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Can I Really Speed-Up My Metabolism?

Tuesday, February 20, 2018 Fitness Tips & Advice Nutrition & Diet Advice How To Lose Weight
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You know how it goes; life is just unfair. Some people seem to be able to gorge an endless amount of pizza and cake and stay lean, while the rest of us feel every single thing we eat.

Metabolism, or metabolic rate to be exact, has a lot to do with that. And if you’re interested in losing weight, figuring out how to master your metabolism is key.

So, how can you speed up your metabolism - right now, in the short term, and in the long term?

Immediate

  • Boost your metabolism by eating protein. Diet Induced Thermogenesis (DIT) is a term used to describe how much energy is spent dealing with food. Protein has the highest DIT value, meaning your metabolic response will be higher right after a protein-rich meal.
  • Drink more water. Strangely enough, drinking water seems to affect metabolism. A 2007 study found that drinking 500ml of water caused a 24% increase in energy expenditure for 60-minutes.

Short-term

  • Do some high-intensity weight training. A 2012 study published in the Journal of Translational Medicine found that a high-intensity resistance training session raised resting energy expenditure more than traditional resistance training, for at least 22 hours after exercise. To increase the intensity of your workout, keep rest times to approximately 20 seconds or less and lift explosively and quickly.
  • Do some sprint intervals. HIIT gets credited with having many different benefits, but it turns out that even just 2-minutes of sprint interval training may increase metabolism for 24-hours, similar to 30-minutes of steady state cardio, according to one 2012 study.

Long-term

  • Build some more muscle. Building muscle may take a while, but there are serious benefits to getting started as soon as possible. One such benefit is that lean body mass is the main factor that affects basal metabolic rate. In other words, the more muscle you’ve got, the more energy you burn just by existing.
  • Fix your sleep routine. Sleep is essential for every function of the body, but in today’s always-on digital world, far too many of us struggle to get by on less sleep than we need. In a world of Netflix and YouTube, virtually everyone seems to have a messed up circadian rhythm. As noted by a 2010 review in the International Journal of Endocrinology, sleep deprivation has major negative effects on metabolism. Getting more shut-eye might be the key to speeding yours up.

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