How To Increase Metabolism? (2020)

Make A Good Night’s Sleep A Priority

Studies indicate that people who sleep less, gain more visceral fat. According to nutritionists, if you lack sleep, you become prone to a host of metabolic reactions. These include burning lesser calories, and a rise in Cortisol levels which leads to more stored fat and less control over appetite.

Not getting adequate sleep also results in impaired glucose tolerance, which relates to your body’s ability to use sugar as fuel.

Now, you may not get the recommended 7-8 hours of sleep on some nights, but make sure to catch up on your lost sleep – if you want to achieve your weight-loss goals and enhance your metabolism-related processes.

Do Not Nap

Research studies suggest that people who sleep during the day and stay awake during night-time burn fewer calories. The reason cited for this result was the disruption of the body’s circadian rhythms, which is the body’s internal clock that affects your metabolism function. 

So, if you’re looking to lose weight and have no option but to sleep through the day, try to reduce at least around 50 calories from your diet.

Eating High-fiber Beans Helps

Beans are a powerhouse of nutrients, owing to constituents such as plant-based proteins and both soluble and insoluble fiber. By digesting the fiber and proteins in beans, you tend to burn more calories. Also, both fiber types help to reduce insulin levels after digestion while causing your body to store less amount of fat.

Remaining Active Is Key

Exercising offers a variety of benefits. With a regular exercise regime, you can not only burn calories but also build and maintain muscle mass. However, the trick is to start slow and gradually increase the time and intensity of your workouts. 

A combination of strength training and aerobic exercise can help to lose weight speedily and effectively.

Develop Muscle

Even when you’re resting, your body continues to burn calories. As per researchers, 60 to 80 percent of calories of the calories you burn per day are consumed to keep you alive. 

Additionally, people having more muscle mass burn more calories while having a higher ‘resting metabolic rate’. This is because your muscles burn calories for sustenance.

With strength training sessions, your muscles are activated, which helps in raising your metabolic rate. So, consider adding strength training to your daily exercise regime.

Substitute Cooking Oil With Coconut Oil

Coconut oil comes under saturated fats but rates higher in medium-chain fats than its counterparts. With medium-chain fats, you can increase your metabolism rate more as compared to long-chain fats that foods like butter contain. In all, if you replace cooking fats with coconut oil, your metabolism rate improves.

Sip Oolong Or Green Tea

Both oolong tea and green tea can increase the rate at which your body burns fat. The nutritional compounds in these teas convert some of the body fat into free fatty acids, which increase the rate at which fat burns in your body.

Moreover, they rate low in calories and have metabolism-boosting properties, which help to prevent weight loss deadlock because of a low metabolism rate. Though some studies found that these teas do not affect metabolism and their effect could be restricted only to a few groups.

Get Your Fill Of Vitamin-D

Getting adequate vitamin-D aids your metabolism process and, in turn, your weight-loss efforts. Researchers opine that vitamin-D is vital for maintaining metabolism-inducing muscle tissues.

You can add vitamin-D sources to your diet or pop vitamin-D supplements daily – to fortify your body with vitamin-D that is. Fish (salmon), eggs, vitamin-D fortified milk, and tuna are some excellent vitamin-D sources.

Simply by soaking in the sun every day, too, you facilitate the vitamin-D synthesis process. So, consider spending time outdoors during the early morning or evening hours for enriching the body with this ‘sunshine vitamin’.

Add Nuts To Your Diet

Some research reports found that a low-calorie diet that includes nuts like almonds helps to shed weight. In addition to the monounsaturated fats in almonds that affect your insulin levels, they also satiate your appetite and you do not overeat then. 

So, consider adding nut butter, walnuts, and almonds to your diet to enjoy their linked health benefits.

Devour Wholefoods

Smoothies seem to be the new buzzword, with many people gulping down heaps of leafy greens. However, drinking only smoothies has a downside. This is because the body’s main job is to breakdown food for the body to absorb the nutrients.

And when you deprive yourself of food, your body expends less energy when compared to eating more solid foods - such as bananas, kale, and spinach.

Surely, smoothies help in losing weight, yet you should be driving your metabolism rate and expending more energy via digestion by relishing fibrous vegetables, fish, fruits, and lean meats.

Gap The Iron-deficiency Gap

Anemia (an iron deficiency) patients suffer not only from fatigue but also deteriorating metabolic health. Note that your body is not able to burn calories efficiently without the requisites - such as the iron mineral.

Conversely, if you increase your intake of iron sources to bridge the iron-deficiency gap, you shed weight while improving your metabolic parameters – including lower blood pressure and unhealthy cholesterol levels.

Some good iron sources are lentils, ground beef, iron-fortified breakfast cereals, and spinach – to list a few.

Protein-rich Diet

As seen earlier, with more muscle, you tend to burn more calories. Your gym sessions help to build muscle while eating a protein-rich that prevents your metabolic rate from slowing down.

Since the body requires more calories to break down proteins and digest as compared to other nutrients, you might want to consider incorporating protein-rich foods into your diet.

Pounded turkey, beans, hard-boiled eggs, nuts, beans, low-fat dairy, chicken breast, fish, white meat chicken, and lean beef – all are protein sources, and adding them to your diet revs up your rate of metabolism.

Whole Grains

In general, to step-up your metabolism, you must consume foods that the body works harder to digest. Now, as compared to refined and processed grains, whole grains require more energy by the body to break down.

In fact, by eating whole grains, your post-meal calorie expenditure is 50% more than consuming processed foods. So, try incorporating whole grains that are rich in fibre to your diet. These include oatmeal, quinoa, brown rice, and sprouted grain bread.

Stay Hydrated With More Cold Water

For body hydration, you must rely on water and not sugary drinks. Sugar-filled drinks contain calories and by replacing them with water, you can reduce your calorie intake. Furthermore, drinking water helps to speed up your metabolism.

With cold water, your calorie-burning effects intensify because the body expends energy to heat the water to your body temperature. Drinking water half-an-hour before meals also helps because you feel full and tend to eat less than.

For maintaining body hydration, you can also replace snacks such as chips and pretzels with fresh fruits and vegetables because they contain water.

High-intensity Workouts

Rapid and forceful bursts of activity are characteristic of High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). HIIT sessions not only help to burn fat but also rev up your metabolism rate post your workouts.

Also, HIIT rates higher in this effect when compared to other forms of exercise. Apart from that, HIIT is effective to lose weight. So, you must consider adding HIIT workouts to your exercise routine to boost your metabolism and burn your body fat.

Incorporate Spicy Foods To Your Diet

Eating spicy foods helps to kick-start your metabolism to a higher gear because they contain natural chemicals. You can add a tablespoon of sliced red or green chilli pepper for boosting your metabolic rate.

Though the effect of spicy foods is temporary, yet the benefits start adding up by eating spice-laced foods often. Add chillies and red pepper flakes to your stews and pasta dishes for a quick boost.

Black Coffee

As a coffee drinker, you can avail the related energy boost and greater concentration benefits. Also, if taken in moderation, coffee helps with a temporary rise in metabolism rate. With caffeine intake, you also do not get tired easily and can increase your endurance levels when exercising.

Crash-diets Are A Strict No-no

In the hope of quickening your metabolism, relying on crash diets backfires. Though crash diets help in shedding pounds off your weight, they do not provide the required nutrition to your body.

Besides, such diets result in loss of muscle mass, following which your metabolic rate subsides. As a result, your body ends up burning fewer calories and gaining extra weight.

Gorge On Healthy Snacks

You can store snacks in your car or at your desk to be prepared for an unpredictable day at work. By relishing snacks at frequent intervals, your energy levels remain high.

Albeit, only choose healthy snacks such as protein bars, apples, fruit bars, nut bars, protein bars, bananas, apples, unsalted nuts like almonds, and chia bars.

Consume Three Meals A Day

By eating after every few hours not only fuels the muscles but also helps in losing weight. Rather than eating three heavy meals, opt for small meals while snacking in-between. Doing so helps to reduce the amount of belly fat, which heightens the risk of heart diseases.

Add Yogurt To Your Dishes

The inclusion of yoghurt and fermented foods (such as sauerkraut and pickles) to your diet are considered helpful because they aid the healthy bacteria in your gut to process food more efficiently.

Aside from that, yoghurt is rich in both calcium and protein and, thus, considered nutritious. So, why not devour bowls of yoghurt to step-up your metabolism?

Enjoy The Benefits Of Eating Avocado

Eating Avocado is considered beneficial for various reasons. The fruit is packed with metabolism-friendly monounsaturated fats, fiber, and antioxidants. By increasing your count of antioxidants, your body is better equipped to ward-off the damage-causing free radicals.

Summing Up

To increase your metabolic rate, you only need to make small and basic changes to your daily routine. Heightening your metabolism not only helps to lose weight but also keeps it off - in addition to boosting your energy levels that is.