7 Ways to Boost Your Metabolism
A vigorous session at the gym isn't the only way to burn energy - get science on your side.
Muscle up. The single most important factor in determining your resting metabolic rate (the amount of energy you use at rest) is how much lean muscle tissue you have.
Your muscle tissue uses 16 to 22 per cent of your daily calories just to exist. (Your liver uses 21 per cent and your brain 20 per cent, but you can't do much about beefing them up.)
"Increasing metabolic rate through the development of more muscle tissue is the key to lasting weight loss," says Pete Williams, founder of London fitness club Health Dept
Resting muscle uses five times as many calories a kilogram a day as fat does. In an 18-week study by the University of Limburg in Holland, average daily metabolic rate increased by 9.5 per cent and energy expenditure by 10 per cent as a result of twice-weekly strength training.
"But make sure your training is sufficiently challenging to increase muscle mass, by using weights that are heavy enough and by training progressively and consistently," Williams says.
Drink iced water
Here's a bit of maths to stoke your metabolism. It takes one calorie (4.184 kilojoules) to raise the temperature of a litre of water by 1C. The body needs to heat water to body temperature (36.8C). The difference between the temperature of iced water and body temperature means you'll burn 36.8 calories (154 kilojoules) "warming up" a litre of iced water.
Supping two litres, therefore, is enough to burn off roughly half a bar of chocolate. At least, that's the theory.
Fidget
A recent study at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota found that one of the biggest determinants of who is overweight and who is skinny was the level of non-exercise activity thermogenesis, better known as fidgeting or pottering.
Obese subjects burned 1464 fewer kilojoules a day than leaner ones simply because they were more inert. The leaner folk wiggled, stood, walked and constantly changed position.
Eat more protein
Ten per cent of the calories we consume are used up in digesting what we've eaten. It's called the thermic effect of food.
"Contrary to popular belief, though, this doesn't mean that frequent small meals are more advantageous than one large meal," Symonds says.
But meal content might increase your metabolism - because not all nutrients have the same thermic effect.
"About 25 to 30 per cent of the calories derived from protein are used up in its metabolism," she says.
Compare that with 6 to 8 of every 100 calories of carbohydrate and just 2 to 3 of 100 fat calories - and ensure you include good-quality protein in every meal.
Use your cycle
Not the two-wheeled one in the backyard - your monthly one. "Basal metabolic rate fluctuates throughout a woman's menstrual cycle," says Patricia Symonds, a lecturer at Atlanta's Emory University.
"[The rate] tends to be at its lowest a week before ovulation, and research has found an 8 to 16 per cent rise in energy expenditure during the 14-day period following ovulation [the luteal phase]."
Research from Ohio University shows that exercising in the luteal phase, when progesterone and oestrogen levels are high, burns more fat than at other times.
Frontload your day
Metabolic rate is shaped like an ice-cream cone - highest in the morning, declining gradually through the day. Most of us, however, eat lightly in the morning and scoff larger meals as the day wears on.
A study in the American Journal Of Clinical Nutrition revealed that starting the day with a meal boosted resting metabolic rate by 10 per cent, while other research showed that people who skipped breakfast or lunch and ate most of their calories in their evening meal had lower metabolisms than "frontloaders."
Exercise more often
"Metabolic rate can increase as much as 15-fold during strenuous exercise," Symonds says. "And it doesn't return to normal the second you stop.
"In fact, the post-exercise elevation in metabolic rate, known as the afterburn, can make a significant contribution to overall daily energy expenditure."
The Guardian