How Does Metabolism Work?
All day every day your body is performing its standard functions automatically, and the rate at which is uses energy to perform these functions is known as metabolism. Even though most people don’t realise this, we are all spending energy every second of the day, our bodies never sleep, there are reactions happening right now in your heart, liver, kidneys, lungs, even in every cell in your blood, it keeps us ticking, breathing and alive.
Exercise
Exercise, in all shapes and forms, has the largest effect on your metabolism. As you perform any vigorous aerobic exercise you will elevate your metabolic rate, allowing your body to burn hundreds or even thousands of extra calories. The harder you work your body – the more calories you will burn. On top of aerobic exercise you can also try resistance training using either external weight on the bench press or rowing machine, or just your own body weight on the pull up bar and performing sit ups. If you want to lower your blood pressure, increase the strength of your muscles and bones, have more flexible joints and perform endurance activities for longer periods of time then get some resistance training into your schedule starting today. People with large muscles will burn more calories per day than the average person, this is because every pound of muscle in your body spends 50 calories each day to maintain itself. So resistance training is an excellent way to boost your calorie burning rate every day.
To learn more about effective exercises check out this article, Sit Ups.
Sleep
Because you are constantly using up your energy throughout the day it is important to get enough sleep so you can recharge your batteries overnight, plus it helps with weight loss too… If you suffer from broken sleep most nights of the week you may notice that you constantly have an increase in appetite, this is because broken sleep causes the release of a hormone called ghrelin which leads to hunger. If you don’t like the sounds of this I really recommend you aim for 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep every night. For those that have trouble actually getting to sleep in the first place try tiring out your eyes by reading a fictional book before bedtime or in bed. It’s almost impossible to sleep if your mind is on overdrive, so try clearing all those thoughts with a little meditation before you lay your head to rest.
Diet
Eat Small And Eat Regularly
Have you ever noticed how tired you get after eating a big fat meal? Try eating smaller meals spaced out ever three hours or se and you’ll notice that your energy levels will be a lot higher. Smaller meals allow your digestive system to digest the foods at a pace it can easily handle, you won’t be spending so much energy breaking down large amounts of food, most of which will be useless and will be stored as in fat cells. If you avoid skipping meals and remember to only feed your digestive system healthy food you will in turn avoid confusing the whole system, your body will work at its optimum capacity and thus reserve your energy for other purposes. I’ve seen people take action on this advice and the results they get are phenomenal, just try it out for two weeks and you’ll physically feel the difference yourself.
Don’t Restrict Your Diet
You will severely reduce your metabolism if you don’t supply your body with enough of the right type of calories. If your body lacks the calories it needs it will activate the “somatic response”. This event causes every system in your body to slow right down. The overall effect of this reaction is an erratic, random metabolic rate, resulting in muscle loss, mood swings and lack of sleep. If you just follow my advice and eat smaller meals more frequently throughout the day you will avoid this reaction and your whole body will become much more efficient at burning your stored energy reserves.
