity on a daily basis will really get your metabolism running on high!

6. Interval Training – use this in most of your cardio workouts. Warm up for 10 minutes and then begin your aerobic activity at a moderate pace. Every 10 minutes into your regular exercise routine, speed up your pace until you are at 90% of your heart rate (link goes to a heart rate calculator). Go at this pace for up to a minute and then return to your moderate pace for 2 to 4 minutes. Alternate doing this for about 5 to 8 intervals. Interval training during your aerobic exercise helps boost your metabolism.

7. Change your exercise routine on a regular basis. Something in your workout should change every few weeks. You could change the intensity, the order you perform your exercises, number of repetitions, sets per exercise or change the exercise to something completely new. You want to ‘confuse your muscles’ also known as http://www.buzzle.com/articles/muscle-confusion-myth.html”>’muscle confusion,’ but is this really just a myth?

8. Adding an additional 15 to 30 minutes of aerobic exercise 4 to 5 days per week in the evening hours will also help to increase your metabolism.

9. Incorporate weights into your workout routine. Building muscle burns fat and increases your metabolism! The key is to combine aerobics with weight training. First, you should warm up your muscles for 10 minutes and then start your weight training exercises. Read post Bodybuilding For Baby Boomers.

You should exercise each (lower and upper body) body part 3 times a week, alternating days (Do not work out the same body part two days in a row). You can train your abs every day or every other.

Should you weight train before doing an aerobic session? Here is information you can read and then decide for yourself: When to Do Cardio in Your Weights Session.

Calculating Your BMR (this is just an estimate)

Women: BMR = 655 + (9.6 X wt in kg) + (1.8 X ht in cm) – (4.7 X age in years)

Men: BMR = 66 + (13.7 X wt in kg) + (5 X ht in cm) – (6.8 X age in years)

(Basal Metabolic Rate – minimum caloric requirement to sustain life in a resting person. Energy (measured in calories) used by the body that is at rest all day.

To get an accurate Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR), have it done by a professional who uses the BodyGem, “a clinically-validated measurement device assessing patient resting metabolic rate (RMR).”

Here is a link to an online metabolism calculator. Its just an estimate though.

10. Always find different ways to be active during your day such as parking as far away from the store you want to go to so you can walk more. Also taking the stairs instead of the elevator really pumps up your heart rate, especially going up.

11. Try to get a good night’s sleep every night. Its better for your body’s rhythms to go to sleep and wake up at approximately the same time every day.

Quick tip: The more calories you burn, the quicker you will lose weight. An increase in lean muscle mass adds to the amount of fat your body will burn!

In Summary
Do not skip meals or eat less than 1200 calories a day, eat foods that speed up your metabolism, do aerobic exercise daily if possible, incorporate weight training into your workouts, use interval training, change your workouts every few weeks, do some extra cardio in the evening, find ways to be active during the day, drink plenty of water and get a good night’s sleep.

Article written by: Dee Van Houten