What to do if you have a slow metabolism? 6 ways to speed up your metabolism

Aerobic exercise is the fastest and quickest way to speed up your metabolism. The most perfect effect is to exercise three times a week, 30 minutes each time, and your heart rate should reach over 130 beats per minute after exercise. At the same time, you should develop good habits of going to bed early and getting up early, eating breakfast, and drinking plenty of water, so that your metabolism will be improved.

What is metabolism?

Metabolism is the name for all the chemical changes your body undergoes to keep you alive. The process allows you to breathe, your blood to flow, your brain to function, and to get the energy you need from food. Basal metabolic rate refers to the amount of calories (calories) required daily to ensure the normal functioning of various organs when the body is in a static state. There is a direct relationship between metabolic rate and body composition.

The relationship between metabolism and dieting and weight loss

In fact, if the human body reduces its calorie intake, its metabolic rate will also decrease. The human body is a very smart energy bank. If you absorb more, it will store it (converted into fat); if you absorb less, it will reduce consumption (lower the basal metabolic rate), and may also reduce "expenditure" on organ maintenance and immune capacity. When you diet in the hope of losing weight, your body's response to your prolonged lack of calorie intake is "you are starving." At this time, your body will automatically reduce its metabolic rate, thereby reducing calorie consumption and retaining as many calories as possible.

This seems to defeat the purpose of your diet. What’s even more frightening is that once you can no longer bear the hunger and return to the calorie supply before dieting, the "lowered" basal metabolic rate will not be able to return to its original level for a while, but will cause calorie hoarding, resulting in a situation where you get fatter the more you lose weight. If you exercise more while losing weight, you can offset these changes. Maintaining a well-balanced diet and exercising will allow your body to maintain a metabolic rate that burns calories.

Breakfast kicks your metabolism into gear

If you want to speed up your metabolism and lose weight, breakfast is the most important meal of your day. According to relevant research, people who eat breakfast are more likely to lose weight than those who skip breakfast. Because when you sleep, your body's metabolism slows down and only picks up again when you eat again. So, if you skip breakfast, your body's ability to burn calories won't reach normal levels until lunch. That's why it's best to start the day with a 300 to 400-calorie breakfast that immediately gets your metabolism into "working mode."

Establish a regular sleep schedule

In addition to fatigue, lack of sleep can also lead to health problems, such as weight gain. An American epidemiological journal pointed out that if a woman sleeps less than 5 hours a night, her chances of gaining weight will increase by 32%. Lack of sleep can disrupt our body's metabolic function and slow down fat consumption. What’s worse, severe lack of sleep will cause the body to secrete more hunger hormones than normal, making us eat more.

Aerobic exercise is the fastest way to increase metabolism

Increasing the quality and quantity of exercise is indeed the most direct and fastest way to speed up metabolism, and it must be done at least "3 times a week, 30 minutes each time, and a heart rate of more than 130 beats per minute after exercise" to be beneficial to health. Don't underestimate this short 30 minutes of exercise. In addition to helping you burn calories and lose weight, the greater benefit is that after exercise, it can bring oxygen to all parts of the body, greatly increasing the metabolic rate and effectively burning fat. The effect will last for several hours. So, throw away the excuse that you don’t have time to exercise!

Daily walking is the best opportunity for exercise. You might as well take advantage of the break after lunch to walk around the company at a steady pace. You don't have to sweat profusely to improve your metabolism, help digestion and prevent constipation.

Add weight training to increase muscle tissue

Did you know? The more muscle tissue in the human body, the more calories it can burn, which speeds up the metabolism. Unfortunately, after we are over 30 years old, muscles will gradually be lost, which will lead to a decrease in metabolism. Therefore, if you want to maintain a good metabolic rate, you must exercise quickly to increase the decreasing muscle mass.

For women with less muscle tissue, weight training exercises such as weightlifting that can help increase muscle are particularly important, because increasing muscle mass can increase metabolism. Once muscle mass increases, you can increase your daily calorie consumption by 100 to 300 calories, or even more. Don’t worry that you will develop “beautiful muscles” if you do too much strength training, because the muscle tissues of men and women are different. Besides, it’s not easy to become a bodybuilder!

Drink plenty of water

Basically, just drinking more water can promote gastrointestinal motility and excrete excess toxins and waste from the body through sweating or urination, thereby accelerating metabolism. If you drink mineral water from a good water source, it will be more beneficial to your health, as you can replenish the minerals needed by the body while drinking water. The reason why some imported mineral waters on the market are called "slimming water" is not a random boast, but because they are rich in magnesium that can accelerate the metabolism of calories. Drinking more water not only does not increase calories, but also accelerates metabolism, which is really killing two birds with one stone.

Take a deep breath

Don't doubt it, the way you breathe does have an impact on your metabolism. The purpose of breathing is to deliver fresh oxygen into the lungs, and after gas exchange, expel unwanted waste and carbon dioxide from the body, thereby purifying the blood and promoting metabolism and circulation.

Unfortunately, most breathing is an unconscious reflex action. The capacity of air sent into the lungs each time you inhale is really limited. In fact, the faster the breathing rate, the smaller the breathing volume. The oxygen that is finally inhaled is sent out again before it has time to take effect. Coupled with short exhalation, the waste carbon dioxide continues to remain in the lungs, so that’s it! Instead of taking a hundred short breaths, it is better to remind yourself to take deep breaths frequently to speed up the metabolism of waste in the body.

Source: 39 Health Network www.39.net

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