Simple Ways to Increase Your Metabolism

Posted on June 23, 2008. Filed under: weightloss, wellbeing | Tags: BMR, Dieting, Eating, Food energy, metabolism, weight loss |

Image by amyliagrace via Flickr

Everyone is talking about Boosting your metabolism, but do you know what that really means?

It means the rate at which you burn your intake of calories or energy. This is a highly involved process involving many structures and cellular and chemical changes within the body, including the mitochondria, the ATP cycle, your thyroid, pancreas, and lots more.

This little post on Wired Berries this morning tells most of the story:

“Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the biggest factor in determining your metabolism, and it’s the minimum amount of energy you would need to sustain all your life processes, like breathing and circulation, when you’re at rest. The amount of calories each person needs to survive differs from person to person and is at least partially based on genetics and gender (men tend to have higher metabolisms), but there are some things you can do to increase yours.

Regular exercise and weight training help to build muscle, which is more metabolically active than fat. If you’re on a serious calorie-restrictive diet, quitting it might raise your metabolism pretty much instantly, since hard-core diets can cause your BMR to drop dramatically. Your metabolism is like a low-burning fire that needs to be stoked constantly in order to burn most efficiently, and you can stoke your metabolism by eating several small meals a day rather than three big ones. Your body requires calories to digest, and eating more frequently not only satisfies your hunger and provides your body with needed nutrients, but it also uses up more calories. The types of food you eat also make a difference in how many calories your body requires to digest them: adding more protein and substituting unprocessed foods for processed (whole grains for refined ones and raw fruits and veggies for cooked and baked ones) forces your body to work harder just to extract the nutrients that it needs.” Wired Berries

Instead of buying all those expensive pills to boost your metabolism, why not:

get some exercise
eat a lot less starchy, grain carbs
add more protein to your diet
up your intake of good fats (olive oil, Fish oil, Coconut oil)
eat lots of vegetables and fruit (fibre makes your digestion work harder – burning calories and joules in the process.
eat little and often (grazing like kids do – I mean yours not the goats 😉

Try it and see what happens next.

Be Fit! Be Well! do it online…