How to Increase Your Metabolism

Your metabolism is your body’s biochemical activity that regulates the conversion of calories into energy. A slow metabolism is slow to convert calories into energy and can cause the body to store fat. A fast metabolism operates in converse fashion, quickly using energy and not storing it. Your body’s metabolism is controlled by your thyroid gland and a sluggish thyroid can cause metabolic deficiencies, leading to an increase in fat stores. In fact, an inefficient metabolism is a very common causes of weight gain. There’s good news, however, as it’s often possible to naturally and efficiently increase your body’s metabolic rate.

Improve Your Diet

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you may have noticed that most suggestions start out with a dietary evaluation. There’s a reason for this recommendation. A very large percentage of the problems a very large percentage of the people experience can be attributed to poor dietary choices that revolve around foods lacking nutritional value. Unfortunately, “garbage in, garbage out” becomes a real way of life for some people. GMO’s, highly processed foods, refined sugars, and other no-nutrient foods should absolutely be removed; the stuff is a detriment and provides no benefit. Your body can’t run at peak performance if you’re giving it sub-par fuel. If your diet includes foods that are high in empty calories and toxins, replace them with fresh, organic fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. Try it for a month and drink a substantially hydrating amount of purified water as well. Your mind will be blown at how adopting a raw and organic diet will make you feel.

Snacks should consist of protein-rich foods such as nuts, seeds, and hemp milk. The amino acids in protein make the body work harder to break it down, so more calories are burned in the process.

Fruits and vegetables are both cornerstones to a healthy diet and integrating a variety of items from both food groups is a must. Don’t believe one apple a week or two carrot sticks at lunch is going to cut it, you need to establish regular habits, not an occasional “good try.” Fruits include the archetypal apple, mangos, and grapefruit. Fruit, by the way, is the menu choice for breakfast in the morning, and grapefruit is a classic breakfast choice.

The list of vegetables that can stimulate metabolic rates is even more extensive. Spinach, onions, tomatoes, avocados, celery, and garlic are just a few examples of the many varieties of organic vegetables that will increase your metabolism.

“Lifestyle Changes” Means More Than One

Your metabolic process is like your body’s energy management system and it functions best when the sum of its parts are at their best. High quality, organic food, plenty of rest, adequate hydration, a well-tuned machine (via exercise), and bodily processes that aren’t bogged down by an accumulation of toxins are all absolute for success. It makes sense that adjusting any or all of those factors can have a significant impact on your metabolism. If you’re where you need to be, keep it up. If not, get there now. Despite what you did yesterday, you can change things today. Stress, lack of sleep, and insufficient hydration are all things you can turn around within 24 hours if you put your mind to it.

Tonight, turn off the TV and go to bed early. Get that eight hours of sleep you wake up every morning wishing you’d gotten. When you wake up feeling refreshed and ready for the day, and you will, wake up slowly and practice a basic mindfulness meditation to help your mind begin the day in comfortable fashion. Then, help yourself to a tall drink of water; this encourages a flushing of the toxins that settled while you slept.

You Have To Exercise

Exercise is supremely simple to understand. For it to be effective, you must exert the effort. That sit-up machine on the infomercial will not give you 6-pack abs. The only weight loss you’ll experience from worthless short cuts will be in your wallet. Exercise isn’t about looking like a supermodel or being a body builder, it’s about using your body’s abilities so you improve its efficiency and don’t lose functionality. You don’t get dust on the fender until you shut off the engine.

Real exercise is essential if you truly want to increase your metabolism, and that’s something to be excited about. Exercise is beneficial to the body and the mind. Forget the adverse side effects of antidepressants, experience the beneficial mental-health byproducts of exercise. I recommend interval cardio training combined with hand weight training. Interval training involves breaking into a fast run every 2 minutes and sustaining it for 1 minute before returning to a normal jog or walk. Adding weights provides additional resistance to help build muscle. Your muscles use the energy your metabolism produces, if you have more muscle, you’ll use more energy.

Even lifting light hand weights will stimulate muscles to burn calories both during and after your exercise session. It doesn’t matter how fast you go, you’re still lapping the people who don’t get off the couch.