Top 5 Tips to Rev Your Metabolism

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One of our newest team members has written this awesome article on how to rev your metabolism.  Its great to see our staff here at Pat Rae Personal Training becoming proactive and putting in some of their own time to upskill and educate their clients.

When your metabolism is slow and sluggish, burning fat and achieving your body composition goals will be near impossible. People tend to focus on the small things rather than the big.  If you had a choice, would you like your metabolism to rev really fast when you are training, or for the other 23 hrs and 15 mins of the day?  The answer is obvious, so here are my top 5 tips to increase your metabolism and get you wearing your dream body.

Eat Breakfast: This is the single biggest tip for kick starting your metabolism and keeping your energy high throughout the day. There is significant evidence that shows that people who skip breakfast are more likely to be overweight than those who eat it. Not only are breakfast skippers more likely to have more fat, they are more likely to become fatter due to overeating later in the day.

It is essential that you eat the right breakfast. Cereal doesn’t cut it. You must have a good serve of protein and fats to kick start your day and keep your energy and concentration running high throughout.

Eat real food often: When you skip meals your body goes into ‘starvation mode’ and stores fat. This was an essential mechanism for survival for our caveman ancestors who would go days without eating a meal if food was scarce but now days we hunt and gather at supermarkets which shelves are loaded with poor quality food like substances.  Eating a diet that consists solely of real, whole food nourishes your body in the way nature intended. Eating nutrient dense meals every three hours for beginners is essential to having a speedy metabolism and energy to last all day.

Eat smart fats: We have been told for years that eating fat causes disease. This is true in some cases but not all fats are created equal.  Another reason for you to eliminate supermarket food from your diet is that processed foods contain trans and hydrogenated fats. There are no safe levels of trans or hydrogenated fats in the diet. Your body doesn’t recognise these fats as real food and as a result your detoxification and elimination systems are overloaded, slowing your metabolism.

Eliminating fat completely form your diet is just as outrageous as eating trans and hydrogenated fats. How can an old food cause new disease? Eating low fat is not working. We are getting fatter. The good fats which you should be including in your diet are those you find in nuts and seeds, avocados, unprocessed oils and in high quality animal meat.

Strength Train: The bulk of energy that is burned in the body comes from your resting metabolic rate (RMR) and the more muscle mass you have, the higher your RMR. Although physical activity and aerobic exercise will support insulin health, strength training is essential for speeding up your metabolism and keeping you energised. Performing a periodised strength training program so that you make continual progression is imperative for a working metabolism.

Sleep Better: When it comes to health and fitness the quality and quantity of sleep you have each night is highly underestimated! Your whole body regenerates and repairs itself from the day’s activities when you are sleeping and without adequate recovery your metabolism will be sluggish. All of the above tips if implemented into your day should help you sleep better at night.  It is also a good idea to create a wind down routine at the end of each day to prepare your body for the best sleep possible. Try turning the T.V and computer off an hour or two before bed and dimming the lights, listening to relaxing music or doing some light stretches.

These are the first tips I give to people who want to speed up their metabolism, lose body fat and increase their energy and vitality when they come to work with me at Pat Rae Personal Training. We work from an extensive questionnaire to find the areas of your life that when changes are made, will make you look and feel your best.