Increase your metabolism by exercising regularly and by monitoring your food consumption. Your metabolism is a sum of all the processes in your body necessary to keep you alive, such as digesting food, breathing, building muscle tissue and breaking molecular bonds in your body to get energy. When you do activities that increase your rate of digestion, breathing and movement, you speed up your metabolism, according to the book "Exercise Physiology, Energy, Nutrition & Human Performance."
Eat Often and Eat Protein
The energy cost to digest food, referred to as the thermogenic effect of food, is one aspect of metabolism. The more often you eat, and the greater the proportion of your food is that comes from protein, the larger the rise in your metabolism is. Your body uses more calories or energy to break down protein-rich foods compared with carbohydrate-rich foods.
Drink Caffeinated Beverages
If you drink at least 5 mg of caffeine per kilogram of body weight, you will increase your time to exhaustion during aerobic exercise, according to a 2004 article by Jose Antonio, Ph.D., published in the "Strength and Conditioning Journal." This means you will be able to exercise much longer, burning more calories and raising your metabolism. The performance-enhancing metabolic effects of caffeine are still present if you do another exercise session five hours later, advises Antonio.
Exercise or Move to a Warmer Environment
In warmer regions, your body must work a little harder to regulate body temperature. If you exercise in the hot outdoors compared with the air-conditioned gym, you will use about 5 percent more oxygen, according to the book "Exercise Physiology, Energy, Nutrition & Human Performance." You will burn more calories in a warm environment compared with a cold place; ensure you wear proper clothing so your body can effectively regulate your body temperature.
Exercise More Often and More Intensely
Acute or short-term exercise increases your metabolism because your cells need more energy to perform the increased physical activity. Chronic or long-term exercise increases your metabolism because of the adaptations in your body. Regular aerobic exercise increases the density of capillaries in your muscles, increases the number of aerobic enzymes and increases the number of cell structures necessary for energy production. Regular resistance training increases the size of your muscle cells; this means you have more proteins responsible for contracting your muscles and more anaerobic enzymes to transform the food you eat into energy your cells can use. The more muscle tissue you have, the greater the increase is in your resting and active metabolism.
References
- "Exercise Physiology, Energy, Nutrition & Human Performance"; William McArdle, Frank Katch and Victor Katch; 2007
- "Strength and Conditioning Journal"; Caffeine: The Forgotten Ergogenic Aid; Jose Antonio, Ph.D.; December 2004
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