Achieving your fitness goals is challenging, and maintaining a healthy work, social and fitness balance can often seem impossible. Regarding fitness progress, we face various adversity that we can't do much about, from illness to age. However, one thing we can control is our diet, which contributed to the reported 67% of overweight Australian adults from 2017 to 2018.

Our diet is connected to our metabolism efficiency and getting fit. A healthy metabolism is linked to losing weight, but it needs to be adequately understood to use it to your advantage.

Let's look at metabolism and how to speed up your metabolism to reach your health goals.

Metabolism Basics

What is metabolism?

We all know how difficult it can be to action change without the ability to conceptualise the process. So, let's break down the ins and outs of metabolism and how we can use it to our advantage regarding fitness goals.

Metabolism is a chemical process that involves breaking down food to produce energy and repair the body. In Australia, we measure the body's energy in kilojoules instead of calories.

There are two types of metabolism:

1. Destructive metabolism (Catabolism) is the process of your body breaking down large molecules to release energy.
2. Constructive metabolism (Anabolism) refers to the body's storage and production of new cells.

What is metabolic rate?

The Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) refers to the rate of energy expenditure when resting. Your lean muscle mass and overall body size will largely determine your BMR. Lean muscle mass requires more energy to burn, so it is a good idea to prioritise the building of muscle when trying to lose weight.

What affects metabolism?

Identifying the factors that affect it is part of understanding how to speed up metabolism. Here are some factors that affect metabolism:

Gender and Body Size

Men and women differ physically in a couple of ways - their body size as well as how much muscle their body has. These differences affect metabolism—the bigger the body size, the more kilojoules the body needs, especially for the basal metabolism rate. As men have more muscle mass, burning energy with their muscle tissue is generally faster.

Age

Most bodily functions, including metabolism, slow down with ageing. Muscle mass decreases while body fat increases as we age, slowing down energy burning. Also, aging often points to reduced movement, which affects how food is metabolised.

Growth

Growth is another factor that can change the metabolic rate. While a child grows, they will need more energy to support its growth through puberty and adulthood. They also require additional energy to maintain body temperature, which is part of catabolism. Growth is also dependent on the genes that dictate the size the body will grow and how much muscle mass they will have.

Existing health conditions

Existing conditions, such as hormonal issues and metabolic disorders, can likewise affect metabolism. Depending on the health condition, one can gain more weight as the body burns fewer kilojoules. It can also be the exact opposite. In these cases, the nervous and hormonal system may influence the BMR.

Lifestyle factors

Lifestyle choices, such as smoking or the use of drugs, can change how metabolism and metabolic rate works. Two or more factors are also possibly impacting a person's metabolism. It just goes to show how complex this process of metabolism is.

Five ways to speed up your metabolism

Now for the fun part. We can speed up our metabolism by consciously implementing positive changes. Although the changes won't happen overnight, you will slowly but surely begin to see positive changes to your metabolism through muscle gain or weight loss. Below are some of the best ways to kick-start your body into calorie burning.

Good old exercise

Exercise is known to be beneficial for physical and mental health and has a significant and direct impact on metabolism. You can better manage your weight by balancing suitable physical activities and food intake. Knowing how much you need to eat based on your physical activities (or vice versa) prevents you from storing fat. It may not be the complete answer to how to speed up metabolism, but it certainly contributes to the beginning of weight management.

Some pursuits that can help with weight management are aerobic activities, such as walking, bicycling, and swimming, as they require more energy. Muscle training is likewise essential since it improves immunity and burns more kilojoules by building muscle tissue compared to fatty tissue.

Sleep quality

With regular exercise, sleep quality will also improve. But does it affect how to speed up metabolism?

Did you know that sleep helps keep your weight in check? It curbs a person's appetite and hunger, which prevents you from eating more calories than you can burn. Also, with inadequate sleep, people tend to eat more to sustain their wakefulness, which can change the energy needed compared to the food consumed.

For Australians, the recommended sleep for adults is around 7 to 9 hours. It's not only the duration of sleep that is important but also the quality, which relates to how fast a person falls asleep, how deep the sleep is, and how refreshed they feel when the alarm goes off in the morning.

Diet

While exercise supports trying to speed up metabolism, it still goes hand in hand with diet. Eating the right food can make it easier for the body to burn it. Eating more lean protein, fruits and vegetables instead of calorie-dense, heavily processed foods are some changes that can quickly enable this.

Eating less to maintain or lose weight is not advisable, as it also slows down the metabolism to conserve energy. There should be a balance between daily food consumption and physical activity. It is also essential to prioritise protein as the loss of muscle mass can slow down the metabolism.

Some metabolism-boosting food ideas are:

• Spicy foods
• Protein-rich foods like meat, fish, eggs and dairy
• Coffee/caffeine

Water

Drinking water can help with weight loss in more ways than one. Not only does drinking water keep you away from sugary drinks, it also is known to increase resting metabolic rate by up to 30%. Just another reason to stay hydrated.

Add strength training to your fitness routine

Strength training increases lean muscle mass which is proven to burn more calories than any other body mass. Being more metabolically active means burning calories, even when resting. Incorporating strength or resistance training in your workouts produces many benefits other than purely metabolic such as reduced chance of injury, increased strength, increased range of motion and better heart health.

Supplements to support your fitness goals

Discussions on how to speed up metabolism and its relationship with diet can help open up many options to keep you healthy. It's also an excellent way to keep up with your age as it changes how your body reacts to food and activity. Vitamins can help with your diet efforts to obtain the nutrients you lack.

Vitable lets you create your own custom vitamin packs specific to your concerns. These daily vitamin packs help you maintain and sustain your health goals by creating a habit through supplements. They also provide one of the best vitamin delivery systems in Australia so that you can start with your fitness goals as soon as you receive them in your location.

Click here to take our quiz and let us help you find the right vitamins for your health goals, lifestyle and diet. It’s time to feel good like you should!

*Always read the label and follow directions for use. If you experience any symptoms or if symptoms persist, talk to your health professional. Vitamin and/or mineral supplements should not replace a balanced diet.