Your body uses energy no matter what you’re doing, even when you’re sleeping. Your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR); the number of calories you’d burn if you stayed in bed all day.
If you’ve noticed that every year, it becomes harder to eat whatever you want and stay lean, you’ve also learnt that your BMR decreases as you age. Likewise, depriving yourself of food in hopes of losing fat also decreases your BMR. However, regular exercise can increase your BMR by improving your health and fitness when your body’s ability to burn energy gradually slows down.
It is partly determined by how much muscle we have:
More Lean Muscle = Faster Metabolism!
Lower Lean Muscle = Lower Metabolism!
Muscle naturally burns much more calories than fat so when we lose muscle, our metabolic rate drops and we burn fewer calories. With a calorie restrictive diet the body is likely to lose weight. Unfortunately, this weight loss comes from a loss of lean muscle which we have already established leads to a reduced metabolism. In fact, research shows that the body loses a proportionately high amount of muscle with a very low calorie intake and this may considerably suppress your metabolism by up to 45 percent.
To help, I’ve put together a list of top 10 ways to maximize your metabolism:
1. Eat Breakfast
Eating breakfast is essential to increasing your metabolism. I’m sure you’ve hear that ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’. Well, it’s true! Eating a balanced breakfast supplies you with the fuel to help you maintain energy levels and set up your metabolism for the day.
2. Stay Hydrated
It is important to drink plenty of water each day plus more on the days you exercise. Drinking 5-6 glasses of water has shown to improve concentration, help regulate body temperature and to curb appetite.
3. Eat Fat to Lose Fat
The key here is to eat less saturated fats and to get enough of the essential fats. Sources of healthy fats included nuts, fish, olive oil, and flax oil.
4. Don’t starve yourself
Cutting calories too much is one of the worst things you can do to your body. Starving yourself actually causes you to lose much more water weight and muscle than fat.
5. Eat a variety of High quality foods
Eat high quality foods that will help you control your blood sugar levels, insulin levels, and energy levels. Insulin management will help you lose fat and prevent you from gaining fat. Combining food groups in the correct proportions will ensure that you receive a steady flow of energy and the body converts foods relatively slowly into glucose.
6. Protein Intake
It is recommended to try to consume 1g of protein per pound of body weight.
7. Avoid Sugar
Our bodies break down sugar into glucose very quickly which will contribute to fat production and weight gain. Also, there is a quick sugar ‘high’ and the resulting ‘low’ causes you to feel hungry!
8. Eat Regularly
Doing this will give you a constant supply of energy throughout the day. This will help make hunger, tiredness and food cravings a thing of the past!
9. Follow the 80:20 rule
It is perfectly normal to stray from your healthy eating plan every now and then. If you stick to it 80% of the time means you don’t need to feel guilty about eating out for social occasions etc for the other 20%
10. Strength Training
Having already established that more lean muscle = a faster metabolism, strength training is essential to an increased metabolism.
If your metabolism has slowed down due to improper dieting or lifestyle, then follow these tips to help you get back on track to lose fat and gain muscle. Once you correct your metabolism, you will be on the road to losing the fat for good.
