Here's Some Easy Ways
To Speed Up Your Metabolism

Now you can boost your metabolism fast!

Metabolism or more specifically, ways to speed up your metabolism often pops up in conversation when people want to lose weight. It is usually in the context of, 'I've put on so much weight so I must have a slow metabolism'.

Metabolism is the sum total of all the chemical reactions that take place within all the cells of the body. These chemical reactions use up energy and of course, the more energy you use up the more fat you will burn and weight you will lose.

Metabolism is a very individual thing. We all know people who can eat and drink whatever they like and they don't put on an ounce of weight, whilst other people it seems, only need to look at food and they put on weight!

Why is this? Why is there such a big discrepancy between people when it comes to their metabolism? Well, there are 3 major factors that influence our metabolism and we will examine each one so you can discover how to speed up your metabolism quickly and easily by simply modifying various lifestyle habits.

Here are the 3 major factors you need to consider when you want to speed up your metabolism:

Muscle Mass

The first way to speed up your metabolism and especially your basal metabolic rate is to increase your muscle mass. Since muscle is approximately 3 times more metabolically active than fat tissue, the more muscle you have relative to fat means the more fuel your body can burn.

When people start discussing muscle to assist their weight-loss efforts most people say, 'I don't want to put on muscle!' or 'I don't want to look like a bodybuilder!' However, before you disregard the idea, consider this: If you try to lose weight but don't force your body to maintain its existing muscle mass by performing a regular resistance exercise routine, then as much as half of the weight you lose will come from your existing muscle stores.

If you happen to lose precious muscle tissue because you've only used nutritional strategies and/ or performed aerobic exercise to lose weight, your metabolic rate would have slowed down considerably. This will make further weight loss more difficult and much easier to put the lost weight back on again.

This situation often occurs in people who are regular dieters. As soon as they finish their diet and return to previous eating habits they immediately put the weight back on and generally even more weight than they lost! This is often called 'yo-yo dieting' because it refers to the constant fluctuation in the dieter's body weight.

In order to prevent the loss of muscle tissue that results during losing weight loss all you need to do is perform at least two 20-30-minute resistance exercise sessions a week. If you are unsure about how to perform the exercises correctly, then seek the assistance of a qualified and experienced personal trainer. They can show you how to make your workouts safe, effective and enjoyable.

What's more, if you are able to increase your muscle mass, even slightly, it can have a dramatic impact on your body's metabolism, particularly if you exercise regularly.

Resistance exercise is particularly important as we age because we tend to lose muscle as we get older. Therefore, the resistance exercise may prevent some of the muscle from being lost. As the saying goes: 'Use it or lose it!'

Research indicates that from the age of 30 to 65 most people have lost half of their muscle mass and have doubled the amount of fat on their body. It is often referred to as the 'middle-age spread'. By simply performing a regular resistance exercise session you can prevent the metabolic drop that occurs from the loss of muscle and may even be able to speed up your metabolism by increasing your muscle mass slightly.

Thyroid Function

Having your thyroid gland function at optimum levels also helps to keep your metabolism elevated. Unfortunately though, there are so many potential causes of thyroid problems that many people's thyroid gland doesn't function as well as it should.

Therefore, if your thyroid gland isn't functioning as well as it should, finding ways to optimise its function will also help to speed up your metabolism.

The thyroid gland is a small, butterfly-shaped gland situated around the trachea in the throat. It produces the thyroid hormones, thyroxine (T4) and tri-iodothyronine (T3), and these hormones speed up metabolism by affecting the function of all body cells. T3 is considered to be the 'active' thyroid hormone and T4 is 'inactive' form because T3 is 5-10 times more powerful in its action than T4.

There are a whole range of factors that can have an impact on how well our thyroid gland functions. This is discussed in more detail in the article titled, Top 10 Causes of Thyroid Problems.

In addition to these factors it appears that in theory, meal frequency may also play a role. If we go without food for greater than about 4 hours our body uses its 'Anti-Starvation Response' to prevent our body from starving. One of the ways it does this is by reducing the output of thyroid hormones.

The Anti-Starvation Response is thought to be an evolutionary response to a low blood glucose (sugar) level. It helped our ancestors survive famines thousands of years ago. Unfortunately the same thing occurs in our body as well. Whenever our blood glucose drops too low, our output of thyroid hormones decreases, which slows down the metabolism of all our body cells.

This reduction of our metabolic rate helps to preserve energy, which means we can survive the 'famine'.

If you suffer from any of the thyroid disease symptoms, then it is important that you take the necessary steps to help overcome the condition and therefore, help speed up your metabolism.

Certain nutrients have been shown to have a positive influence on thyroid function. Kelp (a type of seaweed that is a good source of iodine), the mineral selenium and the amino acid tyrosine, have all been shown to have an impact on the functioning of the thyroid gland.

A variety of other nutrients have been shown to be crucial in assisting the body in the conversion of T4 into T3 (the more active form) as well as limiting the conversion of T4 into reverse T3 (rT3), which actually blocks the T3 receptors on cell membranes and slow your metabolism.

When these nutrients are supplied in the diet or taken in the form of supplements, the functioning of the thyroid gland itself as well as the levels of thyroid hormones in the body are optimised. Overall, this helps to speed up your metabolism.

If you aren't sure whether or not you're getting enough of the required nutrients from your diet alone, then it is best to use a thyroid-support supplement like, Thyron by BCN. It will provide your body with all the nutrients it need to optimise the functioning of your thyroid gland.

Sympathetic Tone

Sympathetic tone is the term used to describe the amount of norepinephrine (NE) released from the ends of neurons. Norepinephrine is one of the neurotransmitters (nerve transmitter) and the more NE is released from the nerve endings the higher the sympathetic tone. This means that the metabolic activity of many organs within the body that are innervated by these neurons also increases. This is simply another way to speed up your metabolism.

The people who are able to eat whatever they like and not put on weight have a naturally high sympathetic tone and those people who put on weight easily even if they keep their food intake reasonable tend to have a low sympathetic tone.

One of the easiest way to speed up your metabolism by increasing your sympathetic tone is by using 'thermogenics'. Thermogenesis, as the name suggests, means the production of heat within the body ['thermo': heat, 'genesis': the beginning]. Heat is a by-product of energy production. Therefore if you burn up more fuel, you generate more heat.

Some examples of thermogenics include certain foods like, coffee or cocoa (caffeine from coffee and theobromine, which is found in cocoa) and chilli (capsaicin), certain herbs (forskolin, evodiamine and ephedra) and certain fruit extracts (citrus aurantium). Green tea also has thermogenic effect and it is also a 'thermogenic extender', which means it helps thermogenics last longer in the body.

Thermogenics may also be in the form of supplements. These supplements generally contain the active ingredients from the thermogenic food sources that have been concentrated. A good example of an effective thermogenic is XLR8 Thermogenic.

Thermogenic supplements are an effective way to speed up your metabolism so it is worthwhile 'cycling' their use. This means use them for a period of time, say eight weeks, and then stop them for 2-4 weeks. You may also want to use them for two days on and one day off during the 8-week cycle. Using them in this way will help to ensure maximum effectiveness from the ingredients and therefore help you achieve the best possible results.

There are many ways to boost your metabolism and on this site I will provide you with plenty of strategies to help you do that and therefore easily achieve your weight loss goal.

Here's some more information about foods to speed up metabolism.

Click here if you would like to know all the principles to boost your metabolism naturally.

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