Can you really boost your metabolism?
As a weight loss nutritionist, I’m often asked for ways to ‘boost a slow metabolism’.
Now firstly, I want to state that there are factors that impact the metabolism that is out of our control which includes our age, gender, and genetics.
However, the good news is that there are also things within our control that we can do to positively improve our metabolism, which is what I’m going to share with you today.
Our total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) refers to the amount of energy or calories our body exerts throughout the day by accounting for three major contributing factors: your basal metabolic rate (energy used just to be alive), your activity level (structured and non-structured exercise) and the thermic effect of food metabolism (so the energy it takes to digest and metabolise nutrients).
By understanding these factors we can increase the number of calories/energy that our body burns, otherwise known as increasing our metabolism. Here’s how:
1. Build muscle - muscle is more metabolically active than fat, so increasing muscle mass will increase your metabolism to help you burn more energy each day, even at rest. Make sure you are including resistance-based exercises with weights or body weight at least 2x per week.
2. Reduce your sitting time and start moving! - the more you move, and I’m talking general day-to-day movement here (not an additional gym session) the more calories you will burn and the higher your metabolic rate
3. Include protein at every meal and snack - protein not only helps us to feel full and stabilises our blood sugar levels, but it also takes more calories to digest than carbohydrates and fat, in turn boosting your metabolic rate. Meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, soy-based products (tofu, temple etc) beans and lentils all contain protein.
4. Get cold! Now, this is a fairly new area of research, but we do know that the process of exposing the body to cold (be it environments or water such as ice baths) can increase our energy expenditure as a result of higher mitochondrial activity within the cells and greater brown fat levels, which ultimately increasing our metabolic rate.
