When it comes to losing weight (and keeping it off long term), simple ways to boost your metabolism is a question that pops up reasonably frequently. And why wouldn’t it? Your metabolism plays an important role in the amount of weight you’ll lose while on a diet, making it a rather important series of chemical reactions! So what is your metabolism, why is it important and most importantly, how can we make sure it’s working optimally?
What is it?
Simply put, your metabolism is a collection of chemical reactions that takes place in our bodies cells. These reactions are responsible for converting the food we eat into the energy we need to function. Without that energy, our bodies wouldn’t be able to perform the simplest tasks i.e. walking, thinking or growing. Our bodies, being the nifty things that they are, perform thousands of metabolic reactions at the same time to keep everything running smoothly.
Why is it important?
Apart from our metabolism supplying us with the energy we need to function on a daily basis, it plays a role in our body composition and indeed the way we gain and lose weight over our lifetime. Eating regular, healthy meals and including exercise in our daily routine keeps our metabolism ticking over. Things like starvation end up slowing down our metabolism as it panics and goes into survival mode, slowing right down to conserve the fuel it has left.
What’s muscle got to do with it?
When talking about metabolism, you’ll usually hear the phrase ‘muscle mass’ thrown around. This refers to the way our metabolism works in partnership with the amount of muscle we have in our bodies. The more muscle we have, the more efficiently our metabolism will work and the more calories it will burn, even without exercise. If you complete regular resistance training, your metabolism will continue firing and you’ll continue burning through calories, even while resting.
Feeding your metabolism
The food we eat, and more importantly, when we eat it also has an important role to play in maintaining our metabolism. As previously mentioned, starvation or a very low calorie diet, leads to your metabolism grinding almost to a halt. Conversely, eating the right foods, regularly has the opposite effect and can keep the fires of your metabolism burning all day long.
Top 10 metabolism boosting foods
While a single food isn’t going to cause a huge increase to your metabolism, adding certain ingredients to your diet can have a positive impact. Try one (or more) of the below on your plate on a regular basis for an extra kick to your weight loss.
- Blueberries
- Almonds
- Salmon
- Spinach
- Oats
- Green Tea
- Greek Yoghurt
- Eggs
- Chilli
- Cinnamon
If you are ready to lose weight then the Lose Baby Weight plans offer a healthy and safe exercise and diet routine.
And don’t forget to check out our current promotions and discounts page to see what specials we have on this week on our Healthy Mummy product range
