Metabolism is a life-sustaining chemical transformation within the cells of living organisms that ensures how much weight to lose and how much to gain. A few of us, who find it hard to lose the extra fat, blame it on the metabolism. If you are wondering how to boost your metabolism with easy and simple steps, you have come to the right place. We will tell you how to turn your body into a metabolism-boosting furnace.
Eat Adequate Amount of Food
Most people who want to lose weight cut down their calories like crazy, which can lead to more nutritional deficiencies and in some cases can even stall your weight loss journey. Not only that, if you do not eat enough calories, then you may lose muscle mass and it may affect your metabolism. Stick to an easy eating plan that is sustainable. Don’t depend on fad diets that can help you lose weight, but may have a detrimental effect on your metabolism.
Pack On Muscle
Even when you’re at rest, your body keeps on burning calories. Studies show that your resting metabolic rate and total calories burned are much higher in people who have more muscles than fat because every pound of muscle you use burns six calories a day just to sustain itself. If you can pack about five pounds of muscle and sustain it, you’ll end up burning the caloric equivalent of almost three pounds of fat over the entire course of a year.
Interval Training is the Best Way to Go
When it comes to the best workouts for weight loss, it is not whether weights or cardio, it is the combination of the two that gives a boost to your metabolism. Interval training can shed extra pounds, increase your metabolism, and also improve your insulin sensitivity. Research substantiates the point that just 20-minute HIIT workouts can help women lose about 5.5 more pounds and gain more lean muscle mass over the time period of 15 weeks than the women who only resorted to long steady cardio workouts. Include aerobic exercises such as running, biking, or walking. Interval training is mixing up fast-paced exercises with slower-paced ones. Start with 30 to 60 seconds of exercise and follow it up with periods of rest (normal speed). Try to include it at least six to 10 times and you have a fat-burning workout. As you get better, you can increase the intensive phases and you will get the most bang for your HIIT workout.
Chomp on More Protein
We know how packing in more muscles can mean burning more calories. What is the best way to increase muscle mass? Well, you have got it right, eat more protein. This seems like a no-brainer, right? Hitting the gym can help you build more muscle and eating more protein helps to maintain more gains from breaking down and result in slowing down your metabolic rate. Research agrees that the more protein you eat, the better are your chances to burn more fat as protein is more difficult for the body to break down and digest. So, include protein in each of your meals, even your snack. The need for the nutrient, however, varies from individual to individual. Ideally, you may consume 0.8 to one gram of protein per kilogram of your body weight.
Get More Sleep
We know you have heard it before, but the more sleep you get, (optimally, it should be around 7-8 hours), the better are your chances of staying slim. When you skimp on sleep, your body suffers from an impaired glucose tolerance. However, it has to be regular, meaning you have to sleep those many hours most days of the year. Forget working out and eating right, if you aren’t sleeping well enough, your body won’t recover and not get the results you want to achieve in terms of fitness.
Eat More Probiotic-Rich Food Like Yogurt
Probiotics foods, like yogurt and fermented foods – pickles and sauerkraut – help flourish good bacteria in the gut which help process the food more efficiently. Yogurt, besides being a great source of probiotics, is also a great source of protein and calcium. In fact, it can also shrink your waistline. You can keep having it with all your meals to make the most of it and keep your digestion process in great shape.
Start including these changes to your lifestyle one by one, and soon you’ll see a noticeable difference in the way your metabolism works.