Raising Your Metabolism

One of the biggest obstacles people face as they start to get older is a slowing metabolism. Foods they could eat without putting on any weight in their teens and twenties suddenly start packing on the pounds as they get older. We all age. There’s no way to combat that. What we can combat is how our metabolism works. Speeding up a metabolism means getting better fitness and weight results with the same amount of calorie intake.

Many dieters, especially women, spent years drastically cutting their fat and calorie intake. This can cause long term reduction to their metabolic speed. “Restricting your calorie intake over a prolonged period of time will likely slow your metabolic rate,” says Elisa Zied, R.D., a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. After several years of this, your body can become accustomed to functioning on less calories, and any increase in calories can mean extra pounds. This is obviously a very damaging effect for people that may have drastically dieted in the past, thereby dramatically slowing their metabolism now.

The good news is, the damage is not necessarily permanent. There are several things you can do to increase your metabolism. The first step is to raise your activity and fitness level. When you exercise, your metabolic rate is boosted. The results are even more pronounced if you combine strength training with the cardiovascular exercise. Resistance and strength training will help build muscle, which is actually more metabolically active than fat, according to Zied. What you should do next is to slowly begin to change your eating habits, increasing your food intake parallel to your increased activity. Once you start carefully balancing your exercise with your food intake, you will be more likely to burn calories and less likely to put on additional weight.