How to Increase Your Metabolism
Increasing the body’s metabolism is essential if you want to make a healthy change for your body. The way your body breaks down important substances makes all the difference to build and maintain a healthy body. If you want to maintain your ideal body weight and feel healthy and active, here are some ways to increase your body’s metabolism.
The Body, Not the Diet
You may have heard of diets and food supplements that “help increase metabolism.” Remember that metabolism is a physical function of the body; it influences your diet, it is not influenced by what you eat. Consuming food supplements that “help promote metabolism” will not improve your metabolic rate. Food does not break itself down, but your body does through digestion.
Metabolism is not about what you take in, but how your body processes what you take in. To increase your metabolic rate, you need to focus on the body. While metabolic rates can be genetic, exercise can improve and help increase your metabolic rate to help you maintain optimal weight.
Build Muscle
Muscle mass plays a key role in increasing metabolism. Think of your muscles as your body’s furnace, where nutrients and calories from food are “burned” to sustain your body. If you don’t have enough muscle mass, calories and fats will have no place else to go but be stored in your body.
You don’t need to have washboard abs or hulking biceps to increase metabolism. Here are some ways that you can build the muscle mass needed to increase metabolism:
Exercise. Strength and endurance training can help build the muscle mass needed for your body to burn calories and extract nutrients from food. Go to the gym regularly, hit the weights, and do some cardiovascular workouts to help increase your metabolic rate.
Keep an active lifestyle. Sports and other activities also build the needed muscle mass to burn calories and to maximize nutrients taken from food.
Stay Hydrated
The other essential component in the metabolic process is water. Water helps break down many of the nutrients and calories found in food, and speeds up the metabolic process. Drinking plenty of water gives your body the fluid it needs to break down nutrients and expend calories faster. Make sure to supply your body with enough water; drink two glasses of water every meal, and quench your thirst with plenty of water.
Increasing your body’s metabolism is just one part of the many ways that you can build a healthy, active body. With these tips to help you increase your body’s metabolism, you’re just a few steps away from getting that body you’ve always dreamed of.