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Do you think you have a low metabolism? Are you unable to lose weight and are you looking for a quick and easy way to increase it? All you need is a five minute break to read this article carefully.
Metabolism is the set of biochemical and energetic processes that take place inside our organism; these reactions have the purpose of extracting and processing the energy contained in food, and then allocating it to satisfy the energy and structural demands of the cells. A fine regulation mechanism balances all these metabolic reactions, based on the actual availability of nutrients and cellular requests.
The existence of living organisms therefore depends on the introduction of a sufficient quantity of energy and matter to satisfy metabolic needs, commonly referred to as nutritional needs. In turn, these requests are closely related to the daily energy expenditure: the more calories are burned and the more calories must be introduced. We come to this point to give a simplistic and alternative definition of metabolism:
- metabolism is the rate at which our body burns calories to meet its vital needs
from this definition we deduce that:
- to speed up our metabolism we simply have to increase the vital needs of our body, increasing energy expenditure
Daily energy expenditure is mainly influenced by three factors: basal metabolism, diet-induced thermogenesis and physical activity. Efforts aimed at increasing metabolism must focus on these three components.
Basal metabolic rate is the minimum energy expenditure necessary to maintain vital functions and a state of wakefulness. As shown in the figure, in a healthy and sedentary individual the basal metabolism represents about 60-75% of the total energy expenditure.
The increase in lean mass and physical exercise is a strong stimulus for metabolic activities. The more muscles we have and the more calories we consume during the day, regardless of age, thyroid function and level of physical activity. Muscle, in fact, is a living tissue, in continuous renewal and with much higher metabolic demands than adipose tissue. (almost ten times). If you want to calculate your basal metabolic rate or learn more about the topic you can refer to this article: Basal metabolic rate
A better muscle tone helps to burn more calories even during physical activity. While we do sports our metabolism increases considerably and remains elevated even for several hours after the end of the workout (up to 12 hours after a particularly intense activity). to accelerate the metabolism as much as possible, it is advisable to perform a "mixed activity, characterized by high intensity work (toning exercises with weights, with machines or free body) followed by an" aerobic activity such as running, cycling or duration swimming.
Muscle exercises indirectly increase metabolism thanks to the increased secretion of anabolic hormones and the consequent accumulation of muscle mass
Resistance activities greatly accelerate the metabolism during exercise, keeping it elevated even for 4-8 hours; on the other hand, they have a modest effect on the basal metabolism since they tend to leave the muscle mass unchanged.
The combination of these training techniques allows to significantly increase the metabolism, building muscles rich in capillaries and mitochondria.
To speed up your metabolism remember to:
- Do at least two or three workouts a week lasting no less than 40 minutes.
- Alternate aerobic activities with toning exercises, session after session or within the same training session (in this case it is better to start with strengthening exercises and end the session with not excessive aerobic work) See: How to integrate weight training and aerobic activity.
- "Go hard" with weights and in general with all toning exercises. The high intensity training is in fact a very powerful stimulus for the secretion of anabolic hormones; it will hardly transform the reader into a bodybuilder, but it will still contribute to significantly accelerate his metabolism.
- Change your training program frequently, in order to facilitate the metabolic adaptations necessary to deal with the new stress.
- When doing aerobic exercise, try to keep a steady pace, without stopping or giving yourself too long breaks. Exercise at a heart rate around 70-75% of your HRmax for at least thirty minutes. Instead, avoid sessions that are too long, especially if you don't have an adequate physical condition.
- If you have little time to devote to sports, adopt smart solutions: park a few hundred meters further away, take the stairs on foot instead of taking the elevator, use the broom instead of the vacuum cleaner. These are simple tricks, but they too help speed up your metabolism.
- During the day, try to actively contract your muscles: flatten your stomach, clench your fists, move your legs, contract your quadriceps. These spontaneous contractions, which we often do not pay much attention to, contribute significantly to accelerate the metabolism, so much so that they are typical of thin and hyperactive subjects, while they are much less observed in the obese.
To know the caloric expenditure of the various sports you can refer to this article: Calorie consumption and sport calculator
CONTINUE: Increase metabolism with diet "
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