Healthy eating habits promote weight loss by helping to increase your metabolism.
("Metabolism" is a term for how your body uses energy to survive.)
70% of our metabolism is determined by things we can’t change, like our age, gender, and genetics. This is the energy our bodies use to keep functioning while at rest.
We can, however, control how much energy we put in our bodies and how much we spend it by being active (which is the remaining 30% of our metabolism). Here are some helpful tips on how to do this:
1. Build and maintain body muscle mass:
Muscle cells require more energy to maintain than fat cells, so people with more muscle than fat tend to have a faster metabolism.
When we lose weight, we could not only lose fat, but also muscle mass as well which will make it harder to burn calories to lose weight.
This goes to show how important it is to have muscle-strengthening & resistance training exercises as we aim to increase our activity levels.
Aim to do muscle-strengthening activities that work all major muscle groups (legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders and arms) on 2 or more days a week.
Let us know if you would like to get in touch with our Antara Fitness Instructor who can guide you through such exercises.
2. Control your food portion to manage your calories:
Research suggests people tend to eat more than they think they do.
The reason most of us gain weight isn't because of a slow metabolism, it's because we're eating and drinking more calories than we're burning.
It may be hard to accept, but staying on top of the number of calories you eat is key to losing weight and keeping it off.
Remember, you can use calorie counting apps like these to help you track your daily calorie intake.
3. Eat smaller meals throughout the day:
Every time we eat, we give our metabolism a slight boost since food creates energy in our body.
Therefore, if we eat smaller and more frequent meals (after every 3-4 hours), our metabolism can increase slightly.
While if we eat large meals and then don’t eat for a long time, our metabolism slows down between those eating sessions.
4. Avoid late night meals:
We tend to be less active in the evening, since we spend most of our time sleeping, and this is when our metabolism is at its lowest point.
Try and have your last meal at least 4 hours before bedtime to have enough time to burn the calories off.
5. Drink enough water:
Water is really important in the metabolic process, as it helps in the digestion of food. If we don’t have enough water we can slow down our metabolism.
Drinking 1.5 to 2 litres of water daily is recommended, but the best way to judge your hydration level is by the color of your urine. You want to drink enough to dilute it until it runs clear (Yellow = drink more water).
Schedule an appointment HERE with your Antara Nutritionist if you need additional support.