How to Speed Up Your Metabolism

Speeding up your metabolism¹ can really aid in your weight loss efforts, but how fast or slow it is depends on many factors, including age and gender. The higher it is, the more calories you’ll burn, and therefore the easier it will be to lose weight – and keep it off. It can also give you more energy day to day. So, how can you speed up your metabolism? Here we explore some simple methods including which foods speed up metabolism and how to speed up your metabolism naturally so that you can reach your weight loss goals in a healthy and sustainable way.

What is metabolism?

Metabolism is a term that describes all the chemical reactions your body carries out that keep you alive and functioning. This includes the process by which your body converts what you eat and drink into energy².

Metabolic rate is the number of calories you burn, which is often used interchangeably with metabolism, and is what we’re really talking about here. The higher this is, the easier it will be to lose weight, and understanding this is key to understanding how to speed up your metabolism.

What determines your metabolic rate?

Your metabolism will be determined by a number of individual factors. For example, men tend to burn more calories than women, even when at rest. Additionally, if you’re asking how to speed up your metabolism after 50 or even 60, the answer will be different than if you are 15 or 16, since age play a large part in determining your metabolic rate.

Your body needs energy for essential functions, such as breathing, circulating blood, adjusting hormone levels, and growing and repairing cells. The number of calories your body uses to carry out these basic functions is known as your basal metabolic rate, or what we typically call metabolism.

The factors that determine your basal metabolic rate include:

• Body size
  • People who are larger, or have more muscle, tend to burn more calories
• Sex
  • Men tend to have less body fat and more muscle
• Age
  • Your metabolism slows as you get older, as the amount of muscle tends to decrease and fat accounts for more of your weight

However, how many calories you burn a day is also determined by:

• Thermogenesis (digesting, absorbing storing and transporting food burns calories)
• Physical activity (workouts, walking, cleaning, etc.)

How to boost your metabolism

While your metabolism will largely be determined by factors outside of your control, there are things you can do to give it a boost. Here are some of the best ways to speed up your metabolism using simple methods that you can factor into your daily routine.

1. Build muscle

Even when you’re doing nothing at all, your body is burning calories. Want to know what helps to speed up metabolism? Burn more through exercise! Those with more muscle have a much higher resting metabolic rate: every pound of muscle uses about 6 calories a day just to sustain itself, while each pound of fat burns only 2 calories daily.

Focus on strength training and lifting heavy weights to build muscle. Ensure you hit all muscle groups – don’t skip leg day!

2. Eat more protein

Protein is the most important macronutrient when it comes to weight loss and building muscle. A high protein intake boosts metabolism, reduces appetite and changes several weight-regulating hormones³.

As mentioned, processing food burns calories, known as the thermic effect of food (TEF). Protein has a much higher thermic effect (20-30%) compared to carbs (5-10%) and fat (0-3%).

This translates to = going with a thermic effect of 30% for protein, this means that 100 calories of protein only end up as 70 usable calories. Due to this and other factors, protein can boost metabolism, making you burn more calories – even during sleep. Understanding which foods speed up metabolism is important, so load up on healthy, protein-rich meals whenever you can.

3. Try HIIT

If you want to learn how to speed up your metabolism to lose weight, then HIIT (high intensity interval training) is a great place to start. HITT involves quick, intense bursts of exercise and activity, and can increase your metabolic rate even after you’ve finished your workout, helping you burn more fat.

High-intensity aerobic exercise delivers a longer rise in resting metabolic rate than low, or moderate-intensity, workouts.

4. Drink more water

Drinking water instead of sugary drinks is key for losing weight and keeping it off – staying hydrated is essential! It can also temporarily speed up your metabolism, as it was found that drinking (0.5 liters) of water can increase resting metabolism by 10–30% for about an hour.

This calorie-burning effect may be even greater if this water is cold, as your body uses energy to heat it up to body temperature–making it one of the easiest answers to the question of how to speed up your metabolism

5. Spend less time sitting

Stand up more! Compared to sitting, an afternoon of standing up at work can burn an extra 174 calories. Sitting too much is also bad for your health, and making good use of standing desks or simply getting up more often and walking around the office are among the best ways to speed up metabolism.

6. Eat spicy food

If you’re asking how to speed up metabolism with food, look at the spicy options on the menu. Thanks to natural chemicals, spicy foods can kick your metabolism into a higher gear and temporarily speed it up. Try adding red or green pepper to pastas, chilis and stews. Eating a healthy, balanced diet doesn’t need to be boring or flavourless, in fact, it can be quite the opposite.

7. Get enough sleep

Most adults need 6-9 hours of sleep a night⁴; a lot of us don’t get that much. But, lack of it can derail your weight loss efforts – and even lead to weight gain. Getting the right amount of quality sleep then, is a key factor in understanding how to speed up metabolism permanently.

Sleep is like nutrition for the brain, without enough of it, you’re more likely to reach for unhealthy, high-sugar food options to give yourself energy. Plus, too little sleep triggers a cortisol spike. This stress hormone signals your body to conserve energy to fuel your waking hours (hang onto fat)⁵. Too little sleep also wreaks havoc with your metabolism and makes you less likely to lose weight.

8. Drink green tea

Another way to learn how to speed up metabolism with food is to look at what you drink. Green tea is low in calories, but some studies have found it has a number of metabolism-boosting properties as well. Oolong tea can have the same effect. Essentially, it can temporarily rev up your metabolism and promote fat burning.

9. Drink coffee

The caffeine found in coffee can boost metabolism by 3–11% in the short-term. Like green tea, it also promotes fat burning. It can also help you feel less tired and give you more energy, which can be particularly beneficial for workouts.

10. Avoid crash dieting

We get it: it’s tempting to want to lose weight as quickly as possible. But, you should resist the temptation to crash diet, which is typically a very low-calorie diet, where you eat very restrictively for a short period of time⁶.

However, while this approach can promote rapid weight loss, a lot of this will be muscle, which can slow down metabolism. Since eating this restrictively is unsustainable, when people come off the diet, the weight can go back on very quickly. Sometimes, people end up heavier than when they started. This can lead to a pattern of yo-yo dieting, which can damage your metabolism and lead to long-term poor physical and mental health.

Particularly if you want to understand how to speed up slow metabolism, crash dieting and yo-yo dieting are important factors to consider in your long-term weight loss goals.

Focus on healthy habits

Follow a balanced diet and move more: that’s the unsurprising secret to losing weight. Boosting your metabolism can help you along the way, and make you more likely to keep the weight off. Focus on building habits you can maintain for the long-term, like finding an exercise you enjoy and implementing some of our suggestions on how to speed up your metabolism healthily and naturally.

For more information on speeding up your metabolism and reaching your weight loss goals, explore the XLS blog today.