Metabolism

If you have slow metabolism that might affect your weight and cause you problems with losing or gaining weight, but do not despair. There are several things that you can do to improve your metabolism and lose calories faster. But first, let’s see what metabolism refers to.

Definition

Metabolism is actually process in the body that includes enzymes and hormones, which are responsible for energizing your body and burning calories. There are differences in metabolism functioning among people. How active metabolism will be depends on the age, gender, muscle mass, weight and genetics. The older the people are, the slower their metabolism is. Also, women generally have slower metabolism than man. People who are overweight have faster metabolism, which we can see because they can lose weight fast at the beginning of a diet, but later on, after they have lost some weight, it becomes much harder to get rid of the extra pounds.

How to boost your metabolism

Here are few tips on how to make your metabolism as fast as possible. Exercises, especially, aerobic ones, can help you make your metabolism more active for a longer period of time. You should also work on building more muscle mass in order to burn more calories. When your muscle mass increases, your metabolism is faster even when you rest. Studies show that training for development of strength and size of muscles has longer influence on metabolism than aerobic exercises.

Frequent meals

It is very important to eat proper food and to have frequent meals, because each time you eat, your metabolism is at higher rate, while if you don’t eat, your metabolism slows down. Meals should be frequent, but in limited amounts, because many researches show that this way of dieting gives the best results for metabolism.

Food that helps

Everything we eat will boost our metabolism, especially right after the meal. However, it’s good to know that the digestion of proteins takes more energy than digestion of carbohydrate food. That is why it is better to have high protein snacks. Specific food, such as hot and red pepper, can improve metabolism for a short time after eating it, while the effects of red pepper are short lasting. Green tea is also efficient in improving metabolism, as well as hot pepper. But if we want to see the results, it will take a lot of time and a lot of green tea, so it is better to turn to workouts, proteins and general activity.