Having a faster metabolism means that your body burns more calories even while at rest. Taking steps to improve your metabolism can help you reach your weight-loss and weight-management goals. While there are no specific foods known to speed metabolism, there is a way of eating and certain lifestyle changes that can give your metabolism a boost.
Metabolism
Metabolism refers to the energy or calories your body uses to support basic functions such as circulation, breathing, digestion, muscle contraction and others. When planning a diet remember that your metabolism accounts for approximately 60 to 75 percent of the calories you burn every day. Your age, gender, body weight and level of physical activity determines the total amount of calories you need.
To lose weight, you must take in less calories than your body burns; to maintain weight, you must only eat the number of calories you use. While boosting your metabolism can raise the number of calories your body burns off, a slow metabolism is rarely the cause of weight gain, reports MayoClinic.com. Most cases of weight gain are due to consuming too many calories.
Diet and Metabolism
Along with watching your total calorie intake, when and what you eat can make a difference. A general goal is to eat a diet rich in a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy so your body gets the nutrients it needs. In addition, eating breakfast every day, and stopping to eat five to six small meals, will help to give your metabolism a boost, according to Cleveland Clinic.
Skipping meals or eating irregularly will cause your metabolism to slow down as your body works to conserve energy until you eat again. Your mini meals should be healthy and calorie-controlled, and include foods that are good sources of fiber, making an apple a good choice. If the apple is combined with low-fat yogurt or other lean protein source, you will feel full and satisfied, a factor in curbing binge eating.
Aerobic Exercise
Eating an apple for a snack or having several small mini meals will help, but it is not enough to truly change your metabolism. To really give your metabolism a boost, good eating habits need to be combined with exercise. Exercise at the right level will help you burn more calories and naturally speeds up your metabolism. If you work out at a moderate to vigorous level you will not only increase your metabolism while exercising, but it will stay elevated for some time once you stop, suggests the American Council on Exercise.
The goal is to aim for 45 to 60 minutes of aerobic exercise that elevates your heart rate to 70 to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate. This level of exercise needs to be done on most days of the week. If you are new to exercise, start off with less time and intensity and work up gradually to avoid injuries.
Strength Training
While including apples in your daily diet can help, you need to be careful about restricting calorie intake too much, because if you starve your body you will actually cause your metabolism to slow down. Consuming apples is just part of an overall healthy and well-balanced diet. In addition, muscle burns more calories than fat does even while at rest, so another surefire way to boost your metabolism is to strength-train, says the American College of Sports Medicine.
Strength training does not only equate to bulking up: It just means eating healthy and lifting enough weight to decrease your percentage of body fat and increase your percentage of muscle mass. This is especially important as you age, when your body starts to naturally lose muscle mass unless you exercise to prevent a loss.
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