Friday, March 23, 2012

How to Increase Metabolism (Simple Ideas)?

Talking about weight loss ideas, the conversation is often directed to ideas on how to increase metabolism! Better metabolism of your body will help to burn your calories or extra fat more easily. -- You might also like to know more about best foods to boost your metabolism, before continuing!

No matter how old you are, or how overweight you are -- you have power & chance to boost & increase your metabolism! There are a lot of ways that you can do! And if you can keep focus to your health goals, more pounds that you can burn is something that can be reached not too difficultly.

What is actually metabolism?

It is the process in the body to use any foods that you eat (including fats, carbohydrates, proteins, etc) to become energy for the movement of the body. The energy from that food that we eat is also important to supply energy for your body to maintain itself.

What is metabolism rate? It is usually dependent on the correlation or interaction between the intake calories into your body and outtake calories from your body. It is also closely influenced by the individual genetic makeup, and this is something that cannot be changed to boost or increase your metabolism.

Fortunately, individual genetic has less account of the entire daily calorie consumption, which it is only about 5 percent! And about 95 percent of the total consumption of daily calorie is so related to your activities. In other words, increasing the body’s need for energy is the best option that you can do to increase your metabolism!

Just always keep in mind that our body will burn fat /calories more quickly when it requires more energy!

How about with age and your metabolism?

You may believe that your metabolism will decrease gradually as you get older. That’s right, age can influence your metabolism, but once again you still have power to boost it!

Some experts believe that the metabolism will start declining once you are at about 25 years of age! This declining process is about 5-10 percent for every 10 years. This means many people will lose about 20-40 percent of the metabolic power of their adult life span.

But there are also some studies found in several adult people who maintain their physical activities throughout their lifetime can reduce their metabolic decline to 0.3 percent or even maybe more!

Ways to boost metabolism!

The following are several helpful tips and simple ways to boost your metabolism:

(1) Don’t ever skip your breakfast!

You might think that less eat (including such as by skipping your breakfast) is much better to lose more pounds. But you are wrong if you choose this step. It can make you to eat more in your lunch because you are too hungry due to you miss your breakfast. Furthermore, even many studies found that skipping breakfast can lead to weight gain and higher risk of gastric diseases.

(2) Get to know your RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate)!

It can be your guide for how many calories that you should get for your body at rest! 


After knowing your RMR, use this formula “RMR x 1.15”! For example, if your RMR is 2005, then you will get “2005 x 1.15 = 2305.75”. This means you should get caloric intake about 2305.75 (not lower or over) to lose your weight safely!

(3) Keep hydrated!

Water is so important to the metabolism process in your body. If you get dehydration (event at mildly dehydration), you can slow down your metabolism! In some studies, people who drank less water (3-4 glasses of water) did not burn calories as well as in people who drank more water (8 glasses of water or more). You can also eat more fresh vegetable or fruits to get more fluid for your body.

(4) Ice-cold water

In fact, there are a lot of chemical reactions in the body that involve water for one of the most important elements. And make your digestion process work better to burn more calories by choosing ice-cold water when you eat.

(5) Reconsider how and what you eat!

You might be familiar with this way! You can search and find a lot of articles on internet that discuss the best diet menu. Generally healthy foods may include some that rich in fiber and protein, low in fat, low in bad cholesterol, etc! Don’t miss also to prioritize complex carbohydrate (it helps to give more hours for you to feel hungry).

Other foods that you can choose for your diet menu to increase your metabolism are green tea and coffee. But if you have high blood pressure problem or other health problems associated with caffeine, talk with your doctor first! Read also how much caffeine in green tea!

You can also try with spicy foods! They have special compounds that can help to boost your metabolism! Spicy foods are so popular in Asia, particularly like countries in Southern East Asia, where the amounts of people with obesity are much fewer than in western countries.

Moreover, don’t forget to choose ‘eating more often with healthy-small meals’ instead of ‘eating large meals with more hours in between’! Keep continuing this idea if it works to lose your weight!

Many experts believe that ‘eating more often’ can be helpful to increase your metabolism. On the other hand, they believe ‘large meals and there are many hours in between’ may be able to slow down your metabolism. Talk with your dietitian to get more detailed information!

(6) Stay in safe diet!

Don’t be fooled with any ways to boost metabolism & lose weight quickly without considering how they will affect your health! Stay in safe diet, and avoid any extreme diets that can lead to a serious health problem for your body!

Unsafely crash diet may recommend to eat fewer than 1000 calories every day. This may be helpful to lose more pounds quickly, but it is not only too risk for your health but also can lower the mass of your muscle. Lower muscle mass can train to slow down your metabolism which eventually can make your body gain weight easily.

Furthermore, you may want try with smoking for your weight-loss method. But it is much better to avoid this method! There are some studies found that nicotine may be able to increase metabolism, but this benefit is much fewer than the disadvantages. In other words, as well we know there are a lot of health risks from smoking. So, once again ‘smoking’ is very bad idea for your weight loss diet.

(7) Keep active and get a regular exercise!

If you seriously want to increase your metabolism, don’t miss to consider the performance of your muscles. As well we know that the body burn calories constantly, even when you are doing nothing (or familiar known as RMR)! RMR value is relatively higher in individuals with more muscles. Each muscle to sustain itself can use about 6 calories /day.

Having regular exercise can contribute positive effect for more activated muscles all over body (helpful to build muscle), which then can boost and increase your metabolism. Don’t forget also to stay active in your daily activities (more your move in your daily activities - more daily calories that you can burn)! 

-- Image credit to ‘shutterstock’