Unlock Your Body's Potential: How to Boost Your Metabolism and Burn More Calories
Let's start here... what is metabolism?
When we speak about metabolism, we are referring to some of those complex chemical reactions that happen in your cells. This involves converting your food into energy, eliminating waste products, and general maintenance of all essential processes.
What does this mean? Well, when we eat food, our body then breaks it down into a number of components, these include carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. These nutrients are then converted into energy through a series of chemical reactions that take place in the body's cells. The energy produced by these reactions is then used to fuel various bodily processes, such as breathing, digestion, and physical activity.
Now finally... the rate at which our bodies convert food into energy is known as our metabolic rate (metabolism). However this will not be the same for everyone, as things such as age, sex, your level of daily activity and so on, can all impact your metabolism. Plus, some people might just naturally have a faster or slower metabolism than others...
So how can you boost your metabolism?
Well, unfortunately, there isn't a magic wand for this. And there is no single one answer. But, we've given you some tips below, which are all considered good habits to start incorporating into your daily routine to help maintain a healthy metabolism.
- Build lean muscle: Building up your muscle mass is a great way to start boosting your metabolism, as muscle burns more calories than fat! So staying lean and getting used to perhaps lifting a few weights or even trying some resistance bands, may help do you a little.
- Stay active: Regular physical activity is definitely a great way to to keep your metabolism active and keep it burning fat. Maybe try walking, jogging, cycling, or even dancing and get those hips moving!
- Eat enough protein: Why is protein so good? Well, protein actually needs more energy to digest than carbohydrates or fat, so aiming for a protein-rich diet can be great. Foods that are high in protein are foods such as eggs, peanuts (although avoid the salty ones!), Almonds, lean meats, fish, and tofu. So plenty of choices for anyone, whether you're a meat eater or vegan.
- Drink water: Can't recommend this enough. Drinking a descent amount of water and keeping yourself hydrated each day can help keep your metabolism! Trying setting a daily target for yourself to make sure you drink enough!
- Get enough sleep: You perhaps wouldn't think this, but if you suffer from a lack of sleep, it can slow down your metabolism. Not great, as we all want our sleep.... but trying aiming for 7-8 hours of sleep per night. Sleep really can have a great impact on metabolism.
- Spice up your meals: For any spice loving person, this is great news. Certain spices, such as cayenne pepper, turmeric, and ginger, can help boost your metabolism and aid in digestion.
- Don't skip meals: As much as people work to skip meals, thinking this will help them slim down, it actually slows down your metabolism, so be careful and aim to eat regular small meals throughout the day. This will also feel a lot nicer for you than starving yourself...
Ultimately, being physically active, getting enough sleep and making sure you have a healthy diet are both important factors for supporting a healthy metabolism.
1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6807557/
2. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2019.00048/full
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK278935/
