We have often heard people saying that he or she has good metabolism, whatever they eat they remain slim, fit, and healthy. But what is this metabolism which we need to boost for a healthy and fit life?
Well, metabolism is your body’s inherent ability to burn the calories from your food that you eat ultimately giving you proper nourishment and making way for a healthy life. To boost metabolism doesn’t mean just burning those calories through exercise and eating calorie-conscious food. It goes beyond the usual perception of calorie burning and fat reducing metabolism
What is Metabolism?
Metabolism is your body’s capacity to use the energy stored in the food you eat. It’s not like you need to eat metabolism-boosting foods and exercise and you can get that perfect metabolism. Every person has their metabolism pattern which is known as Basal Metabolic Rate or BMR. This generally calculates your body’s basic energy utilizing capacity at rest which differs from person to person. Normally BMR ranges from -15% to +5% but it can go beyond the limits, A higher BMR generally means you are burning more calories at rest while a lower BMR means your metabolism is slow to burn calories, thus accumulating more fat in your body
The best way to calculate BMR is by this simple method called the Katch-McArdle Formula:
BMR = 370 + 21.6(1 – F)W
Where: W is body weight in kg, F is body fat in percentage
So, the person we think has a better metabolism because they don’t get fat despite eating more actually has a higher calorie-burning capacity. Most people think you can boost metabolism simply by eating metabolism foods and drinks and doing proper exercise. For this many go for a basic BMR diet that is eating as many calories as your BMR percentage. So they are just counting their calories and not eating properly as they fear eating more calories will lead to being fat and unhealthy.
Well, that’s where most of us get it wrong. Our body’s metabolism is much more than our BMR. BMR is just the basic calories needed by your body to do normal bodily functions like walking, talking, reading, writing, etc. But our activities lie much more than that we need a thorough health and diet plan to boost metabolism. A calorie is just a unit to count the heat, that is, the energy content in the food that you eat. This energy gives you the potential to do your daily work. So, it depends on your lifestyle and habits as well.
Thus boosting metabolism means much more than having a calorie-conscious intake.
What does Boosting Metabolism Mean?
Despite BMR being your inborn ability which you can’t change, there are certain ways in which you can boost it to have a better metabolism let us check how. But before we begin you must understand how this metabolism works and why certain organs of your body are more responsible for the BMR than others.
The mechanism of metabolism is to break down the energy in your food and store it in your muscles for future use. Now, part of the energy is being used by your vital organs like the heart, lungs, kidney, stomach, etc. that need to function constantly to keep you alive. But the rest is stored as fat in your muscles. Now out of all the organs muscles have the greatest BMR about 18%. Whenever you need to do some activities like walking, running, singing, speaking, etc. your muscles need to burn that fat and give you the energy to do it and that’s how your metabolism works.
So, to boost metabolism, you need to enhance muscle activity.
Ways To Boost Metabolism
This is done by employing various strategies like eating proper food, doing certain exercises, changing the time interval of food intake, and quantity of food intake.
Let’s take a look at some of the ways to boost metabolism
1. Strengthen the Muscle With Proper Exercise & Yoga
The first and foremost strategy is to build and strengthen your muscle so that it can burn more fat. You may have seen that despite doing regular exercise you are not burning enough fat. That’s because you are not building your muscles which work to burn the fat. So, do proper exercise. Boot metabolism yoga that involves stretching and bending of muscles would be key to it. The better muscles you have, the better is the chances of burning the calories.
Every pound of muscle burns 6 calories a day to keep itself active while every pound of fat only burns 2 calories a day. Lift weights and do muscle-building workout to strengthen your muscle. Make sure to back this up with a healthy nutritious diet containing high proteins, fruits, vegetables, and fibers taken in small quantities over regular intervals. Don’t binge eat and overeat as it can offset the effect of your muscle-building strategy
2. Speed It Up By Drinking Water
Often people try out boost metabolism drinks to speed up the metabolism. Well, those rich sugary energy-boosting health tonics aren’t of any use. Just indulge in frequent and regular drinking of water. Those tonics and health drinks themselves contain calories. Water, on the other hand, contains none. Studies show water temporarily speeding up your metabolism. Drinking half a liter of water can increase metabolism by 30% for an hour.
Coldwater enhances it further as the body burns fat to maintain the temperature. Also, the water satiates the calorie craving hunger. Drinking water just half an hour before your meals helps you to eat less. A study in overweight individuals showed that drinking half a liter of water before meals helped to lose 44% weight. That’s a classic example of how you can boost metabolism for weight loss.
3. Take Oolong Tea or Green tea and Coffee
The popularity of green tea and oolong tea in weight loss and health benefits has been immense but seldom do people connect it with metabolism-boosting drinks.
Research studies and trials have shown how green tea and oolong tea enhances metabolism. They increase your metabolism by 5%. It may not seem much but when you check out the collective activity of burning 17% of body fat.
Also, they are tried and tested the effect in weight loss and weight maintenance prevents the so-called weight loss plateau which happens as the metabolism decreases. So, another effective way of boosting metabolism for weight loss
Coffee seems to have a similar metabolism-boosting effect. Studies show caffeine boosts metabolism by 11%. However, it depends on your body weight. It is more effective on lean people than in obese. Studies show learn women burn 29% fat whereas obese women burn only 10% under caffeine effect. This again can act as a good way to boost metabolism for weight loss as it helps in managing and shedding weight. Caffeine heightens the metabolic rate and keeps it at that level for 3 hours.
4. Get Enough Sleep
Your sleeping problems might be the reason behind your bad metabolism. Proper amounts of sound sleep help to boost metabolism at night. Remember, sleep is the time when your body rests and your organs function minimally. So, naturally, at this point, your metabolism is quite low. But this intrinsically low metabolism rate prepares for a better metabolism overall. Hence boosting metabolism at night is crucial.
Studies have shown that sleep deprivation has negative effects on your metabolism
It increases your blood sugar levels and insulin resistance which are high-risk factors for type-2 diabetes
Sleep deprivation increases the hunger hormone ghrelin which plays a crucial role in satiating your hunger. Ghrelin decreases the fullness hormone leptin which makes your meal fulfilling. So with proper sleep, your midnight hunger cravings are gone and thus your unhealthy eating pattern which hampers metabolism. Since the metabolism is low at night the midnight food that you eat doesn’t get metabolized properly. Lack of sleep is also a major factor in obesity. So, again proper sleeping acts as boost metabolism for weight loss
5. Try Boost Metabolism Foods Like Coconut Oil, Peppers
Lastly, certain foods act as a metabolism enhancer. Using medium-chain fats like coconut oil instead of long-chain fats like butter helps to increase your metabolism. The medium-chain fats have 12% metabolism-boosting capacity compared to only 4% of long-chain fats. Also, coconut oil replaces cooking fats which help in losing weight.
Another metabolism-boosting food that you can use is the pepper family. Any kind of peppers including capsicum have an energy-boosting enzyme called capsaicin.
The study reveals the effective dose of capsaicin from eating peppers burns 10 additional calories per meal. In the long run, this calorie burn can lead to half a kg of weight loss in 6 years.
Although most people might not be able to tolerate the ideal level of spice and in the effect may be minute but a regular dietary inclusion along with other metabolism-boosting methods might yield good results.
One study of capsaicin, at acceptable doses, predicted that eating peppers would burn around 10 additional calories per meal. Over 6.5 years, this could account for 1 pound (0.5 kg) of weight loss for an average-weight male
Alone, the effects of adding spices to your food may be quite small. However, it may lead to a slight advantage when combined with other metabolism-boosting strategies
So, there you go, some useful methods to boost your metabolism easily and healthily. Don’t just count your calories anymore, count your health and your metabolism.
FAQs
1. How to boost metabolism?
Boosting metabolism means boosting your body’s capacity to burn fat and turn into energy. You can simply boost your metabolism by building and strengthening your muscles, sleeping well, drinking lots of water, drinking coffee and green tea, and making some changes to energy-boosting food items like coconut oil, pepper, etc.
2. What foods boost metabolism?
Foods like pepper including capsicum, green tea, coffee, coconut oil have a good metabolism-boosting capacity.
3. Are metabolism-boosting pills safe?
It’s better to boost your metabolism naturally with food, exercise rather than relying on pills as pills can lead to side effects and sudden increase in metabolism which isn’t good. The more gradual is the process the better.
4. What is the best way to boost your metabolism?
The best way to boost metabolism is a healthy lifestyle of 6hours of adequate sleep, proper muscle-strengthening exercise, and a diet of metabolism-boosting food items like green tea, coffee, pepper, coconut oil, etc.
