Metabolism Boosting 101
Your body’s potential to burn calories and fat is completely dependent on your metabolism. So how do you get your metabolism to run on hyper-drive so you can burn fat like crazy?
To start, it’s imperative to know that your metabolism is essentially the sum of all chemical reactions occurring in your body, and the more that’s happening, the more energy your body needs, which is why your metabolism is related to how effectively you burn fat.
There are 2 main aspects of your metabolism that you need to think about when it comes to burning fat and losing weight:
- Resting Metabolism – This is your body’s ability to burn fat and calories when at rest. You can sort of think of this as your baseline – this is the minimal rate of metabolism your body can engage in. This is the aspect of metabolism that is most affected by genetics and lean muscle mass. The more muscle you have, for example, the higher your resting metabolism (and this is why weight training is so important to fat loss).
- Metabolic Potential – Your metabolic potential is essentially how high you can rev things up, or how fast you can get your metabolism moving to burn even more fat and calories. This is the aspect of metabolism that is most influenced by physical activity (including cardiovascular exercise) and diet. Although effective for weight loss, the impact on your metabolic potential is much more temporary compared to your resting metabolism.
How to Speed Up Your Metabolism
With this in mind food and how you train are the critical factors impacting both your resting metabolism and your metabolic potential. In order to increase your lean muscle mass you’re going to have to train with weights and also implement interval training (click here to learn about high intensity interval training).
But in addition to that utilizing a diet which boosts your metabolism in conjunction with your training, let’s look at 7 nutrition tips to help you burn fat like crazy:
1. Spices – If you can handle the heat, spicy foods do a great job at boosting metabolism and burning extra calories. Things like cayenne pepper, chili powder, and even cinnamon are all great metabolism-boosting additions to your diet.
2. Tea – This one’s pretty widely discussed nowadays, but it can’t be overlooked. Many teas, like green tea and chai tea, are fantastic metabolism enhancers and can actually suppress your appetite (besides burning away the fat). For the most extreme boost possible, try adding click here to learn about high intensity interval training to your diet.
