How to Burn Calories with Activity
June 20, 2009 by Gail Grannum
Filed under Metabolism
Everything we eat, no matter how healthy or unhealthy, contains calories. Calories in food provide the necessary energy for us to do our daily activities. In a week, we use up an average amount of calories per day. This is called Basal Metabolic Rate. To manage your weight, it’s important to know your BMR. Your BMR refers to the amount of calories you consume in order to perform your regular activities and maintain your weight.
Read Body Mass Index Defined for more information about BMR and BMI
How To Burn Calories
However, most don’t really want to maintain weight, but rather shed weight or gain weight (former more common than latter). Losing weight requires a deficit in calorie intake. We have to consume calories in a day that is lower than our BMR. To do that, we have to minimize high-calorie foods, control portios AND burn calories through exercise and activities.
There are three types of activities we can do to burn calories:
- Sports
If you already play sports, keep it up. For example, you can burn calories at a rate of 200 calories per hour playing golf? But increase the number of hours or days that you play as an hour’s worth of golf barely burns a regular latte. If you play tennis, you’d be glad to know it burn calories at the rate of 560 per hour. That’s a significant amount! Another sport that burn calories great is boxing. This can burn calories at approximately 420 per hour.
- Exercise
You can go to the gym or work out at home. By running on the treadmill for half an hour, you burn calories at a rate of 150 to 250 per hour. Try to increase the intensity by setting it at a faster pace. That will surely burn more calories. Lifting weights is also an important part of a workout regimen. You can burn 170 to 250 calories for an hour of light to moderate weight lifting. If you’re looking for something that’s not as strenuous, you can try Tai Chi, a Chinese martial art, one hour of which can burn calories at 280 per hour.
- Everyday activities
You’d be happy to know that simple everyday activities can expend those calories. Walking your dog for half an hour can burn calories at 100 to 150 per hour. So don’t break your promise of an afternoon walk with Fido; it will benefit you both. Do some sweeping inside the house or out in the driveway; a half hour will burn 120 to 170 calories for you. Carrying your baby while doing some mall shopping can burn calories at around 200 to 300 per hour. Now, there really isn’t any excuse for you now, is there?
The idea of having to burn calories with activity shouldn’t elicit a groan. When you exercise more, you grow muscles which burn calories more and raises your BMR. You should actually be happy because there are just so many things you can do on a daily basis that will help you burn calories and lose weight.
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How to Increase Your Metabolism
June 17, 2009 by Gail Grannum
Filed under Metabolism
Many people find it hard to lose weight. Often, the culprit is a slow metabolism. Metabolism is the process through which your body converts the fuel from your food into energy. This it does by burning calories. There are three components of metabolism: your resting metabolism (BMR), your physical activities, and the digestion of food. A high metabolism means that your body is burning more calories. This is why most experts recommend increasing your metabolism to lose weight. Here are a few things that can help you increase your metabolism.
Good Eating Habits and Strength Training Can Increase Your Metabolism
Improve your diet and eating habits to increase your metabolism
We have all heard about how breakfast is the most important meal of the day. This is especially true if you are trying to raise your metabolism. This is because you have already gone for about 8 to 10 hours without a meal and when you skip breakfast, your body goes into starvation mode and it begins to store excess energy as fat. In fact, this is the reason why you should not skip any meals.
The best way to boost your metabolism is actually to eat about 5-6 small meals throughout the day. This keeps your blood sugar level stable and a consistent supply of energy helps boost your metabolism.
You can also include foods that boost metabolism in your daily diet. Foods rich in protein, essential fatty acids, fibers, and complex carbohydrates increase your resting metabolic rate by as much as 2-3 times. Your body burns more calories in digesting and breaking down these foods than foods containing simple carbohydrates. This is what is known as the thermic effect on metabolism.
Also, make sure to include enough antioxidant vitamins such vitamins B and C as they are necessary for the smooth running of many functions of your body. Finally, the importance of water cannot be emphasized enough. At least 64 ounces of water each day are necessary for the efficiency of your metabolism. Or else, your body gets dehydrated, the temperature of your body drops, and to raise the temperature your body begins to store fat.
Increase your physical activity to increase your metabolism
Aerobics exercise increases your heart rate which in turn boosts your metabolism. As much as you can and, if possible, early in the morning is the best way to include a regular aerobics program into your schedule since it can help in raising your metabolism all throughout the day.
You also need to do weight training or resistance exercises at least 2-3 times a week to boost your metabolism. These exercises help in building muscles. And it is a known fact that muscles burn more calories than fat. So, a regular muscle-building program will raise your basal metabolism and help you burn more calories.
Also simple physical activities such as taking the stairs rather than the lift, taking a walk in the park, or simple stretching exercises can also increase your metabolism. The idea is to become as physically active as possible.
So, if you are having difficulties in losing weight, it’s possible that you are not doing enough to increase your metabolism. So, build muscles to raise your basal metabolism, increase your physical activities to increase the number of calories expended on them, and improve your diet and eating habits to increase the calories expended on the digestion of food. And believe me, you will surely see the difference.
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Factors Affecting Your Metabolism
June 17, 2009 by Gail Grannum
Filed under Metabolism
Metabolism is a collection of chemical reactions that helps your body get the necessary energy from food. This energy is necessary for your body to sustain its essential functions. The speed at which your body burns calories is your metabolic rate. A fast metabolism or high basal metabolic rate (BMR) helps in weight loss. And that’s not all. A healthy metabolism is necessary for the overall health of your body. There are various factors that can affect how fast or how slow your metabolic rate is. Here are some of them:
Age
Your total lean muscle mass is largely responsible for your BMR. After the age of 30, the body begins to lose its lean muscle mass. This leads to a decline in your metabolism. Expect your metabolic rate to decrease by 2% every decade after the age of 20. You can increase your metabolism by increasing your physical activity after the age of 30.
Gender
Since men have more lean muscle mass, their metabolism is higher than women. This is why women tend to gain weight more rapidly than men and need to work harder to boost their metabolism.
Height
If you are tall, your body has a higher surface area to sustain. This means that your body needs more energy than a short person. As a result, the taller you are, the more active your metabolism and the more calories you need to stay energized.
Genetics
We have all known people who do not gain weight inspite of being heavy eaters. And then there are those who end up gaining weight although they eat normally. This is because of the differences in their genetic makeup. Your BMR is inherited and there is not much you can do to change it. However, knowing your BMR will help you do the needful to raise your metabolism.
Eating Habits
Some foods increase your metabolism and some slow it down. How and when you eat are also factors which may decrease or increase your metabolism. If you eat small meals throughout the day rather than one huge meal a day, your metabolism will be more active.
Stress
If you are under constant stress and pressure, your metabolism will be slow. You can increase your metabolism by managing your stress effectively.
Hormonal balances
Different nutrients are metabolized by different hormones in the body. Correcting a hormonal imbalance can increase a sluggish metabolism.
Physical activity
Increasing your physical activity and exercising is the best way to increase your metabolism. Aerobics and working with weights increases lean muscle mass and increases metabolism. If you have a sedentary lifestyle, your metabolic rate will be slow. Any kind of physical activity requires more energy for your body. This means that your metabolism will speed up to burn more calories to produce more fuel to carry out the bodily movements.
A healthy metabolism is necessary to create new cells and tissues, maintain the body’s temperature, repair injuries, and perform bodily activities. Although there is nothing you can do about factors such as your genetic makeup and your height, a healthy diet and the right fitness routine can help increase your metabolism to the appropriate level and contribute to your overall health.
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The Relation between Weight Loss and Metabolism
June 12, 2009 by Gail Grannum
Filed under Metabolism
Anyone who is on a weight loss program cannot afford to ignore his/her metabolism. Metabolism is the process through which food is converted into energy. This process occurs in the cells of our muscles and organs and helps in burning calories. And this is why a good understanding of our metabolism can help us in weight loss. Let’s take a closer look at the relation between weight loss and metabolism.
The process of metabolism
Fats, proteins, and carbohydrates are broken down in our digestive system to be used by the body. They are then transported to the cells of the body through the blood stream, where they are metabolized. During this metabolism process, the calories released are combined with oxygen and released in the form of energy to help your body function. When considering the role of metabolism in weight loss, it is this burning of calories which plays an important role.
Weight loss and metabolism
It is a well known fact that weight gain occurs due to consuming more calories than what your body burns. For maintaining your weight, you need to calculate your daily caloric intake. This can be calculated by calculating the amount of calories expended on the three essential components of metabolism. So, your daily caloric intake should be equal to the calories expended on your basal metabolism (calories required for the basic functioning of your body), your physical activity, and the digestion of food. For weight loss, you need to reduce your caloric intake and/or increase the amount of calories that you expend.
Besides this, an increase in metabolism helps in weight loss. If you increase your physical activity and exercise regularly, your weight loss routine can be a success. By increasing the frequency, duration, and intensity of your physical activity, you boost your metabolism and burn more calories. Strength training and aerobics activity build muscle tissue. An increase in the lean muscle tissue means increase in metabolism. This will again lead to faster burning of calories.
Your eating habits also play an important role in increasing your metabolism and promoting weight loss. Contrary to popular beliefs, skipping meals actually slows down your metabolism. If your body doesn’t get its regular calories, it will go into starvation mode and your metabolism will slow down. You will lose muscle tissue and excess energy will actually be stored as fat. Therefore, the right thing to do to increase your metabolism is to eat 5-6 smaller meals throughout the day. Combined with drinking the necessary 8 glasses of water a day, it will help in raising your metabolism and induce weight loss.
As you can see a weight loss routine is aimed at faster burning of calories and your metabolism is the process that is actually responsible for burning them. Calculating your daily caloric intake and taking steps to boost your metabolism can help you in losing weight in a healthy way.
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Foods That Boost Your Metabolism
June 9, 2009 by Gail Grannum
Filed under Metabolism
Most of us know that metabolism has a key role to play in weight loss. Anything that we do to boost metabolism will help in losing weight.
- As most of us know, metabolism is the process through which our body converts food into energy and this it does by burning calories.
Raw Vegetables Boost Your Metabolism
- Increasing physical activity and exercising daily increases metabolism and we burn more calories.
- But do you know that there are certain foods that boost your metabolism? Here are a few foods that can be included in your regular diet to raise your metabolism.
Oatmeal
Steel-cut or rolled oats are a good source of complex carbohydrates and fibers. Oatmeal slowly breaks down in your stomach which keeps the insulin levels in your body low after you eat and ensures a slow release of glucose into your bloodstream. This helps boost metabolism, preventing storing of fat and helping you burn more calories. It also makes you feel fuller for a longer time, provides you with the necessary energy for your daily workout routine, and is great for your heart.
Chilli, Cayenne, and Jalapeno
If you are fond of adding cayenne pepper to your sauces and soups, you are actually increasing your metabolism by approximately 20%. Peppers contain a compound called capsaicin that speeds up your heart rate and raises your metabolism. In fact, you can actually continue burning calories even after 3 hours of eating a meal including chilli and cayenne pepper. So, don’t forget to include peppers in your food.
Fish
Essential fatty acids, in particular omega-3 fatty acids, boost your metabolism. And fish such as salmon, tuna, and trout are the best sources of these fatty acids. Essential fatty acids alter the levels of a hormone called leptin in your body. Leptin has a direct impact on your metabolism and have an influence on whether the calories are burnt or stored as fat. Lower levels of leptin mean higher metabolism. This is why fish is considered to be one of the best foods to boost metabolism. You can even try fish-oil supplements to get your daily dose of essential fatty acids.
Chicken, Turkey, and Lean Beef
If you are wondering how these foods boost your metabolism, then the word you need to know is ‘protein’. These foods are high in protein and our body needs more energy and more time to digest the protein found in meat. So, a high-protein diet translates into more work for your body in digestion, higher metabolism, and more calorie-burning.
Fruits and vegetables
Raw fruits and vegetables are often recommended for weight loss because they are high in fibers. Your body finds it difficult to digest and extract the nutrients from fibers. So, it works harder and increases your metabolism. About 8-10 servings of these foods is enough to boost your metabolism.
These are not the only foods to boost your metabolism. Foods such as grapefruits, broccoli, and celery contain low calories, but require high calories to digest. Herbs such as green tea have also proven to be great diet supplements to increase your metabolism. So, include foods high in fibers, protein, complex carbohydrates, and essential fatty acids and raise your metabolism.
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