Your metabolic rate is the sum total of energy, measured in calories, you need to maintain your current bodyweight. Your daily calorie requirement, commonly referred to as your Total Daily Energy Expenditure or TDEE for short, is made up from a number of components:
Basal Metabolic Rate – BMR for short, this is the amount of energy you need to maintain your weight before you have exercised or eaten any food
Thermal Effect of Activity – TEA is the amount of energy you use during planned and unplanned physical activity. This includes exercise or simply walking from the TV to the fridge!
Thermal Effect of Food – Eating uses energy. Every time you eat a meal, your metabolism increases. Each of the macro nutrient or food groups has a different calorific cost. This is called the TEF. TEF explains why some diets are more effective for fat loss than others and also suggests that all calories are not created equal.
Overdrawn at the calorie bank…
When it comes to weight loss, or more specifically fat loss, you need to create an energy or calorie deficit. You can create a calorie deficit in one of two ways: By eating less food than you need or by increasing your calorie expenditure. Eating less than you need is okay but, as just about every dieter knows, at some point you will feel hungry and fall off your diet wagon. It makes more sense to try and increase your calorie expenditure while making a modest reduction in food intake. This combined approach has been shown time after time to produce more reliable weight loss.
Obviously, exercise increases your daily energy expenditure but it is also possible to optimize your metabolism so that you burn more calories even at rest. Imagine you turn the thermostat up on your central heating system. Running hot will use more energy than running cold. Your body is no different.
There are a number of techniques and tricks you can use to elevate your metabolic rate to help you burn more calories per day. Assuming you are exercising sensibly and eating slightly less than normal, this will result in a greater weight loss as your body uses stored fat to make up your energy shortfall.
1. Eat protein at every meal.
Protein has the highest thermal effect of all the macronutrients. By eating eggs, meat, fish or poultry at every meal, you ensure your metabolic rate gets regular, significant bumps. Try to snack on protein rather than carbs for the very same reason. The thermal effect of protein is around 30% compared to 20% for carbohydrates and 3% for fats. This, at least in part, explains why high protein/low carbohydrate diets work so well. The other part of the equation is insulin management but that’s a whole other article!
2. Get some EPOC.
EPOC stands for Excessive Post-exercise Oxygen consumption and describes how your metabolic rate is elevated after hard exercise. When you exercise intensely, your body produces a chemical called lactic acid. This is the stuff that makes your muscles burn. Lactic acid is cleared away by your aerobic system. In very simple terms, the more lactic acid you produce during a workout, the longer and harder your aerobic system must work in the post-exercise period to remove lactic acid from your system. EPOC is not triggered by low intensity, long duration workouts like jogging or group exercise classes. The best way to increase EPOC is interval training, circuit weight training and other similarly high intensity start/stop training methods. One of the biggest ironies in exercise is that working out in the so-called fat burning zone results in less fat being burnt than shorter, high intensity workouts. For fat loss, lactic acid is your friend and EPOC should be too.
3. Smaller meals more often.
As counter-intuitive as it may sound, eating more often can help you burn more fat. Various studies have shown that even where food intake was the same, groups eating smaller and more frequent meals lose more weight than groups eating one or two big meals per day. As previously mentioned, the process of ingesting, transporting, digesting and eliminating food uses energy, referred to as the TEF or Thermal Effect of Food. The more often you eat, the more often your metabolic rate will spike. It is especially important to eat breakfast for this very reason. After a long night of fasting, your metabolic rate is quite low. Eating on rising, especially a protein-rich breakfast such as eggs, will rev up your metabolic rate and help kick-start the fat burning process from the very start of your day.
4. Drink water, lots of water!
Water is calorie free and is essential for just about every chemical reaction in your body. In addition, water helps keep your joints lubricated, makes up a large percentage of your muscle tissue and blood volume and is necessary for effective temperature regulation. Taking water into your digestive system, using it and then eliminating any excess via your urinary system uses energy which results in an elevated metabolic rate. Studies at the University of Berlin suggest that consuming 500 millilitres (slightly less than a pint) will elevate your metabolism by 24% for 60 minutes or so after consumption. The general recommendation for water consumption is a minimum of two litres per day but if you want to maximize your metabolic rate, you could safely consume as much as twice this amount. Exercise some caution however. Too much water can cause a serious medical condition called dilutional hyponatremia which results in too low a concentration of essential mineral salts called electrolytes. This is rare but to avoid this potential problem, increase your water consumption gradually and do not exceed a comfortable daily intake.
5. Drink green tea.
Green tea contains a number of agents that can help boost your metabolism. Green tea can be consumed as a drink or as an extract in capsule form. Both delivery methods are effective for booting your metabolism. One of the chemicals in green tea is the most commonly used recreational drug – caffeine. Caffeine is a nervous system stimulant which promotes an elevated metabolism and is also a lipotropic agent. This means it makes fats more mobile and easier to use for fuel. If you have ever had one too many espressos and felt your heart beginning to beat harder and faster, you have already experienced the powerful metabolic boosting effect of caffeine. Another metabolism boosting chemical found in green tea is epigallocatechin gallate or, thankfully, EGCG for short. EGCG increases your metabolic rate and also interferes with the conversion of dietary lipids into stored fat. Green tea is also packed with anti-oxidants. On the downside, the caffeine content of green tea can interfere with regular sleep patterns so avoid excessive consumption after noon and eliminate green tea completely after 5-6pm.
6. Spice it up!
Have you ever broken out into a sweat while eating a particularly hot curry? Spicy food has a marked thermogenic effect which means it elevates your body temperature – a sure sign your metabolic rate has increased. Try adding hot spices and chillies to your meals and eating more Indian, Thai and Mexican food. A word of warning – not everyone’s digestive system is suited to a diet high in spices. If even the mildest chicken korma makes you wish you had kept the loo roll in the fridge (!), do not dramatically increase your intake of spices. If, however, you have the constitution of a goat, why not start your day with a vegetable and chicken curry (forget the rice, naan bread and beer though). The protein from the chicken and spices from the curry will give your metabolism a kick-start that can’t be beat!
Optimizing your metabolism can make long term weight management and short term weight loss much easier. By making your body energy inefficient, you will burn more calories on a daily basis and see a much greater return for your dietary and exercise efforts. And as for curry for breakfast – it takes a bit of getting used to but actually, it’s delicious and a million times better for you than most commercial breakfast cereals.
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