Our metabolism determines how many calories we burn and we do have some control over this. We want to speed up our metabolism and here are some easy tips:
Eat enough, not too much or too little – Don’t make the mistake of under eating. Your body slows the metabolism down because it senses it is in starvation, and does everything it can to preserve energy. Fad diets and fasting see an initial weight loss, usually followed by weight gain because the metabolism has slowed.
Eat protein with every meal – Eating will always increase the metabolism as the body works hard to digest food. This is most pronounced when you eat protein, which has the highest thermic effect – raising your metabolism the most. To take advantage of this, aim to eat protein (meat, fish, and eggs) with every meal.
Stay hydrated – because our cells need water and if they do not have enough, they cannot produce energy and will slow down our metabolism and burn less calories. Aim to drink at least 8 glasses of water every day. More if you are exercising or it’s hot out.
Exercise – Working out is obvious, but you do not just raise the metabolism while you are working out, it will also stay elevated for a period after you finish exercising.
The more intense the exercise, the longer your metabolism will be elevated. When you do steady cardio your metabolism returns to normal pretty quickly, but when you do intense interval training it will stay raised for hours – meaning you continue to burn more calories.
Even better, resistance training (lifting weights) will leave your metabolism raised for 24-48 hours after you finish, meaning you will continue burning more calories for the entire next day. This is the most effective way to keep your metabolism elevated and lose weight.
Controlling the metabolism is important for easily being able to maintain a healthy weight. Dieting is not a long term solution, and while it might work in the short term, will always rebound. When you understand the metabolism, you can take advantage of it, to maintain your healthy weight for the long term.
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