“Do you know how to increase or speed up your metabolism?” You can increase your metabolism if you wish to. Your ancestors are partly responsible for your metabolism. By ancestors, I mean your genes, but most of it depends on yourself whether you want to become slim or obese.
First, let us understand what metabolism is.
What Is Metabolism?
Metabolism simply means breakdown. Metabolism is a process in which the food is converted into carbohydrates, protein, and fat to provide energy to your body. This energy helps you to do all your daily activities, like tie your laces, shake your legs, move your hips and leave your seat. You may wonder, does shaking your leg speed up your metabolism. Yes, it also counts because it is a part of physical exercise.
Come let us together follow these six simple steps to increase metabolism:
Ways To Increase Your Metabolism
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Breakfast Is The Most Important Meal
You surely might be knowing how important it is to have breakfast. But tell me frankly, do you have it daily? Let me guess, No. This is mainly because as soon as you wake up, your mind is stressed.
Come with me further to see what exactly breakfast does or why is it so important.
The name itself suggests break-fast means breaking the fast. It is the first meal which you will be consuming after 8-10 hrs of fasting. If breakfast, also called as metabolism boosting foods, is not taken then probably the next meal will be stored by the body that can lead to many medical problems.
Skipping Breakfast Can Lead To
- Weight gain
- Weight loss
- Digestive problems
Morning time between 7.00am-10.00am is the ideal time to eat breakfast. This is the time where the metabolism of the body is very high and whatever you will eat at this time will properly get metabolized. Eating your breakfast on the right time hence is the right answer to how to increase your metabolism.
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Keep Checking The Amount Of Calories Eaten
In my college days, I use to hear many comments like “I eat so less yet I am fat, and she eats so much yet she is so thin why is that so? Today I understood the answer lies in a person’s metabolism.
If you have a good metabolism then you can continue to be thin in spite of eating in large amounts. Whatever food we eat finally gets converted into energy and each food item we consume contains calories and hence one has to be very careful in consuming calories.
Caloric Confusion
Looking at foods that speed up your metabolism only from calories perspective is a crime. A medium size apple has more calories than 200 ml of cola. Does it make cola superior to apple? What about nutrients?
The difference between brown rice and white rice is not much in terms of calories. But the difference is huge when it comes to nutrients. So, brown rice is any day a better food than white rice.
Lack of healthy foods can lead to several nutritional deficiency as Omega 3 deficiency, magnesium deficiency and Vitamin B complex deficiency. So such deficiencies not just affect your health but also your weight.
Hence it is very important to understand the importance of calories and also to know the food item which contains empty calories, means only calories without any nutrients.
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Energy In Should Be Less Or Equal To Energy Out
To maintain a healthy lifestyle amount of calories consumed in a day should be burn out the same day otherwise the body stores the excess.
Caloric Calculation
The simple nutritional calculation says that minus 500 calories from your diet and you will attain your weight loss goals. But I feel it is too generalized. It doesn’t work for all. For example, the caloric requirement for a sedentary female is 1500 kcal. Pooja is obese and wants to lose weight is just consuming 900 calories so I can’t reduce more 500 calories from her diet as it will be too less.
I know now the next question will come to me is if she is eating so less why she is fat? The reason is simple the calories consumed by her is moreover empty calories that hardly contains any nutrients and fiber. So here the solution is burning out more calories rather than reducing calories from the diet and changing the form of her calories from empty to nutritious.
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Making Exercise Your Routine
“I cannot go to the gym; it’s raining outside” are the common excuses most of you make to go for exercise. However, I feel these excuses are probably for not going out or for not waking up early morning. Exercise, unfortunately, is famous by morning walk or going to gym and hence these excuses are oftenly heard by many. But every problem has its solution.
Exercises At Home And Ways To Speed Up Your Metabolism
- Exercise can be done in a very small room
- Doing three sets of jumping- 40times each set
- Doing surya namaskar 20-25 times
- Walking in a small area for 40 min
- Doing meditation for 30-45 min with deep breathing exercises
- Doing spot jogging for 30 min
- You can also do vajrasana to burn calories. Yoga is an excellent exercise that helps you in gaining good mental balance and good body weight also. So start doing this simple vajrasana to burn calories.
All the above exercise are the most effective ways to increase metabolism. It has also been said in research papers that people who do a cardio activity like running, walking, jumping, jogging more than 3-5 times a week their metabolic rate increases even when in resting position.
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Weight Once Gone Should Not Come Back (YO-YO EFFECT)
In my five years of experience as a nutritionist, the most common statement that I heard is “My friend was following a diet, and she lost 10 kg in a month. But, I am losing 3 kg only with your diet, your diet is a waste”. I asked politely, “Mam in the third month how much she lost?” She replied, “She gained 5 kg.”
Now I will tell you what I explained her after which she went home with a blushing smile. I told that one should never gain back the weight that is lost. Instead, losing weight slowly is a better option. Ideal weight loss for an individual should be only 2-4kg/month.
But if the weight is gained back then it shows that your metabolism is getting affected. It will have a bad impact on your health in the near future as it is not a good sign. This is called the YO-YO effect.
Muscle Loss Is Harmful
It is very important to know that from where the weight is getting lost is it from fat or muscle. If you are losing weight too fast it may be that you are losing on muscle which will eventually make you weak. This lost weight will come back again within no time and hence it takes a toll on your metabolism booster. We have metabolism booster pills which help to solve this problem.
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Bedtime Snack Is The Last But Not The Least Meal Of The Day
‘‘I ate my dinner at 10.00 and I don’t feel hungry why should I eat anything at bedtime’’
Do you agree to this?
I know you will agree in fact any weight watcher will agree, but I disagree completely. Bedtime snack is very different from your dinner and hence it is important. Dinner might be high in carbohydrate or fat.
Bedtime snack should be a protein meal which will release slowly over the night and takes care of your body needs. Hence one should always drink a cup of milk or a glass of buttermilk or eat anything high in protein and low in fat before going to bed.
Before going, I would like to tell you increasing your metabolism naturally is not difficult if you follow a healthy lifestyle and tips on how to increase your metabolism given above.
Suggestions
Breakfast is important if you still have no time then take 2 scoops of whey protein in a glass of milk. Also to increase your metabolism Omega 3 fatty acid is the ultimate solution.
For any further queries, please write in the comments below.