Metabolism is the process by which your body converts what you eat and drink into energy. During this complex biochemical process, calories in food and beverages are combined with oxygen to release the energy your body needs to function.
Even when you’re at rest, your body needs energy for all its “hidden” functions, such as breathing, circulating blood, adjusting hormone levels, and growing and repairing cells.
The number of calories your body uses to carry out these basic functions is known as your basal metabolic rate — what you might call metabolism. Several factors determine your individual basal metabolic rate, including:
Your body size and composition. The bodies of people who are larger or have more muscle burn more calories, even at rest.
Your sex. Men usually have less body fat and more muscle than do women of the same age and weight, burning more calories.
Your age. As you get older, the amount of muscle tends to decrease and fat accounts for more of your weight, slowing down calorie burning.
Energy needs for your body’s basic functions stay fairly consistent and aren’t easily changed. Your basal metabolic rate accounts for about 70 percent of the calories you burn every day.
Here are Great tips to build your metabolism, they are
Add an Extra Egg at Breakfast
Eating more protein could bump up your post-meal calorie burn, suggests research in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. In a small study, researchers had 10 healthy, normal-weight women between 19 and 22 years old eat a high-protein diet one day and a high-complex-carb diet another, to compare how each diet affected their metabolism. (The first diet contained 30 percent protein and 30 percent complex carbs.
The second had 50 percent complex carbs and 15 percent protein. Roughly equal amounts of sugar and fat made up the rest.) They found that after meals on the high-protein day, the women’s bodies were producing about twice as much heat, an indication that they were also burning more calories.
Make Your Meals 25 Percent Smaller
“If you’re not hungry within three to four hours after you finish a meal, you’re eating too much at a time,” says Tamara Melton, RDN, a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. This is a problem because ideally, you’d be eating every few hours so that your body has a steady stream of calories to use for energy. In other words, you’re not scarfing down extra that is then stored as fat.
If you want to get on the metabolism-boosting schedule, you’ll need to shrink your meals. First, take a look at your plate and make sure it’s made up of half non-starchy fruits and vegetables, one-quarter lean protein, and one-quarter starch or whole grains.(Don’t overthink the difference between 25 percent protein here and 30 percent from the first tip–the main point is making sure protein is a significant portion of your diet.)
Then cut the portions of each section by 25 percent and pay close attention to your hunger levels. If you’re ready to eat again within the three to four hours, you’re all set. If you’re completely ravenous, try cutting by one-eighth instead oone-quarterer.
Do the Thing That Might Make You Look a Little Nuts
By now, you and everyone you’ve ever met have heard about high intensity interval training. But you may not be taking advantage of all of your opportunities to do it outside the gym.
Case in point: Anytime you’re walking, whether you’re on your usual slow stroll with a friend, walking from the subway stop to the office (avoiding knocking over your fellow sidewalk commuters, of course) or going to the end of the driveway to get the mail –these are opportune times to bump it up. Bursts of speed, no matter how short, are a proven way to increase your calories burned,
You can make it up as you go, using visual landmarks and saying ‘I’m going to push myself until I get to that spot. Start with one speed increase and work up to more. The more you do, the greater the effect.
Turn Your Strength-Training Routine into a Circuit
Anyone already doing resistance work is one metabolism-boosting step ahead of those who don’t. To take that muscle-building activity and turn up the calorie burn, stop doing it in chunks (all of your push ups, rest, all of your lunges, rest, and so on).
Instead, turn it into a circuit workout, which will keep your heart rate elevated and help you burn more calories during and after the workout, says Rick Richey, National Academy of Sports Medicine master instructor and a certified personal trainer. It’s easy to take your old workout and circuit-ize it. If you used to do 3 sets of push ups, rest, 3 sets of squats, rest, then 3 sets of mountain climbers, here’s the circuit version: do 1 set each of push ups, squats and mountain climbers with no breaks in between, then take a short rest and repeat that sequence 2 more times.
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