How does metabolism make the difference between those who eat everything in sight but manage to stay in shape and those who barely touch their food but have trouble keeping weight off?
If you’re here, you’re probably looking for a low-effort weight loss with high returns on investment. Well, look no further because we’ll be going over how you can increase your metabolism for efficient weight loss.
This post is part of Breakaway Limit’s Ultimate Weight Loss Guide.
- Importance of Weight Loss: An Introduction
- Weight Loss Basics
- Carbohydrates in Weight Loss: Friend or Foe?
- Lipids: Do Fats Help or Hurt Weight Loss?
- Proteins for Faster Weight Loss?
- Probiotics: The Overlooked Weight Loss Aid
- Exercise: 10 Workout Tips For Weight Loss
- Boost Fat Metabolism in 10 Simple Steps
To help get a better understanding of how your metabolism works, we need to define what exactly metabolism is in the first place.
When you hear people refer to “metabolism” in the context of weight loss, it usually refers to metabolic processes that break down molecules for energy, also called catabolism. More often than not, the catabolism we are seeking to achieve is the breakdown of fat.
A higher metabolism can indeed help you lose weight, but how exactly can we achieve it for more efficient weight loss?
1. Stimulants Increase Overall Metabolism
When patients are on stimulant medications, weight loss is one of the common side effects. Their weight loss potential was substantial enough for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve some stimulant medications for weight loss.
While you probably don’t have a stash of extra prescription stimulants lying around, you certainly have access to caffeine, which is more readily available. Caffeine (found in tea or coffee) can significantly increase your metabolism after consumption.[1] However, limit additives such as sugar or cream, which may counteract its metabolism-boosting properties.
2. Exercise In The Morning Jump-starts Fat Metabolism
Exercising early in the day boosts not only your metabolism but also the breakdown of fat. After a full night’s of rest without food intake, your body is practically starving for sugar and carbohydrates.
With sugar levels at their lowest levels before your first meal of the day, your body resorts to lipids (in fat tissue) or protein (in muscles) for energy. Since exercise puts your muscles to use, your metabolism will favor fat breakdown over protein.
3. Strength Training Increases Overall Metabolism
Strength training causes muscle growth to adapt to increasing workloads on your body. Since muscle mass consumes energy even when it’s at rest, more muscle means a higher resting metabolic rate.
Strength training helps maintain muscle mass that you would otherwise lose when you’re on a diet and restricting calories. Therefore, exercising is especially important when you have a calorie deficit (and is why dieting alone usually never works).
4. Sleep
Adequate sleep can help prevent a whole host of problems, from diabetes to obesity.[2] On the other hand, sleep deprivation wreaks havoc on your insulin sensitivity and metabolism, which causes hunger and fatigue.
Correcting your sleeping habits will give your body better control over your energy metabolism, hunger, and appetite. The result is that you end up less likely to overeat, which reduces the risk of extra weight gain.
5. Meditate and Lose Weight
While not the first thing you think of when you hear the word ‘metabolism,’ one of the benefits of meditation is weight loss.[3,4]
Meditating is linked to lower levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that leads to obesity and diabetes.[5]
Meditation also trains you to be more mindful of how your body feels, including when you’re eating. Therefore, meditating has the added benefit of correcting binge-eating behaviors that can lead to weight gain.
6. Cold Exposure for Immediate and Long-Term Metabolism Boost
Cold temperatures force your body to start burning energy immediately to remain warm. When your body temperature dips below the average temperature of 98.7 degrees (F), it starts up a process called thermogenesis to generate heat.
A cold shower will shock your body’s metabolism and increase your brown adipose tissue (more on this later), which leads to a higher fat metabolism.
7. Develop Brown Adipose Tissue
Being exposed to cold temperatures stimulates the production of brown fat tissue. The body has white adipose tissue, which stores fat for energy. Its brown counterpart burns fat instead, to produce heat.
Brown fat is of interest to researchers, as it has promise for weight loss and improving insulin sensitivity.[6] As you recall, insulin controls blood sugar and can help regulate your metabolism and appetite.
8. Protein Metabolism
Ever wonder how some foods can have negative calories? The answer lies in the thermic effect of food, or the energy required to break it down. When the energy required to break down food is greater than the energy it provides, it has negative calories.
While protein doesn’t have negative calories, digesting it requires more energy than either your average carbohydrates or fat. The loss of calories from protein is about 35%. This high energy requirement not only means you’ll burn more calories to digest protein but will also increase fullness (which decreases snacking or overeating).
9. Vitamins
Vitamin D has many benefits, although its role in obesity is less known. Higher levels of the sunshine vitamin reduce abdominal fat and the likelihood of being obese, regardless of physical activity levels.[7]
Meanwhile, most of the B vitamins play a role in various metabolic processes in the body, which convert fuel into energy. Therefore, it is vital to consume adequate amounts of these vitamins to maintaining metabolism.
10. Water
Last but not least, water is essential to both human life and the body’s metabolism. Without proper hydration, many of the metabolic processes in your body could slow to a halt.
Water is required to break down large energy storage molecules like glycogen and fat into glucose and fatty acids, respectively. Then your body converts these smaller compounds into energy. Therefore, insufficient water intake will slow your metabolism and hinder weight loss.
Conclusion
Congratulations, you’ve reached the end of my weight loss guide for 2020 (for now). If you’ve made it this far, you should be well on your way to better health and achieving a healthy weight.
Weight loss is a billion-dollar industry, and for a good reason — obesity results in many diseases that increase mortality and healthcare costs.
According to the CDC, obesity-related expenses cost the U.S. an estimated $147 billion in 2008 ($175 billion in today’s dollars).
After accounting for increases in obesity rates, population, and cost of medical care (all of which increased), the compounded cost rises to an even higher number.
Don’t be a statistic; invest your time and money into better things by losing weight so you can live a longer, healthier, and higher quality of life.
Not satisfied? Let me know if I missed a topic or you’d like to see me write on another weight-loss topic that may be beneficial to you. I’d be more than happy to hear your thoughts on how I could further improve this guide.
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