Metabolism gets blamed when people put on weight or have trouble losing weight, but you can learn how to speed up your metabolism. Increasing your metabolism can help you burn calories, replace fat with muscle and give you more energy. The key to increasing your metabolism is understanding what exactly it is.
What is Metabolism?
Metabolic rate is the amount of energy (calories) our body burns to maintain itself. Metabolism happens in our muscles and organs and the result of it is what we commonly refer to as "burning calories". Metabolism is essentially the speed at which our body's motor is running.
Why is High Metabolism required?
The most important advantage to having a higher metabolism is that you can consume more food or exercise less to achieve the same results. A higher metabolism implies your body is expending more energy. Therefore, you can take on more energy in the form of food while maintaining your shape or even losing fat.
What factors influence Metabolism?
Your metabolic rate is determined by 3 factors:
- The rate at which your body uses energy for vital processes, such as breathing.
- The rate at which you burn energy during physical activity.
- The rate at which you burn energy during food digestion. During the digestive process, various organs (like Kidney, Liver, Intestine etc) are used. Hence keeping the organs active and efficient is the key to revving up the metabolism.
How to increase your metabolism?
- Keep the intestines working well
- Foods which load the intestine should be curtailed. Eating too much non vegetarian food makes the intestine acidic and additionally puts load on the liver.
- Maida (white flour) sticks on the intestine and prevents the nutrition from the food to be absorbed by the intestinal lining. Over several years, the gut lining becomes covered with fermenting waste products leading to growth of bacteria. This leads to problems of digestion, nutritional deficiency and water retention. Many recurrent infections of the body also occur due to the digestive tract being clogged with an unhealthy lining which promotes toxins entering the blood stream.
- To ensure intestinal health one must do a light detox diet once in a fortnight. On that day, avoid all heavy foods like meat, poultry, eggs, heavy paneer, dals (pulses), pickles, colas, churans etc. Have lots of fruits, vegetable juices, soups with herbs and a light vegetable dalia (wheat porridge) or khichdi for lunch. Try to drink lukewarm water on that day.
- Keep the liver lively, clean and charged
Liver is given a lot of importance in Naturopathy, Chinese medicine and Ayurveda. Liver is the seat of digestion and a sluggish liver will result in low metabolism, rapid fat gain, low energy, skin problem, swelling in the body/feet and stagnant weight loss. Liver can be partially detoxified by the Intestinal detoxification process mentioned above and completely by the Panchkarma process.
- Have all kinds of fiber
Fiber is slowly digested and insoluble fiber helps the body to control weight and reduce sugar levels. Fiber also pushes metabolism by its effect on the fat metabolism hormone called insulin. A lot of fibers are present in peels of fruits, oats and brown rice, dals (pulses) with outer cover like sabut moong (whole green gram), sabut chana (whole bengal gram) etc.
- Eat frequent small meals
Consuming food triggers digestion, and digestion requires calories. By eating more frequent, smaller meals, you continuously supply your body with nutrients while forcing it to digest and break down the foods. This, in turn, can have the net effect of raising your metabolism.
- Eat earlier in the day
Research has demonstrated that you can lose weight simply by eating a substantial breakfast and lunch, and a light dinner. Dinner should be eaten as early as possible, preferably at least four hours before bedtime.
- Increase Physical Activity
Aerobic exercise that increases the heart rate can raise metabolism while you're exercising. Some experts believe that aerobic exercise also boosts metabolism for several hours, as muscles burn calories to recover and repair themselves.
You can jump-start a sluggish metabolism through exercise and diet which will have lasting health benefits for you. Not only will you lose weight and gain muscle mass, but you'll have more energy to burn and you'll feel great.
