Accelerating Metabolism…Secrets to Losing Weight!

Hola amigos! After last weeks article on how to avoid over snacking and the consequent weight gain that ensues, I’m back this week with tips on how to burn more calories to eventually LOSE WEIGHT!!!

Metabolism, experts say, is the amount of energy or calories your body burns to maintain vital functions, or in other words metabolism is a complex network of hormones and enzymes that not only convert food into fuel but also affect how efficiently you burn that fuel. At every moment, be it sleeping, working or exercising, your body is constantly burning calories.

Not everyone burns calories at the same rate. Heredity plays a role as well as age ─ our metabolism is influenced by our age and it naturally slows at about 5% per decade after age 40; Sex ─ men generally burn more calories at rest than women; Proportion of lean body mass ─ the more muscle we have, the higher our metabolic rate tends to be; and Healthy living and correct eating

If our metabolism is slow, anything we eat per day more than what we burn will make us gain weight. Hereditary and gender characteristics, sadly we cannot control…but don’t get upset just yet! Secrets to increasing our metabolism lie in exploiting the later duo.

Here go some tips:

1-      Work Out:

Exercising, especially weight lifting, help us gain muscular weight, and the more muscle mass gained, the more energy we spend to maintain the muscle and the faster our metabolism gets. But without a balanced diet between consumption and energy expenditure, strength training offers no difference in weight loss.

2-      Drink lots of water:

Our body needs water for almost all its basic functions; with little water the metabolism takes more time to burn the calories.

3-      Don’t skip meals:

When we skip meals our metabolism is tricked into storing more energy in anticipation for the next meal. But when we acquire the habit of eating multiple meals throughout the day (small but frequent meals) our metabolism starts to burn more calories.

An important tip is to never skip breakfast because it’s the most important meal of the day. It is in the morning that our metabolism is faster and needs more energy, so if we don’t feed ourselves in the morning our metabolism will decrease the energy consumption throughout the day.

4-      Sleep Well:

When we don’t get enough sleep, our metabolism slows down to save energy. But if every night we sleep an average of 8 hours, our metabolism knows it can spend energy during the day since it will be recovered during sleep.

5-       Hormone Production:

In some cases, difficulty in weight loss might be due to decreased production of hormones by the thyroid gland, called hypothyroidism. Check with an endocrinologist to see if your hormone production is functioning properly and include foods containing potassium, calcium and magnesium in your diet! They help in the functioning of the thyroid gland:

- Foods that contain potassium are mainly fruits and vegetables like banana, pear, figs, peach, tomato, spinach and cabbage

- Foods that contain calcium like milk, yogurt, sardines, broccoli, sesame and cheese

- Foods that contain magnesium like walnuts, almonds, soya, cacao, dark green veggies, beans and whole wheat rice and grains

6-      Consume thermogenic foods:

They increase the internal body temperature thus speeding up our metabolism. Some foods like red pepper, ginger, green tea, omega-3 rich foods like salmon, tuna and flaxseeds are thermogenic! Ice water is also a thermogenic it will make the body burn more calories since your metabolism will burn more energy to warm the water to body temperature! Include more of these in your daily diet!

See you for the next hot topic about nutrition and healthy weight! Till then stay in peace and enjoy the end of summer!

Samia Khoury Dietitian