Even if you weren’t genetically blessed with a fast metabolism, there are several easy steps you can take to help speed it up – even if it’s just a little bit.
Your body constantly uses energy and is potentially burning fat – whether you’re doing exercise or watching TV; but that doesn’t mean an episode of Grey’s Anatomy equals a workout at the gym!
How your metabolism works
Your metabolism is how your body transforms food into energy. Your metabolic rate is the amount of energy your body uses in order to go about your daily activities. Whatever energy is left over may be stored as fat – so if your metabolism’s faster, you burn calories faster (which is great for weight loss).
Tips to kickstart your metabolism
- Eat often throughout the day, but in small portions. Aim for around 6-8 smaller meals a day – just don’t make them huge or unhealthy meals! This provides constant fuel for your body to help keep your metabolism going throughout the day, rather than making it stop and start with your typical three meals of breakfast, lunch and dinner.
- Don’t cut back on calories too much. Your body can go into survival mode and slow down your metabolism, conserving more energy for the possibility of starvation. So make sure you eat enough! Especially breakfast!
- Drink plenty of water. Your metabolism needs about eight glasses of water a day to do its job – not to mention water is great for flushing your system of any toxins and keeping you more alert and hydrated.
- Put more spice in your life! Adding hot spices like chilli to your meals reportedly speeds up your heart rate and causes you to burn more calories.
- Exercise regularly. By staying fit, you’ll increase muscle mass which helps to burn off fat. This is why it’s a good idea to insert some kind of weight training into your exercise regime. Plus you don’t just burn extra calories in the long term; if you push yourself hard you could continue burning additional calories for up to eight hours following your training session!
- Get more sleep. Around 7-8 hours in fact. Loss of sleep may increase hunger, not to mention it could leave you too tired to exercise properly. Studies in the Journal of the American Medical Association have shown sleep loss can affect the body’s secretion of cortisol – a hormone that regulates appetite.
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