While it's not possible to “reset” your metabolism, there are plenty of ways you can increase your metabolic rate naturally, including making changes to your eating plan, workout routine, and sleeping routine.
Hormones
A shift in your hormones can put the brakes on your body's energy use. That can make you tired. Some conditions, like an underactive or overactive thyroid and diabetes, are hormonal diseases that affect your metabolism. Stress also releases hormones that can trigger a slow-down.
Your metabolic rate does change during your early life, but it plateaus between the ages of 20 and 60, and only decreases by around 1% per year after that. Your total daily energy expenditure also depends on your weight.
But another 120-pound person may have a lot less lean mass and more body fat and therefore a “slow” metabolism. In fact, it is possible to have “normal-weight obesity” – a term used when referring to a person who appears thin but who is not very active and therefore has very little muscle mass, Majumdar explained.
Factors that may increase a person's metabolic rate include consuming an appropriate number of calories, favoring protein over carbohydrates and fat, getting enough sleep, and some types of exercise, such as resistance training.
Water is the key to life, and it turns out it's also one of the easiest ways to help your metabolism. Drinking water increases your metabolism by up to 25% for nearly an hour after drinking it. That means if you drink a few cups of water every hour, you'll keep your metabolism at peak performance all day.
Your Metabolism Will Slow Down to Store Fat
The more you work out or manage your calorie intake to lose weight, the more your metabolism wants to compensate by slowing down to maintain your current weight, this is called metabolic compensation. It kicks in to preserve and store fat for future energy.
People with an endomorph body type tend to have a slow metabolism, making it easier for them to gain weight and harder for them to lose it. This also stunts muscle growth. However, following a specific diet and exercise plan can often help people with endomorphic bodies meet and maintain their health goals.
There is such a thing as a slow metabolism. But slow metabolism is rare, and it's usually not what's behind being overweight or obese—that's ultimately a result of interactions among genetics, diet, physical activity, and other factors.
A slow metabolism burns fewer calories, which means more get stored as fat in the body; that's why some people have difficulty losing weight by just cutting calories. A fast metabolism burns calories at a quicker rate, which explains why some people can eat a lot and not gain extra pounds.
Hormonal metabolism tests are the only type you can do at home. Other tests can provide more and different information based on a larger blood sample, but they require you to go to a lab or work with a doctor first. Your doctor can prescribe a metabolism test and perform it in a medical setting.
According to the Scientific American, research has proved that sloths officially have the slowest metabolism of any animal on Earth. This impressive title was bestowed upon the animal after a seven-year study of three-toed sloths by scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Mostly, losing weight is an internal process. You will first lose hard fat that surrounds your organs like liver, kidneys and then you will start to lose soft fat like waistline and thigh fat. The fat loss from around the organs makes you leaner and stronger.
At the most basic level, not reaching your weight loss goal can occur when calorie intake is equal to or higher than calorie use. Try strategies such as mindful eating, keeping a food diary, eating more protein, and doing strength exercises.
If you have been exercising and still have belly fat, you could be doing the wrong style training, your stress levels may be too high, or you may have an endocrine disorder like polycystic ovary syndrome.
The novel finding of this study was that drinking 500 ml of water increased metabolic rate by 30% in both men and women. The increase in metabolic rate was observed within 10 minutes after completion and it reached a maximum, 30-40 minutes after water drinking. The effect was sustained for more than an hour.
According to the University of Washington, drinking cold water will increase metabolism — but only slightly. When you drink a cup of ice water, you burn about 8 more calories than when you drink room temperature water.
No matter whether we stay up all night or fall asleep at the dinner table, our bodies have an internal schedule that says to burn the most calories in the late afternoon and early evening and the least in the early morning.
Research has shown that cold showers (and exposure to cold in general), in addition to increasing metabolic rate directly, stimulate the generation of brown fat. Brown fat is a specific type of fat tissue that in turn generates energy by burning calories.