Metabolism is the process where your body burns calories throughout the day. Whatever you do, every single movement you make, you burn calories. And your metabolism is that automatic mechanism in your body that converts stored fuel (muscle, fat, and glycogen) into readily-available energy. Increase your metabolism and you'll burn more fat.
Compare your body to a machine or look at it like a machine. Machines have many parts that make up different systems with the whole. In your body, you have a variety of interrelated systems. These systems work with other systems in your body. Your cardiovascular and muscular-skeletal systems work together and are not mutually exclusive. When you do a set of repetitions with a moderately heavy weight, you are training within a certain target heart rate. Your heart pumps out blood to the capillaries and veins to process energy for activating the muscles through glucose and ATP-CP.
Your metabolism operates within these bodily systems. It is influenced by the exercises and workouts you do, the types of food you eat, the number of times you eat, and the number of calories/amount of food you eat.
You can see why the speed of your metabolism is important for purposes of losing fat and weight. Manipulate your metabolism and you can change your body composition.
In this article, you'll find quick and practical tips to supercharge your metabolism. There are 4 ways the body burns calories.
4 different mechanisms of metabolism
- thermic effect of food
- increased meal frequency
- calories burned through exercise and activity
- basal metabolic rate or calories burned through resting
Thermic Effect of Food
You burn calories for every exercise, activity, and type of movement you do. Even digesting food burns calories. This is the thermic effect of food. It takes calories to digest and some nutrients require more energy to digest. About 20 to 30% of calories you burn each day is burned due to digesting food. So when you're eating, you're burning calories.
However, your body will burn a different amount of calories depending on what you put in your mouth. Not all foods are created equally. Protein foods uses the most calories for digestion burning nearly 25 calories for every 100 calories consumed. Compare that with fats and carbohydrates where only 10 calories are burned for every 100 calories consumed.
The thermic effect for protein foods are much higher than that of carbs and fats. So you see why a lot of the popular diets (South Beach, Zone, Atkins, low carbs) out there recommend eating plenty of protein, even as much as 1.5-2 grams for every pound of body weight.
Though I don't recommend low carb diets, most people can do better by eating more protein. You increase the thermic effect of food allowing your body to burn more calories with protein ingestion. Any advantage you get by burning more calories will help you lose more fat in a shorter amount of time.
Rule #1
- Eat more protein, at least 1 gram of protein for every pound of body weight.
Good protein sources: lean meats like ham, turkey slices, chicken breasts, sirloin steak, beef, eggs (both egg white and egg yolk), tuna, salmon and all kinds of fish, nuts, skim milk.
For some more ideas of foods and snacks that increases metabolism, check out this video by diet.com,
Meal Frequency
You'll also burn more calories and increase metabolism by increasing the amount of meals you eat. Now this doesn't mean you have to eat more. Instead, split your usual 3 meals into 5-6 smaller meals and eat more frequently. By eating more frequently, your digestive system constantly stays active to digest, process, and transport the nutrients to the energy systems throughout the body. And all this requires the use of energy. The thermic effect is increased and you burn more calories.
More frequent meals also suppresses appetite and that helps with controlling your food urges and cravings. And if you're eating mostly low GI complex carbs, you're triggering a slower release of insulin allowing your nutrients to be used for energy rather than stored as fat.
Rule #2
- Eat 5-6 meals per day. You could split it into 3 large meals and 3 small snacks, 4 medium sized meals and 2 small snacks, or 6 small meals throughout the day. The main idea is to eat more often, but in smaller portions after you've calculated your calorie deficit requirement.
Calories Burned through Exercise
With proper exercising, you can maximize your calorie-burning capabilities and elevate metabolism. Whether you're walking, running, lifting weights, or holding a piece of paper, you're burning calories. The key is to finding the right intensity for exercise. Because higher intensity workouts (intensity with respect to effort) will raise metabolism for up to 48 hours and help you lose more fat in the long run.
Focus on high intensity workouts using whatever exercise modalities you prefer. It could be running, swimming, lifting weights, or doing something as simple as bodyweight exercises at home. See high intensity interval training for fat loss series for more information on how to structure high intensity workouts for your fat burning regimen.
High Intensity Interval Workouts
High intensity or HIIT workouts are simple. You just alternate short periods of highly intense exercising with short periods of rest or very low intensity exercise. That will make one circuit or interval. You'll repeat the interval several times. HIIT workouts are intense but they're also quick and quality training. The advantage is that you won't have to spend hours in the gym doing boring long distance cardio on the treadmill.
HIIT workouts take no more than 15 minutes to complete. In and out of the gym in 15 minutes and you'll lose even more fat compared to longer workouts. Take running for example,
- run fast/sprint for 30 seconds, then jog or walk or 30 seconds,
* repeat 8 times for 8 total intervals
This workout only takes 8 minutes for 8 intervals of 30 seconds sprinting followed by 30 seconds of very light jogging/walking. The sprint is the work phase and the jog/walk is the active rest phase. Your overall average speed is much higher using these 30 second intervals than if you were to run all 8 minutes at one go. The 30 seconds active rest component of the workout allows the body to recover faster for the next sprint interval. Use a stopwatch or GymBoss timer to keep track of time.
You don't have to do the running for time, you can do it for distance,
- run fast/sprint for 200 meters, then jog/walk for 200 meters
* repeat 8 times for 8 total intervals
The total distance is 1 mile of sprinting and 1 mile of walking/jogging. 2 miles total with the workout taking you around 15 minutes for the average person.
Further, you can mix and match. Do 4 intervals of timed running followed by 4 intervals of distance running. Combine both methods into a more diverse high intensity running workout. The most important factor with HIIT is to get that dose of intensity into the workout. Remember, alternate high and low intensity exercise into interval circuits.
High intensity workouts trains both the aerobic, anaerobic and endurance pathways of the energy systems. So in the end, you'll be stronger, fitter, and in much better conditioning. Do biking, swimming, elliptical, hill sprints, pushups, weights with intervals.
If you're just starting out with HIIT training, use a 1:1 work to active rest ratio, like the running workout here. Over time, you can decrease it to 2:1. Rest half as long as it takes you to do the work phase.
Interval Workouts with Weights
A weight interval session will look something like this. Take 5-6 exercises and group them together into a circuit. You end up with a full body high intensity weights circuit routine,
- squats 12 reps
- bench press 12 reps
- chinups 12 reps
- crunches 20 reps
- hammer curls 12 reps
- dumbbell tricep extension 12 reps
Do each exercise one after the other without rest. This is one circuit and should take you about 3 minutes. Then rest 2-3 minutes and repeat the interval circuit 3 more times for a total of 4 circuits. Adjust the weight for the next interval if you feel you cannot complete the suggested number of repetitions.
And you can use this same model for all bodyweight exercises. Here's an all body weight high intensity circuit routine that I've used with great success in the past,
- pushups 30 reps
- burpees 15 reps
- chinups 10 reps
- body weight squats 20 reps
- knee hugs 15 reps
- jump rope for 30 seconds
do 4 circuits and rest 1 minute between each circuit. The workout takes about 16 minutes on average for me to finish. It's quick, efficient, works the entire body, and intense. If you can't do the suggested number of reps, reduce the reps according to your fitness level. Strive to work you way up to doing more reps if your goal is also endurance.
Here's Dr. Jim Stoppani of Muscle & Fitness Magazine giving some tips on high intensity interval training,
Be creative with high intensity training. You can do all weight circuit workouts, all bodyweight workouts, or all cardio and running intervals for the week. Or you can do one on each day. Mix them up and incorporate different exercises. Have fun with it. Training is supposed to be fun once you really get into it. The options are out there. Use your imagination to come up with some tough but fun workouts you've never tried before.
The plus side is that your metabolism goes up and you lose more fat. You get to work out less, since interval workouts take less than half the time than normal workouts, and lose more fat in the process.
Basal Metabolism
More specifically, high intensity exercise elevates your basal metabolism. Basal metabolism is the rate at which your burn calories while doing absolutely nothing. This includes sleeping , napping, listening to a lecture, watching a movie, breathing, heart beating, and all autonomic/physiological processes of the body.
When you work out for 45 minutes doing cardio with low intensity, you burn around 500-600 calories. But that's only 500-600 calories for that duration of the workout. How many calories will you burn for the time you're not in the gym, the other 23 hours and 15 minutes of the day? Low intensity exercise has little no effect on basal metabolism. High intensity, as mentioned, will increase basal metabolism or up to 48 hours after the initial workout.
Metabolism management is about speeding up metabolism in the hours you're not working out. If you have to choose, always focus your workouts on high intensity workouts or at least workouts that are of higher intensity than you're used to. Refer to these articles for more information on how to make your own high intensity workouts,
Rule #3
- Do high intensity interval workouts using weights, body weight exercises, cardio, or a combination of all three exercise modalities.
Metabolism management is a total approach to fat loss involving a high intensity dose of exercise and proper dieting. The combination of eating more protein, eating more frequently, and working out with higher intensity circuit workouts will help you burn more calories and fat in much faster time than if you were to just diet with little to no exercise.
If you've been dieting for a long time and haven't seen satisfactory results, then start taking a total approach to fat loss today. Don't go around in circuits chasing for the next secret miracle pill. There are no secrets to losing weight. Start training intensely and dieting correctly to lose more fat in a shorter time.
Train Hard. Train Safely. Train Smart.
If you have any questions, comments, or any input you want to add to this article, don't hesitate to leave a message below or email me at ZQH245@gmail.com or ZQH250@gmail.com
photo credits:
goodrob13
dani-santana
Manky-Maxblack
jontunn
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