5 Ways to increase or speed up a slow metabolism

Learn 5 simple steps you can follow to increase your metabolism and start burning that bodyfat you want to get the rid of.

Introduction

The ultimate goal of increasing or speeding up your metabolism is to more quickly lose bodyfat.

People who are overweight tend to have a slower base metabolism. Women generally also have slower metabolisms than men, but nonetheless, women can still take advantage of an increase in their base metabolism to lose fat. 

The trick is to speed up your metabolism in such a way that you keep burning calories while at rest. This process is known as dietary thermogenesis, or the burning of calories which would otherwise be stored as bodyfat.

You can do one or all of the following 5 things to increase your metabolism and lose bodyfat.

1. Exercise more often

Exercise more often and you’ll stimulate your metabolism. Split your workout up in 2 or 3 smaller workouts and spread those workouts out over a week; for example, train 5 times a week.

If you have a very stubborn slow metabolism, you may have to further increase your workouts by training twice a day. Be careful, though, not to overtrain.

2. Do not starve yourself

Ensure you do not lower your calories to an extent that your body thinks that you are starving it. If your body thinks that you are starving it, it will go into what’s called “starvation mode” and hold onto all the calories you eat, whether these come from protein, carbohydrates, or fat, and convert these calories to bodyfat (storage fat).

Remember, your body stores bodyfat for when “hard times” arrive, so that you will have enough energy stored (in the form of fat) to use when you don’t have anything to eat.

So, if you eat more calories than that you expend, the excess calories will be stored as bodyfat. But if you starve yourself, your body will store anything and everything you eat as bodyfat too. That’s just how the human body works; we were built to survive, in good and bad times.

You need to find the “sweet spot” for your total daily caloric intake so that you effectively lose bodyfat while maintaining muscle without starving yourself.

3. Increase your normal daily activity

Besides doing your normal workouts, you should look for opportunities to be more active during the day.

You could increase your cardiovascular (cardio) activities by going for a walk or jog, or you could do simple things like walking up the stairs instead of taking the elevator.

In addition, go for a walk after you eat. Such light exercise will stimulate and speed up the burning of calories.

The more you move and stay active, the more you’ll increase your metabolism.

4. Reduce your simple carbohydrates (carbs)

Reduce your sugar intake by avoiding things such as sweets, sodas, desserts, ice cream, and other processed foods.

A slow sustained release of energy is better to speed up a slow metabolism than a fast consumption of energy by your body. Simple carbs (including sugar) get taken up by the blood quickly, while your body takes longer to break down and take up complex carbs.

Complex carbs provide a slower release of energy to your body, which makes them a better candidate to consume compared to simple carbs.

5. Increase and/or maintain your muscle mass

Muscle tissue is active tissue, which means that it needs calories to exist. This in turn means that the more muscle mass you carry, the more calories you will burn while you are resting.

Therefore it is always recommended to try to hang onto the amount or muscle mass you have while you are losing weight, because muscle increases your base metabolism and thus helps you burn more calories.

It is highly unlikely that you will increase your muscle mass while you’re losing bodyfat, but by continuing to do your muscle building workouts, you have a better chance of maintaining the amount of muscle you are carrying.

Conclusion

Eat healthy, eat wisely, do not starve yourself, stay active, and try to increase and/or maintain the amount of muscle you have.

It sounds like a simple formula to follow, but from personal experience I know how difficult it can be to execute. If you stick with it, though, you’ll benefit from a faster metabolism and experience phenomenal fat loss results.