Boosting Metabolism: Is It Possible?

It’s one of the most maddening—and somewhat unfair—facts about human existence: some people can eat whatever they want and never gain weight, while others eat very little and have a weight problem. What is the difference between these two groups of people? Metabolism: the way your body uses calories from the food you eat. Metabolism is a complex process that involves many different chemical reactions and organs in your body. The bottom line is, unfortunately, some people burn calories more than others. If you happen to be one of those people who don’t need many calories to keep you going, you may be happy to hear that boosting metabolism is possible, although not always easy.

Boosting metabolism can be a challenging experience, especially as you age. After the age of 40, your metabolism will slow at a rate of about 5 percent per decade. Other factors that influence metabolism are gender (men need more calories than women to survive), heredity, thyroid issues, and the amount of muscle mass you have.

Strangely, when you weigh more, technically your metabolism is running higher. The more people weigh, the more calories they need to maintain that weight. This fact makes boosting metabolism essential when you lose weight, because otherwise, the weight will be easily regained if you go back to your old eating habits.

In some ways, you are stuck with the metabolism you were born with, but there are a few tricks to boosting metabolism that will help you lose weight and maintain your weight loss. Basically, there is one key to boosting metabolism: exercise.

Both aerobic exercise and weight lifting will help you in boosting metabolism. Aerobic workouts burn more calories while you participate in the exercise, and these workouts also boost your metabolism in the hours following your exercise. Weight training is just as important for boosting metabolism. Why? Because weightlifting builds muscle tissue. When your body is at rest, muscle tissue burns way more calories than fat tissue—up to 15 times more calories.

So, even though you may have been given a slow metabolism by nature, aerobic exercise and weightlifting may be able to give you the metabolism boosting edge that you’ve been searching for.