As you get older, one of the things you tend to learn about your own body is just how important your metabolism is for maintaining it. Your metabolism is, to put it simply, your body’s process of turning fat into energy. Improving it can help you burn calories more efficiently, which not only helps you improve any weight management efforts you might be undertaking but can also improve your energy levels in day-to-day life. However, a lot of people may incorrectly think that their metabolism is out of their hands, especially is it tends to slow once we get older. However, there may be a lot you can do to give it the boost it needs.
Build Some Muscle
One of the biggest mistakes you can make if you’re trying to burn fat is to only do cardio exercises. While you might feel like you’re working off those calories, the truth is that your efforts are going to be much more effective if you combine them with strength-building exercises, as well. Lean muscle mass is a lot more metabolically active than fat, meaning that it burns more calories even when you’re resting. Regular strength training, from weightlifting to body weight exercises or resistance band workouts, can help you build muscle so long as you’re getting enough protein in your diet.
Get Plenty Of Protein In Your Diet
Aside from helping you build muscle, as mentioned above, ensuring that your diet contains enough protein supports not just muscle maintenance and growth, but also the process of thermogenesis. This is the rate at which your body burns calories during digestion. Everything you eat has something called the thermic effect of food, or TEF, and protein has the highest TEF of all macronutrients. Effectively, your body takes more energy to digest protein, and keeps your body’s metabolic rate high, even when you’re on a calorie-restricted diet. From lean meats to fish, eggs, legumes, Greek yoghurt, and plant-based proteins, make sure that you get your body’s share of this macronutrient.
Hydration Is Essential
While it may be no surprise that water intake is vital for any kind of healthy lifestyle, you might not be aware of the metabolism-boosting effect it can have, as well. Water is required for nearly all cellular processes, including energy production. Even mild dehydration can slow down metabolism by impairing cellular efficiency. What’s more, there are some studies that have shown that cold water, in particular, can increase your metabolic rate slightly. This water-based thermogenesis sees your body burning energy to heat the water you drink to body temperature. On the other hand, high-calorie drinks like soda and juice can have the opposite effect, slowing your metabolism and giving you more calories to have to burn in the first place.
Consider Biohacking Strategies
Looking beyond your diet alone, you could ensure that you have the right balance of micronutrients and bodily substances to improve your body’s performance. Biohacking is all about making use of and maximising your body’s performance through strategic habit changes, often involving the use of supplements. A lot of research is being put into compounds like Ibutamoren, a substance that may improve the body’s production of growth hormone. You can buy Ibutamoren online for research purposes, currently, but its full effects as a potential supplement aren’t fully understood yet. However, improving your body’s growth hormone production could lead to improved muscle growth, fat metabolism, and even cellular repair, which could help with more lean mass gains when combined with efforts like resistance training.
A Good Night’s Sleep
On a slightly more traditional angle, a lot of people are surprised to find that sleep quality can have just as deep an impact on their metabolic health as anything else. If you don’t get a good night’s sleep, then your body can have reduced sensitivity to insulin, may not produce enough hunger hormones to stimulate your appetite, and can increase levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. All of these can slow your body’s metabolism and cause it to store fat more stubbornly. Research suggests that even partial sleep deprivation can lead to decreased resting energy expenditure and reduced physical activity levels due to fatigue. Chronic sleep issues may contribute to insulin resistance, weight gain, and hormonal imbalances that impair metabolic function. As such, ensuring 7-9 hours of deep, restorative sleep every night is crucial.
Try HIIT
One form of exercise that’s becoming increasingly popular as of late is high-intensity interval training, also known as HIIT. This is a type of cardio exercise that sees you pushing your body in bouts of intense effort, interspersed with short periods of recovery. This technique has been found to elevate the heart rate much more effectively, which can kick the body’s energy-burning systems into high gear. As such, it tends to be much better at burning calories and stimulating your metabolism than more measured and longer cardio exercises. In fact, HIIT can lead to what is called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC), where the body continues to burn calories long after the workout has ended to return to its resting state. HIIT also helps preserve lean muscle mass while promoting fat loss, which keeps your resting metabolic rate elevated.
Maintain A Healthy Eating Routine
Although you might think that limiting your caloric intake works best by skipping meals or going on a crash diet, you could be setting yourself back by actively sabotaging your metabolism. Your metabolism is best supported by consistent, regular meals. Eating every 3-5 hours keeps your blood sugar levels stable, maintains your energy levels, and stops the effects of hunger from tempting you into overeating later. That said, eating regularly doesn’t mean snacking or having larger portions, as the fat gain and calorie intake can slow your body’s ability to burn energy well.
Whether you’re trying to burn as many calories as you can or you’ve just been feeling a little tired lately and want to get your energy levels back, the tips above can help you take your metabolism into your own hands.
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