food for better metabolism

Speed up Your Metabolism!

Most people would like to be in better shape. A better shape, that is, than round. There are a lot of factors that play into how a person looks or how fit they are. The key to a fitter, healthier you greatly depends on your metabolism and how clean your internal body is. Metabolism is a biochemical process that governs how quickly you turn calories into energy.

You use energy and burn fat when you are doing physical activity and digesting food. But, you also continue to burn fat even while you are at rest. The rate at which you burn fat when you are resting is called your basal metabolic rate (BMR). There are actually ways to speed it up so that you can burn fat faster even when you’re not doing much.

Every coin has two sides, and the flipside of speeding up your metabolism is slowing it down. You might be doing things that slow down your metabolism and allow your body to store excess fat without even realizing it. Some of the things that slow your metabolism down are:

  • Eating Poorly– Quit the sodas and sweet cakes! Treats are fine; but treat on healthy, natural foods. Avoid high processed fat foods.
  • Not Enough Sleep– If your body is exhausted, then the efficiency with which it burns calories goes down the drain. A well rested body is more efficient.
  • Being Stressed Out– Stress causes high levels of a hormone called cortisol in your body, which leads to belly fat. Relax and let go… the extra pounds!
  • Dieting– Believe it or not, strict dieting can lead to lower metabolism. Avoid fad diets and super low calorie diets. Low calorie diets lead your body to switch to starvation mode, your metabolism slows down to keep you from burning too many calories. And then when you eat again, your body stores the calories as fat. Fad diets may work in the short term, but the true path to a healthier you is to improve your overall eating habits over the long term.
  • A Toxic Body– The accumulation of toxins in the body slows down the metabolism because the body has to work extra hard to eliminate these toxins on a daily basis.
  • Other Factors – There are factors that affect your metabolism that are beyond even your control. Metabolism naturally slows down as you age, especially in women. Hypothyroid and other such conditions can also lead to a lower metabolism.

So how can one speed up their metabolism?

Exercise!
It doesn’t matter whether you cycle, swim, walk or jog, but do something to get yourself moving. A regular exercise routine is best, but remember to make the slight changes to it once in a while so your body doesn’t reach a plateau and stop improving. Ten minutes out of your busy day may not seem like a lot when you’re first starting out, but if you exercise for 10 minutes, six days this week, that’s an hour more workout that you did last week! As you get used to this routine it will become easier for you to increase 10 minutes to 12, 15 and 20 minutes per day.

Also if you work on building up some lean muscle mass with weight training then you are guaranteed to burn more calories than by just doing cardio alone. Why? Because muscle burns calories for you even when you’re at rest-it raises your BMR to help you burn fat!

Eat!

It’s the easiest thing of all the tips or tricks you can do for raising your metabolism…

When you wake up in the morning your body is in starvation mode because you’ve been fasting all night. But when you eat breakfast, you boost your metabolism so that you start burning calories earlier, thereby burning more total calories through the day. What you eat and how often you eat, has a large impact on your metabolic rate.

Below are some dietary, no wait, lifestyle habits to boost your metabolism.

  • Start early with a smart meal that includes a fresh fruit.
  • Eat often because that will keep your metabolism pumping all day long, and when you eat many small meals through the day, you tend to eat less at one time, which puts less burden on your digestive system and lets it work more efficiently.
  • Snack smart on lean protein like nuts and seeds orsoya milk. Protein is high in amino acids, so it takes more work for your body to break down, which means you burn more calories while you’re digesting it.
  • Chew Your Food well many times before swallowing. This will save your body’s energy stores and speed up your metabolism.
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