By nature, most of us can be impatient when waiting for results. This is no different during our weight loss journey. We are looking to have our dream body as of yesterday! Am I right? Well I have some good news. There are some scientifically proven ways to help speed up the process. To a certain extent, you can manipulate your metabolism and hurry your results along.
1. MOVE smart:
LIFT WEIGHTS! (or anything that builds muscle mass)
When you build muscle you are increasing your BMR. This means that the more muscle mass you have the more calories your body burns while sitting at your desk!
HIIT!
Alternating between high intensity intervals and low intensity intervals in a 10-30 minute workout can help increase your metabolic rate. If completed properly, HIIT an ‘afterburn effect’, which means that you will continue to burn calories at a higher rate hours after your workout. This differs from steady state, moderate intensity exercises such as running, where the calories you burn during the exercise is your lot. So say you go for a 30 minute run you could burn 300 calories, but not more after that.
WALK ABOUT!
Just because you killed a workout this morning doesn’t give you the license to sit around all day. Up your daily activity (and metabolism) by walking around every couple of hours.
2. EAT smart:
WATCH YOUR PROTEIN
Complement the above actions by paying some attention to your protein intake. I’m referring to high quality protein sources. Lean protein from chicken, beans and pulses. Not from protein-enhanced chocolate bars.
You need protein for a host of reasons and the relevant one here is muscle repair. Your body needs protein to recovery after a workout. However the body is very smart so if it doesn’t get the protein from food, it will break down your muscles to support bodily processes. And lower muscle mass is the opposite of what you need.
2. DRINK smart:
COFFEE
Caution: please avoid if you have digestive issues.
If you’re looking for a reason to justify your coffee addiction, whoop here it is! Coffee has been shown to increase the metabolism. It’s ability to be absorbed into the blood steam quickly and increase your heart rate helps boost your metabolic rate, this peaks after around 3 hours.
And check out this blog on: Is coffee good or bad for you?
Water
The effects of the metabolic increase peaks after around 30-40 minutes of consumption and begins after about ten minutes.
3. SLEEP smart:
You build your muscles in the bedroom not the gym or kitchen. During restful sleep growth hormone is released which enables your muscles to grow. This is one of the many reasons as to why sleep is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle. Try to get 8-10 hours per night.
Takeaway
So there you have it 3 simple but scientific proven ways to increase your metabolism. You can even incorporate most of these methods today. But let’s clarify one key point; Nothing, I repeat nothing, will have a greater impact on your weight loss results compared to your diet. While some of the tactics listed below are relatively straight forward, they will only provide a boost to your efforts.
