With a few tweaks to your eating and exercise habits, you can rev up your metabolism and burn more calories around the clock. Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the number of calories your body burns just to stay alive. It accounts for 60 to 75 percent of your daily energy requirements. The remaining percentage fuels your activities. The good news is you can increase both your BMR and your activity level for a fast, youthful metabolism.
Increase Lean Muscle
If you want to burn more calories even when sleeping, you need to build lean muscle. It's not enough to have muscle endurance; muscle size is what does the trick. For example, resistance training should work each muscle group to exhaustion for optimal growth.
The jury is still out on exactly how many calories a pound of muscle burns per day, but it's somewhere around 50 to 100. Regardless of the exact number, it's clear that muscle requires far more energy than fatty tissue just to exist. Build muscle and you'll lose fat.
Eat More Often
According to Mayo Clinic nutritionist Katherine Zeratsky, R.D., L.D., "Prolonged fasting--which occurs when you skip breakfast--can increase your body's insulin response, which in turn increases fat storage and weight gain."
So eat breakfast and eat often. Every two to three hours will keep your metabolism humming and keep you from getting hungry. Choose meals with a balance of calories from fat, protein and carbohydrates.
Incorporate Interval Training
A study published in the Feb. 22, 2007 Journal of Applied Physiology, found that "repeated bouts of exercise cause enhanced fat metabolism compared with a single bout of prolonged exercise of equivalent total exercise duration."
Study participants exercised on a stationary bike for either 60 minutes or did two blocks of 30 minutes separated by a 20-minute rest period. Those in the later group had elevated levels of serum-free fatty acids indicating the breakdown of fat in the body.
You can incorporate a similar structure into your workouts with shorter intervals. After a thorough warm up and stretch, exercise at an intense pace (8 to 10 on the perceived rate of exertion scale) for between 30 seconds and 2 minutes, depending on your fitness level. Follow this with a few minutes of recovery in which you should exercise at an easy to moderate pace. Repeat for the duration of your workout.
This can be done with cardiovascular equipment such as treadmills or elliptical trainers or in a circuit-training workout with weights. The later has the added benefit of building muscle for greater calorie burn all day.
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