How to Speed up Metabolism

Metabolism is a combination of physical and chemical reactions in our body where the calories consumed are broken down into important nutrients and used for different body activities. Metabolic rate is the speed at which these calories are broken down or the nutrients are used for body activities. The body activities include breathing, digesting food, etc. Body uses the required nutrients for daily activities and the extra calories are stored back. Most of the times these extra calories are stored in the form of fats and lead to weight gain. Hence, it is necessary that you speed up metabolism to a proper rate so that all the calories consumed are utilized completely.

The metabolic rate differs from person to person, and hence every person has different nutrition requirement. The factors that govern the speed of metabolism include gender, age and daily physical activities of the person. With growing age, the metabolic rate decreases and females have low metabolic rate than men. Now, how to speed up metabolism? Proper diet, exercise can help to increase metabolism. Certain foods act as catalysts to speed up metabolism. These different ways to speed up metabolism are discussed below.

Eat Foods That Speed Up Metabolism
There are certain foods that help to speed up your metabolism naturally. Almost everyone benefits from these foods and the gender does not matter. A brief discussion on some of the important metabolism boosters is given below.

Green Tea: It is considered as one of the best sources for speeding up metabolism and it also burns fats. It is recommended that you drink at least five cups of green tea daily. You can drink either cold or hot green tea. It will benefit more if you drink one cup before every meal. Green tea oppresses your appetite and hence you feel less hungry and full after drinking it.

Almonds: Almonds contain essential fatty acids and proteins that help to speed up metabolism. But you should not eat too much of almonds as they contain too much of calories.

Water: Water is the vital factor for a healthy body. One should drink 8 to 10 glasses of water daily. Water helps to detoxify your body and boosts metabolism, as it is the solvent where many of the reactions take place in our body.

Oatmeal: This high fiber content food, speeds up your metabolism along with providing energy. The best time to eat oatmeal is in the morning, by which you will not feel hungry for a long time.

Coffee: The caffeine content of coffee helps to speed up metabolism. The other benefit of coffee is that it increases your concentration. But you should drink too much of coffee, else you will suffer from its side effects.

Other foods that increase metabolism are yogurt, spinach, beans, eggs, berries, whole grains, apples, turkey and many more.

Exercise To Speed Up Metabolism
Exercise is an inescapable option for speeding up metabolism which many of us tend to avoid. Exercise is equally important as following a healthy diet. Exercise does not mean spending hours together at the gymnasium. Start doing physical activities that keep you moving for atleast 30 minutes or so. Try to move from one place to other as much as possible. Avoid use of vehicles for short distance, try to climb up the stairs instead of lift, if you have pets at home take them along with you for a walk. Walking, cycling, swimming are some of the exercises that you can follow. If you are not used to exercising, make a gradual increase in the time you exercise. Practice exercises that help to build lean muscles, because muscles burn calories at faster rate. Thus, if you have more muscle you will burn calories faster. You can consult a physical trainer and learn how to speed up metabolism with the help of exercises.

Eat Regularly To Speed Up Metabolism
It is a misconception that skipping meals or breakfast helps to reduce weight. Rather starving decreases metabolic rate and causes increase in weight. So, do not starve at all. When we sleep at night the metabolic rate is slow and hence it is necessary that one should have a heavy breakfast to speed up the metabolism. The breakfast should include food that has high carbohydrate content. Carbohydrates take long time to digest and hence you do not feel hungry soon, while it is not the same with fatty foods. Your food intake should reduce as the day ends, hence dinner should be the lightest meal. Eat small and frequent meals instead of eating heavy meals twice or thrice a day. This keeps the metabolism process on, for a long time and the calories are used effectively without storing fats. Keep a check on the calories consumed daily, this will help you to know whether your body is consuming extra or less calories.

Speeding up your metabolism is not a difficult job, all you need to do is a bit of change in the lifestyle, proper diet and regular exercise. Follow the above given simple tips on how to speed up metabolism and live a healthy life.