Aerobic activity can help control weight and can lower your risk of heart disease, diabetes, and many other conditions. Muscle-strengthening exercises are important for the same reasons but will also boost your metabolism.
How Physical Activity Affects the Metabolism. Even though your resting metabolic rate stays relatively constant, exercise increases caloric expenditure. The more you move, the more energy you use, and the more calories you burn. Let's look at the different activities you can try to help boost your metabolism.
There have been several studies to determine how many hours EPOC, or afterburn, can last, and the consensus is that the effect peaks in the first hour after exercise and continues for up to 72 hours. That means your body could keep burning extra calories for as long as three days after a workout!
Your metabolism is the process by which your body converts what you eat and drink into energy. The more muscle mass you have, the faster your metabolism. But, when you lose weight and muscle mass, your metabolism slows down and so does your weight loss.
You've gained muscle.
And here's an often overlooked fact: Muscle tissue is more dense than fat tissue. So as you gain more muscle and lose fat, you change your overall body composition, which can result in a higher weight, but a smaller figure and better health.
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.
MYTH! You can't measure the speed of your metabolism by your puddles of perspiration. There are a number of reasons why you may have to towel off after a workout: It's hot in the gym, your gym clothes don't wick sweat, or you bundled up when it wasn't that chilly outside.
It might seem obvious, but it's worth noting that two-a-days allow you to reap the benefits of your normal workout, well, twice. Your metabolism rises when you work out and stays slightly elevated afterwards. If this boost occurs at both morning and night, you'll burn truckloads of calories.
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.
Muscle is denser than fat.
While one pound of fat weighs the same as one pound of muscle, muscle occupies about 18 percent less space. In addition, muscle burns calories while fat stores them. So, if your weight isn't decreasing but your clothes are starting to fit more loosely, you may be building muscle.
“When you start exercising, your muscles start gobbling up fuel called glycogen,” says Krista Scott-Dixon, Ph. D., Director, Headspace Adjustment Bureau, Precision Nutrition. Since glycogen stores water, you could gain up to 10 pounds in water weight alone, says Scott-Dixon.
Eating too few calories can be the start of a vicious cycle that causes diet distress. When you cut your calories so low that your metabolism slows and you stop losing weight, you probably will become frustrated that your efforts are not paying off. This can lead you to overeat and ultimately gain weight.
As a general rule, people need a minimum of 1,200 calories daily to stay healthy. People who have a strenuous fitness routine or perform many daily activities need more calories. If you have reduced your calorie intake below 1,200 calories a day, you could be hurting your body in addition to your weight-loss plans.
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.
Over time, studies have shown that metabolic rate (how fast we burn calories) starts to slow down by 2 to 3 percent each decade, beginning in our 20s. It becomes more noticeable between ages 40 and 60.
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.
A High-Fat Diet
Foods high in fat are difficult to digest and can slow down metabolism. Carbohydrate-rich foods like potatoes, full-fat curd, parathas, a plate of brown rice, and whole milk can also help slow down a fast metabolism.
Muscle is denser than fat, and as it is more compact within your body, as you gain muscle mass, you end up looking thinner, no matter your physical weight. So, if you've been doing a lot of strength training lately, it's likely this is the reason that you're looking fantastic but not dropping those numbers.
As against areas such as legs, face and arms, our stomach and abdominal regions possess beta cells that makes it difficult to reduce the fats easily and lose weight in these areas. However, as per research, belly fat is the most difficult to lose as the fat there is so much harder to break down.