Before we talk about boosting your metabolism, let’s define it. Metabolism is the amount of energy or calories your body burns to maintain vital functions. Regardless of what you are doing, eating, drinking, sleeping, cleaning etc., your body is constantly burning calories to keep you going.
Here are some tips to boost your metabolism:
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1. Eat Breakfast
If you don't eat breakfast, you slow down your metabolism because your body thinks it’s starving (after 8 to 10 hours or more without food) and goes into ”hoard mode.”
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2. Be active: The average person burns about 30 percent of calories through daily activity. Sedentary people only use about 15 percent. Taking every opportunity to move can make quite a difference to the amount of calories you burn.
3. Don’t Eat Too Few Calories: Dropping your calorie intake below 1,000 calories a day will signal to your body that you are in starvation mode, and will slow down your metabolism.
4. Eat smaller meals more frequently:
Smaller, more frequent meals keeps your blood sugar stable and provides a steady source of energy to fuel metabolism. Eating healthy small regular meals will keep your metabolism going faster than larger, less frequent meals.
5. Aerobic exercise: high-intensity exercise makes you burn more calories during
exercise and for several hours afterwards.
6. Build muscle.
For every extra pound of muscle you put on, your body uses around 50 extra calories a day. So you should add weight training or progressive resistance exercise that builds muscle 2-3 days per week. Muscle burns more calories than fat, and the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn, even at rest!
7. Drink Water!!
Water, Water, Water!! Drink those 8, 8-ounce glasses of water every day. The body needs water to work efficiently and process calories.
8. Take the stairs: Stair climbing provides a cardiovascular workout for your heart and is also a weight bearing exercise so it may help strengthen your leg and hip muscles as well. Some studies have shown that you can burn 10 calories a minute by climbing stairs
9. Get a good night's sleep
There is research that shows that people who do not get sufficient sleep tend to gain weight. This may be because the body uses sleep to heal and regenerate itself, including its muscular system.
1O. Eat spicy foods: Some spices, such as chili and red pepper flakes, can raise the metabolic rate by up to 50 percent for up to 3 hours after you’ve eaten a spicy meal.
Rebecca LeSaffre is the owner of Lynnfield Boot Camp, and is an ACSM Certified Personal Trainer, a Fitness Nutrition Coach and a Physical Therapist Assistant. She is qualified to assess what types of exercises will be most beneficial for meeting personal fitness goals, while also helping assure that you use proper form for maximum results and injury prevention. You can contact her via her web site www.lynnfieldbootcamp.com
