Harvard Health defines metabolism is “the combination of all the chemical processes that allow an organism to sustain life. For humans, this includes conversion of energy from food into energy for life-sustaining tasks such as breathing, circulating blood, building and repairing cells, digesting food, and eliminating waste”.
Everybody has a different metabolism. There are those who have a slower metabolism than others. The fact is that your metabolism decreases with age. As we get older, muscle mass decreases and makes it hard to keep your metabolism at the same rate. It also implies that eating the same foods in the same portion sizes as you did a few years ago will be more difficult. Because fat tend to increase with age, your body will not burn calories as effectively when your metabolism slows down.
The impact of most of these metabolic changes can be reduced through dietary and lifestyle modifications. Making the correct lifestyle and food choices can help you keep your metabolism running high.
Here are some ways to keep your metabolic rate up:
Eat PFC sparingly
All food falls into one of three nutritional pillars: protein, fat, or carbohydrate. Eating all three in moderation is one of the best ways to support your metabolism. Consuming a mix of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins every few hours will maintain stable blood sugar levels and stimulate metabolism.
Eat every few hours
Eating multiple times a day makes you feel less hungry during mealtimes, which makes you to eat smaller portions. By maintaining steady blood sugar levels, snacking frequently increases metabolism. Additionally, it increases the release of the hormone glucagon, which burns fat and decreases the levels of insulin, the hormone that stores fat. Make sure to eat healthy snacks!
Stop measuring calories
The last thing you want to do when trying to increase your metabolism is count calories. Your body responds to being deprived of energy by slowing down your metabolism, which helps it store energy. Eating healthy foods such as fresh vegetable and fruit high in fiber, proteins, and healthy fats, increase your body’s likelihood of feeling full and revs up your metabolism.
Eat a nutritious breakfast
As your metabolism will slow down while you sleep, it’s critical that you refuel your body properly with a high-nutrient breakfast. While protein consumption is essential for preserving muscle mass and reducing breakdown, amino acids require more energy to digest, which increases the calories you burn.
Hydrate
Maintaining proper hydration levels throughout the day causes your body to expend more energy and burn more calories when at rest. Maintaining adequate hydration also promotes a healthy digestive system, which helps in waste removal and detoxification.
Eat more beans
Beans are an excellent source of fiber and protein, two nutrients that cause the body to expend a lot of energy during digestion. The indigestible, zero-calorie portion of carbohydrates that gives food bulk is called fiber. Fiber causes the stomach to expand after consumption, making you feel fuller after eating less.
Eat monounsaturated fats
Since they burn fat without consuming fewer calories, monounsaturated fats aid in raising metabolic rate. They also serve as a protective barrier against sugar intake. Every meal you eat that contains fat slows down the absorption of any sugar in your bloodstream. This triggers the release of glucagon, a hormone that speeds up fat burning and stabilizes blood sugar levels for hours after eating.
Reduce stress
Cortisol is called a stress hormone because it is released in response to stress. It is released in small amounts and for brief periods of time, and activated when you are in danger. Anytime you are under stress, cortisol raises your blood sugar. This triggers the release of insulin, your hormone responsible for storing fat, which moves sugar from your bloodstream to your cells where it is stored as fat. This is how your metabolism crashes and you put on weight when you are stressed.
Get enough sleep
Studies show that sleep deprivation impacts human metabolism. People who don’t get enough sleep have trouble controlling their blood sugar, which makes them frequently hungrier than those who get eight hours every night. An individual who lacks sleep experiences a reduction in resilience and an increase in stress hormone production, which increases the likelihood of weight gain.
Work out
Your best bet for maintaining or growing muscle mass that speeds up your metabolism is weight and resistance training. It has been demonstrated that strength and resistance training have the greatest effects on metabolism.
Through the adoption of a comprehensive strategy that includes stress reduction, exercise, sleep, and nutrition, you can preserve a healthy metabolic rate as you age.
