Simple Ways to Boost Your Metabolism

Weight management for many can be a lifelong battle. Throngs of people exercise and make healthy food choices while still falling short of their goals regarding body weight and composition. I have trained and consulted a multitude of people over the last 10 years. In my experience, the single most overlooked aspect of weight management relates to understanding the factors that influence people’s rate of metabolism. Metabolic rate refers to the speed at which our body transforms energy for use. This article will cover four strategies to ignite your metabolism so that you are burning more calories throughout the day. The beauty of these strategies is that they require very few changes to lifestyle and dietary choices.

Metabolic Mover #1: Eat a Big Breakfast

Eating a complete breakfast may be one of the best things you can do for your metabolism (Do I already sound like a cereal commercial?) Your body has been fasting for 12 hours or more when you wake up in the morning. Consequently, your metabolism is at its lowest point during the day. The very best way to boost it up is by eating breakfast (Pop Tarts do not count)! Many people will complain that they do not have enough time to prepare or eat breakfast. However, skipping breakfast is similar to the defeating behavior of “shooting yourself in the foot." If you skip breakfast your metabolic rate will creep to a near standstill until you finally eat something at lunch. That means your metabolism has now been limping along for 16 to 17 hours.

Another factor to consider regarding breakfast is to make it the biggest meal of the day. American’s typically consume their largest meal in the evening at dinner time. Unfortunately, this is not the best tradition for our metabolism. Our biggest meal should be at breakfast because we have the entire day to burn the calories off. In addition, a larger meal at breakfast actually makes people feel less hungry throughout the day, which prevents overeating. Aim for a breakfast that contains complex carbohydrates, protein, and healthy unsaturated fats to get your metabolism elevated to a high rate.

Metabolic Mover #2: Don’t Skip Meals and Eat Frequently

It is easy to get distracted during the day and skip meals. Some people even think that this may actually help with weight management because they are consuming fewer calories. Still others follow their grandmother’s cue of eating three “square” meals a day. Unfortunately, creating long gaps between meals ultimately lowers your metabolism down to a “snail’s pace."  Instead, try to eat small meals every two to three hours to keep your metabolism elevated at a high level. The term “grazing” is often used by health professionals to describe this type of beneficial frequent eating.  The connection between frequent eating and a high metabolism is easy to comprehend if we look at ourselves as animals.

In nature, if we are eating frequently with little time in between meals, our body interprets that to mean food is abundant in the environment and there is little threat of starvation. As a result, the body can be quite liberal in the manner in which it uses calories because the next meal is most likely right around the corner. However, if we wait long periods of time between meals, our body will go into a state of retention since food does not appear to be readily accessible. Thus, the metabolism slows down greatly while food is scarce and it must be very conservative with its use of calories in order to avoid starvation.

To make matters worse, when we do eat after a long period of time our body responds in a drastic fashion. The body is in “starvation mode” and attempts to take advantage of the fact that food is present again. Therefore, it hoards as many calories from the meal as possible and stores them as fat. This eating pattern creates a vicious cycle of low calorie expenditure and high fat storage that result in unhealthy weight gains. To maintain an elevated metabolism and prevent the storage of calories as fat, try to eat something small every two to three hours (think grapes, not M&M’s). The effects on healthy weight management can be dramatic.

Metabolic Mover #3: Increase Exercise Frequency

It is a common misconception that the biggest health benefits of exercise come from the calories burned during your workout. However, a far greater number of calories are burned after a workout from an elevated metabolism. If eating frequently maintains a high metabolism, it is not difficult to realize that exercising frequently has a similar effect. Each time we exercise, our metabolism gets a giant boost.

A mistaken belief with exercise revolves around the idea that people need to train for a certain length of time to “get a good workout in." The reality is that we should be less concerned with the length of our workout and focus more on the frequency in which we workout. Let’s assume that you have 60 minutes in the day that can be dedicated to working out. Instead of doing one workout for 60 minutes, consider breaking that into two 30 minute workouts or even three 20 minute workouts. That way you are not just elevating your metabolism once a day, but two to three times a day. The frequent elevation of metabolism post workout is far more important than the number of calories burned while working out. This strategy may be more difficult to implement into your daily schedule. However, the payoff is double for the same amount of time exercised.

Metabolic Mover #4: Exercise with High Intensity Interval Training

Since my last article was purely based on High Intensity Interval Training (H.I.I.T.), I will merely skim over this topic. However, performing high intensity interval training is one of the most effective forms of metabolism elevation with exercise. If you exercise regularly yet still struggle with managing weight, try H.I.I.T. The most important concept with H.I.I.T. is to vary the intensity of your workout with “easy” and “hard” intervals. Please read last week’s article to learn more about the effective nature of H.I.I.T.

The emphasis behind all of these strategies is to take advantage of the natural tendencies of our metabolism. Focus should be placed on avoiding behaviors that slow metabolism while maximizing ways to elevate it. These methods should be fairly easy to implement as they do not require a change in diet or the amount of time you already commit to exercise. As with all behaviors, the benefits of these actions take time and must be implemented with a lifetime approach. If adopted, they will serve as powerful strategies that require little effort while producing big rewards.

For workouts and advice regarding healthy living visit Brett’s free website at: www.mysoslife.com