10 Most Effective Ways to Boost Your Metabolism

Metabolism is all the chemical reactions happening in your body that keep you alive and functioning. However, metabolism is sometimes used in lieu of metabolic rate, or the number of calories you burn. If you have high metabolism then you burn more calories which makes it easy to lose weight and maintain it. High metabolism also provides energy that helps to make you feel better. Some people are blessed up with high metabolism while some have to work for it.

While high metabolism can be natural in some people, others struggle to increase it. Some simple things can be practiced to increase your metabolism.

Building these small lifestyle changes step by step and incorporating these tips into your rituals can boost up your metabolism.

Having a higher metabolism can assist you to lose weight and keep it off, while also proving more energy.

How to boost your metabolism?

Here are 10 easy ways to increase your metabolism.

1. Eat Plenty of Protein at Every Meal

You can increase your metabolism for a few hours by simply eating food. If you are higher in your protein intake, then you can burn more calories and reduce your appetite.

Increasing metabolism by eating food is known as the thermic effect of food (TEF) caused by extra calories required to digest, absorb, and process the nutrients in your meal. The excess rise in TEF can be seen due to protein as it increases metabolic rate by 15-30%, compared to 5-10% for carbs, and 0-3% for fats. (1 Trusted Source)

As per some studies it was found that people with protein made up around 30% of their diet, which reduces the intake of 441 fewer calories daily. Protein can promote fullness preventing overeating. If you consume more protein then you can reduce the drop in metabolism often linked with losing fat as it reduces muscle loss, a common side effect of dieting. (2 Trusted Source)

2. Drink More Cold Water

Water can be lifesaving and it has undeniable helpful benefits. Water can help you cut down some extra kilos by increasing your metabolism temporarily and reducing your appetite before meals.

Replacing sugary drinks with water can not only help you lose some weight but also improve your overall health. Sugary drinks are known for their number of calories, it automatically reduces your calorie intake when you consume water instead of sugary drinks.

According to some studies, drinking 17 ounces (0.5 liters) of water gets your resting metabolism speed up by 10-30% for about an hour. You can speed up the calorie-burning process by drinking cold water which your body heat to body temperature using its energy.

As per some studies, a significant 44% more weight loss was seen among overweight adults who consumed half a liter of water before their meals. (3 Trusted Source)

Water reduces your appetite making you full. Therefore, drinking water half an hour before you eat makes you eat less.

3. Do a High-Intensity Workout

If you want to boost up your metabolism then high-intensity interval training (HIIT) is a great option for you as it involves quick and very intense bursts of activity. Mixing up your exercise routine and adding in a few high-intensity workouts will help to burn fat.

It can higher your metabolic rate and burn fat even when you finish your workout.

As per a study in a bunch of overweight young men, it was found that they lost fat mass by 4.4 pounds (2kgs) and belly fat by 17% in 12 weeks with the help of high-intensity exercise.

4. Lift Heavy Things

Have you wondered lifting weight can be beneficial in terms of losing fat? Lifting weights is vital for building and retaining muscle. Muscle has a higher metabolic rate than fat that can help you lose weight by increasing your metabolism. An increase in amounts of muscle will have an outcome of higher metabolism which implies burning more calories daily, even while resting.

Lifting weight can help you combat the drop in metabolism that occurs during weight loss.

According to a study over 48 overweight women when placed on a diet of 800 calories each day with no physical activities like exercise, aerobic exercise, or resistance training were successful in maintaining their muscle mass by doing resistance training after the diet. The remaining was successful in losing weight but also lost their muscle mass and had to go through a low metabolism rate. (4 Trusted Source)

5. Stand up More

Always sitting idle and not moving your body at all will make you lazy and will be bad for your overall health. If you just sit the whole day and do nothing, then it will only burn a few calories. You can burn nearly around 174 calories if prefer an afternoon of standing up at work compared to sitting. (5 Trusted Source)

Investing in a standing desk is a great idea if you have a desk job that requires sitting the whole day. Take short breaks to stand up to cut down the time you spend sitting.

A long period of sitting reduces your chances of burning more calories and higher up your chances of gaining weight. Therefore, some health commentators have started calling it “the new smoking.”

6. Drink Green Tea or Oolong Tea

Green tea or oolong tea is great for boosting up your metabolism. These teas are beneficial to shred weight that occurs due to a decrease in metabolism and keep it away. If you drink green tea or oolong tea then it is proven to increase metabolism by 4-5%. (6 Trusted Source)

They are low in calories and consuming these teas is beneficial to cut off those extra kilos and maintain weight. The tea works efficiently by converting excess fat stored in the body into free fatty acids that help in increasing fat burning by 10-17%. (7 Trusted Source)

According to some sources, it is found that teas have different effects on different people and do not affect metabolism. It might work for you or won’t be effective for your body.

7. Eat Spicy Foods

Peppers are known to have a substance that can boost up your metabolism called capsaicin. Consuming spicy food can speed up your metabolism helping you balance your weight

According to one study of capsaicin, at acceptable doses, reflected 10 additional calories are to burn out after you eat peppers. If we look at it, an average-weight male can lose 1 pound of (0.5 kg) weight within 6.5 years. If you are including spices in your food, then it may only have a small effect but can be super beneficial when combined with other metabolism-boosting plans.

Some people have spices intolerance which makes it less effective as they do not consume the significant amount required for weight loss.

8. Get a Good Night’s Sleep

Every human needs you charge them to run around doing their activities the whole day. By sleeping and putting your body in the resting mode you charge it to work more efficiently. Lack of sleep has a negative impact on us. It is connected to an increase in the risk of obesity.

Lack of sleep can lower the number of calories you burn changing how you process sugar and disrupt your appetite-regulating hormones. These are generally linked to the negative effects of sleep deprivation on metabolism.

It is also associated to increase blood sugar levels and insulin resistance, both connected to an increased risk of getting diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

Lack of sleep can ignite hunger hormones called ghrelin reducing the fullness hormones leptin. Now the answers to being hungry all the time and struggling to lose weight during sleep deprivation will be crystal clear.

9. Drink Coffee

Drinking coffee can drastically higher your metabolic rate and make you shed off some extra weight. Caffeine in coffee is proven to boost metabolism by 3-11%. Green tea is also known for its benefits of promoting fat burning.

Drinking coffee can be a great way of maintaining and losing weight as it has great effects on metabolism and fat burning.

Coffee can be more effective for lean people. As per some studies, lean women were more successful in burning fat by 29% whereas obese women could only burn fat by 10% with the help of coffee. (8 Trusted Source )

10. Replace Cooking Fats with Coconut Oil

Replacing other cooking fats with coconut oil is likely to help you boost your metabolism slightly. Not like other saturated fats, coconut oil is comparatively high in medium-chain fats.

Now, what are medium-chain fats? Medium-chain fats have the capability to higher your metabolic rate more than the long-chain fats you can find in foods like butter.

Studies reflect medium-chain fats higher the metabolic rate by 12% compared to long-chain fats, which increased it by only 4%. (9 Trusted Source)

You can see moderate effects of weight loss if you replace the usual cooking fats with coconut oil which has a unique fatty acid profile.