HOW TO FIRE UP YOUR METABOLISM AND KEEP THAT FIRE L I T!

When it comes to wanting to lose weight and shed a bit of excess fat whether that’s for health reasons or aesthetic goals, your metabolism plays a key role. It can either work for or against you and in favour of making it our best friend and helping us in our fat loss journey, we’ve found out the main boosters to fire it up and keep it burning hot!

Your metabolism will vary slightly from day to day but by incorporating these ways to manage and maintain a healthy, speedier rate at which it runs, weight loss and weight maintenance will sure as hell be easier.

Movement

Unsurprisingly, movement comes in as a major contender in the metabolism boosting race. The more you move, the more energy your body uses up and the more calories you burn. Moving and living an active lifestyle is a sure set way to keep the metabolism up both during the movement and when you’re in rest mode.

Increasing your daily movement can be done so easily, with a few simple changes. Take a moment to think about your daily routine and how you can make it more active. Whether that’s simply taking the stairs instead of the lift, adding more steps into your commute, or squeezing in more non-time consuming workouts regularly such as our classes. Movement is movement, it doesn’t have to be intensive but obviously, the more intense, the more energy is needed and the more you increase your metabolic rate!

Add in some weights

Although any movement is good movement when it comes to increasing your activity, adding weights into your workout routine is an effective way to fire up that metabolism further. Muscle that can be built at a quicker pace through lifting and working with weights, is a metabolically active tissue (i.e. always on) meaning that even when you’re just sitting around and chilling, it is annihilating calories. If you’re a beginner to weights, start in the comfort of your own home by incorporating our dumbbells to your Boxx workouts!

Ditch the diets!

Fad dieting and extreme food restriction really isn’t the way to make your metabolism work in your favour. When you restrict your eating and dramatically cut the number of calories you consume, your body goes into starvation mode. This slows the metabolism down and means your body stores excess calories, instead of burning them. Remember, to lose weight and burn fat, it isn’t just about what you can cut add, it’s about what you can add in. Rather than focusing on cutting, think about replacing. Instead of not having the mid-morning biscuits or late night bar of chocolate, what healthier option can you have that satisfies that same sweet-tooth craving instead?

Eating too little calories can cause the metabolism to slow down so eating regularly and frequently throughout the day is an important part of the metabolic equation to keep it in energy burning mode. If you don’t feel too hungry, just grab a light snack! Eating every 3-5 hours is recommended to keep your metabolism functioning effectively.

Start your day with protein

Lean protein burns twice as much fat as fats and carbs so opting for a more protein heavy first meal of the day is a good way to get that metabolism firing!

Foods to add…

Spice up your life - chilli flakes, cayenne pepper, paprika…any spice you like, start adding!

Dark chocolate (the higher the cacao percentage, the better!) - in case you needed another excuse to indulge in a couple of squares of dark chocolate, here is another ;)

Cinnamon- sprinkle over your oatmeal, yoghurt, or other sweet snacks. We can’t get enough of this sweet spice at the moment!

Lessen the stress

Among the many negative effects increased stress levels can have on the body, slowing down your digestion and the rate at which it metabolises food is one of them. To keep your metabolism running strong and to avoid craving the fattier and more sugar-dense foods that we tend to crave when we are stressed, controlling and lowering our stress levels where we can is essential.

Some of our top tips for reducing stress daily include physical movement, deep breathing, meditation, a balanced diet and making sure we are getting at least 7-8 hours sleep a night. A good reminder to ourselves that we cannot control everything and that worrying about things that haven’t even happened yet is a waste of our energy also helps us in times when we can feel those stress levels rising!

Image by - @fitxkendall