Healthy Habits Naturally Boost Your Metabolism
Taking care of your metabolism can be a difficult balancing act. Your metabolic health can be affected by a variety of factors, including your age, your gender, any genetic health conditions you might have, and of course, how physically active you are. So, it’s important to focus on the big picture, when it comes to metabolic health.
Metabolism refers to the general process of how your body converts nutrients into energy and subsequently expends it. This pretty much involves all of your autonomous bodily functions, from breathing to the calls of nature. So, it’s important to understand how your metabolism affects your habits, and the other way around as well.
A key statistic that can help you understand your metabolism is your basal metabolic rate (BMR). More simply, your BMR is the rate at which your body burns calories while resting. The more energy your body uses while resting, the more calories it will burn, storing less of that energy into fat.
But, a high BMR can be attributed to many different causes, ranging from a healthy active lifestyle to abusing stimulants such as cigarettes or coffee.
Here are three healthy ways to naturally boost your metabolism instead:
- Start with good sleeping habits.
The body’s digestive system gets much needed rest while you sleep! Sleeping on a full stomach makes your digestive system clash with the rest of your body, which is in a reduced metabolic state. This causes an imbalance in the body, resulting in restless sleep and even intense dreaming, which can result in feeling exhausted and unfocused in the morning.
The body naturally regulates when it metabolizes energy, based upon your habits. Sleeping eight hours on a natural cycle helps preserve the body’s circadian rhythm. Doing so will make it far more likely that you’ll wake up nice and early, feeling hungry and active.
Starting your day feeling rested can help you align your dietary and exercise habits to your schedule. To be brief, sleeping well helps you eat healthily!
- Make sure to pay attention to your diet.
It’s important to eat the right foods, but it’s just as important to pay attention to how you feel before and after meals. “Do I feel tired after lunch?” “Did I need breakfast?” These questions often indicate an imbalanced diet, where the body is constantly responding to the problem of the quantity and quality of the food you eat.
It’s important to be patient when controlling portions. The body reacts strongly to digestion and hunger, and eating less can initially cause fatigue and stress, even disorientation. This can last up to two to three months.
The benefit of eating smaller portions is that your body is no longer digesting constantly, which can drain your energy, more than fifteen percent of the calories you consume. Eating a balanced amount per meal will decrease the amount of energy the body uses to digest food. A balanced metabolism also allows your body to fully focus energy on what you’re doing.
- Exercise regularly, at least three times per week.
Having a higher BMR doesn’t necessarily translate to better health. Make sure that you are also paying attention to other crucial details, such as your resting heart rate.
Resting heart rates indicate how efficient the heart, lungs, and muscles are. It’s a reliable way of knowing how healthy your cardiovascular system is, which is central to the health of the rest of your body. While the average resting heart rate (for adults) is about 80 beats per minute, a well-trained athlete will have a resting heart rate closer to 40 beats per minute, almost twice as efficient!
Regular exercise helps build stronger and more efficient muscles, which is the best way to increase your BMR. It will also strengthen the cardiovascular system, which will help lower the body’s resting heart rate.
Being more physically active and having a stronger respiratory system will also help improve focus. Resistance training can help build stronger muscles, in addition to cardio-strengthening exercises such as jogging. Swimming is a wonderful combination of both!
To summarize, BMR is one useful indicator of your metabolic health, but it needs to be interpreted with other statistics. Trying to increase your BMR in order to increase your daily calorie deficit isn’t necessarily the right approach to losing weight or improving your health.
Rather, it’s better to think of your BMR as a result of habitual causes. Your BMR will increase with regular physical activity, better sleep, and good dietary habits, so it’s more helpful to focus on these three habits first.
If you’re concerned about your metabolic health, try using Bello 2! Our 9 Block Therapy program, based on your personal data, will show you your BMR, your Metabolic Health Index, and how that affects your daily dietary needs. Reach your health and fitness goals, step by step with Bello 2!
