Your metabolism is responsible for converting food into energy that your body can use to move, breathe, digest food, repair damaged cells, and circulate blood. The word metabolism also references your basal metabolic rate, which is the number of calories you burn at rest. Your metabolism can be affected by a number of factors, including age, body size, body composition, diet, physical activity, sex, medications, and health status. Here are some simple tips you can follow to boost your metabolism to support weight management and overall health.
1. Eat Protein
If you want to know how to boost your metabolism, a great place to start is increasing the amount of protein you consume at every meal. Eating food temporarily increases your metabolism for a few hours because of the extra calories required to digest and process the nutrients you consume. Protein causes the largest rise in this thermic effect of food. Eating more protein may also reduce the drop in metabolism that’s associated with losing fat because protein helps prevent muscle loss.
2. Lift Weights
A great way to boost your metabolism is to start lifting weights to build muscle. Adding muscle mass to your body can make you burn more calories at rest. This is because muscle is more metabolically active than fat. If you are losing weight, lifting weights can also help you retain muscle and reduce the drop in metabolism that often occurs with weight loss.
3. Do High-Intensity Interval Training
One of the best exercises for weight loss that can help boost your metabolism is high-intensity interval training, or HIIT. This type of exercise involves short bursts of intense exercise alternated with lower-intensity recovery periods. HIIT can indirectly speed up your metabolism by building muscle cells that burn energy at rest. This effect is thought to be greater with this type of exercise than with others.
4. Sit Less
If you want to boost your metabolism, try sitting less and standing more. Sitting for long periods burns fewer calories and is associated with a higher cardiometabolic risk (CMR). A 2018 study found that standing or stepping while working was linked to lowered CMR scores, body fat, weight, blood pressure, triglycerides, cholesterol, and insulin. If you have a desk job, try standing up and walking around for short periods to reduce the amount of time you spend sitting. A standing desk can also be helpful.
5. Eat Spicy Foods
The chemical capsaicin that gives peppers their spice is a compound that may help boost your metabolism. A study performed in 2016 found that eating peppers burned around 10 additional calories per meal. Over six and a half years, this could account for a pound of weight loss for the average-weight male. The effects of spicing up your food may be small, but it can provide a slight advantage when combined with other metabolism-boosting efforts.
6. Drink Green Tea
Drinking green tea or oolong tea may help boost your metabolism. These teas help convert some of the fat stores in your body to free fatty acids, which may increase fat burning when combined with exercise. It is thought that the way these teas affect the gut microbiome could help prevent a weight loss plateau by improving how your body breaks down fats for energy and converts excess energy into fat.
7. Sleep
Research has found that a lack of sleep for four or more nights may decrease the body’s ability to metabolize fat. There is a link between lack of sleep and a major increase in the chance of obesity. Sleep also has an affect on the levels of ghrelin and leptin, the hunger and satiety hormones. This could be why people who are sleep deprived often feel hungry and have difficulty managing weight. If you want to boost your metabolism, try getting a good night’s sleep each night.
8. Drink Water
Staying hydrated is necessary for your body to be able to function at its best. Water is also essential for maintaining a healthy metabolism and may aid in weight loss. In 2016, researchers found that drinking plenty of water could increase fat oxidation at rest. This means water may affect the metabolism, and drinking enough water might help boost your metabolism.
Metabolic Health Supplements
These are some of the best and easiest things you can do to boost your metabolism. In addition to making lifestyle and diet changes, you may also benefit from taking dietary supplements. Metabolic Health contains two well-researched extracts, bergamot and curcumin, that have been used in botanical medicine for centuries. These compounds work together to improve fat metabolism, balance inflammatory response, support glucose metabolism, and promote a healthy gut microbiome to benefit cardiometabolic health.
