Your body is a well-oiled machine, with many moving parts and important processes that are going on inside which are vital to living day to day. All of this requires energy. Metabolism is the process in which your body takes the food and water that you consume every day, and turns it into energy.
When you “feel the burn” as you work out it’s not just your muscles becoming sore from strain, often it can be your body using the stored energy contained in your body in pockets called “fat” in order to continue the movement you desire. Ahhhh it’s all coming together now right?!
Your metabolism is one of the most important functions your body is able to do as it allows you to function and “do”! For those in the pursuit of health goals, your metabolism is your partner in crime and learning how to work your personal metabolism to your advantage will set you on the path to success of a healthy lifestyle! Here’s how!
- Get to know your (BMR)!
Everyone has their own basic metabolic rate or BMR based on their height, weight, age and gender! You can find out yours using a BMR calculator, and once you do you will know how many calories you will need to consume in a day to maintain your weight (or lose or even gain if you choose!). Your basic metabolic rate is how much your body naturally burns when it’s at rest!
- Factor in how active you are!
Since the name of the game is metabolism (i.e how much energy are we burning in a day), also take into account how active your lifestyle is which could adjust the number of calories you may have to eat in a day in order to meet your required amount (luckily caloric calculators exist as well!), that is unless your aim is to lose weight, in which case it is important to be aware that that is what you are doing, otherwise you need your fuel for the day otherwise you may feel fatigued or light-headed!
- Stay active regularly!
Your body will thank you if you stay active on a regular basis, and so will your metabolism, as it will be used to working at a faster rate on a regular basis to keep your energy up! Any cardio or aerobic activity can be employed to achieve this in addition to your daily routine, and before you know it you’ll be having little snacks all day and maintaining consistent energy levels as you burn calories all day!
- Build some muscle!
Muscles are a major place your metabolism is working to send energy to! Therefore lifting and or developing your muscles is a great way to almost overcome “age-related metabolic drop” or the challenge your metabolism has to keep up with you as you age cause stronger muscles means more energy has to be sent there!
- Be consistent!
Those who “diet” and lose a lot of weight only to gain it back later hurt their metabolism because when they lose weight they also lose muscle not just fat, but only gain fat back when they gain weight again which burns slower. Make a life-style change to consistently gain ahold on your metabolism!
- Take care just before you go to bed and when you just wake up!
If you have been consistently exercising, and have trained your metabolism to be active in day to day life, it is possible to eat a high-protein snack just before you go to bed to burn calories as you sleep! When you wake up immediately drink or eat your breakfast for the day to get your metabolism revving for the new day to come!
Learning about your metabolism is a great place to start to gain a real advantage over your health goals, and it really can be fun to think of it as your “partner in crime” so to speak as when you help it, it will help you!
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