Three Ways to Speed up Your Metabolism

Three Ways to Speed up Your Metabolism

One of the most common goals amongst my personal training clients is weight loss.  When you think about weight loss, the mindset usually centers around diet and cardio, but one of the most important aspects of weight loss is often overlooked – the metabolism.  Metabolism is a process where the body breaks down protein, carbohydrates or fat for energy to function daily and maintain itself.  The rate at which your metabolism works depends on the number of calories consumed and the number of calories burnt during the day through activity.  There are factors such as age, gender and genetics that play into the rate at which your metabolism burns fat but there are ways to boost your metabolism and increase the amount of fat and weight you would like to lose.  The following three tips can increase your metabolism to help you meet your weight loss goals.

• Build some muscle.  Individuals with more muscle burn more calories during the day, even while at rest.  The body burns 6 calories per day for every pound of muscle on the body just to sustain itself while fat only burns 2 calories per day.   And after a strength training session your metabolism can stay elevated for up to 36 hours due to the fact that the strain on the muscle from lifting weights requires extra time for the body to recover.
• Eat lean protein.  The body burns more calories digesting protein than it does carbohydrates or fat.  The amount of energy your body needs to digest food is called the thermogenic effect of food (TEF). Protein is more difficult for the body to digest with a TEF of 25 percent.  This means that 25 percent of the calories for each gram of protein consumed are burnt off during the process of digestion where carbohydrates only require a TEF of 5 percent and fat has a TEF of 2 percent.
• Drink coffee or tea. Consumed in moderation, caffeine can increase the metabolism.  Coffee can boost the metabolism by 5 to 8 percent where tea can raise the metabolism by 12 percent.  This can result in about 98 to 174 extra calories burnt per day.

In the quest to lose weight, boosting the metabolism can make a significant difference.  For more tips on ways to boost your metabolism, athletic training, health and fitness, or if you’ve been thinking about hiring a personal trainer, contact us.