Speed up metabolism: Lose weight more easily with body optimisation

There are many things you can do yourself to speed up your metabolism. If you have the feeling that it is only running on the back burner, you should get your metabolism going and banish the metabolism stoppers from your everyday life. We have put together a few tips for you to help stimulate your metabolism.

Not everyone’s metabolism works equally well. What is metabolised is the food you eat. However, the metabolism behaves unfairly here. Good food metabolisers can eat what they want and not gain weight. Poor metabolisers, on the other hand, notice every meal, which makes it difficult to lose weight if you want to.

However, you can also speed up a weakened metabolism, called metabolism. We will tell you about various options that can help you to positively influence the biochemical processes in your body.

How the human metabolism works

Metabolism is not the same as digestion. It includes all biochemical processes and procedures that take place in every cell of the body. This includes glucose metabolism, fat metabolism and protein synthesis, also known as protein metabolism.

If you want to reduce your weight, it is important that all three areas function optimally. Only then will you be able to maintain or reduce a certain body weight. If you want to speed up your metabolism, you should also know the difference between catabolism and anabolism. Both areas integrate the three metabolic types already mentioned.

Catabolic and anabolic metabolism never run simultaneously, but always one after the other in the cell. Enzymes and hormones also ensure a safe and regulated process.

Anabolism, also called building metabolism, supports the cells in building and, if necessary, repairing. Glucose, amino and fatty acids are metabolised by converting them back into the body’s own cell components. The conversion takes place into carbohydrates, fats and proteins. The converted components are used for cell renewal, wound healing and blood renewal as well as for building muscles.

Catabolism, on the other hand, involves the breakdown of molecules and chemical compounds, which is why it is also called catabolism. It is used to obtain energy from food, for example by converting carbohydrates into glucose. The body needs this energy to function. If you take in more food than the body needs in terms of energy, it stores the excess energy. Fat and muscle cells are available for this purpose.

To speed up your metabolism, there are a number of things you can do, including food and exercise. We have put together some tips for you.

With a healthy diet and plenty of exercise, you can really boost your metabolism. / Getty Images/ratmaner

Speed up your metabolism with these foods

If you want to boost your metabolism, certain foods can help. A well-functioning metabolism is especially important if you want to lose weight. In this case, your diet should be rich in vitamins and natural.

Use foods that are rich in fibre. You can activate your metabolism with whole grain products, vegetables, legumes and oat bran. But healthy fats that have a positive omega-3 and omega-6 ratio also play a role, as does low-fat protein.

Protein-rich foods require more energy to break down the food components. Your body already burns about 30 per cent of the ingested proteins when it metabolises the food, so they can no longer be stored.

Healthy fats can be found in olive oil, walnuts, linseed, flax and hemp oil, but also in fatty fish. Like chia seeds, they provide omega-3 fatty acids. These are important because they help build muscle and balance hormones.

In addition to your food intake, you should not forget to drink enough. The German Nutrition Society has issued a recommendation of 1.5 litres of fluid per day. Another rule is that you should drink four percent of your body weight. At a body weight of 70 kg, the daily drinking quantity would then be 2.8 litres.

It is best to choose non-carbonated water and unsweetened teas as drinks. If you drink cold water, you can boost your metabolism even more. The body has to expend more energy to heat the water.

A study by the Charité in Berlin shows how important it is to drink enough water. Test persons drank 500 ml of water. For the following hour, energy consumption was increased by 24 percent. This proves that fluid intake increases the basal metabolic rate.

You can boost your metabolism with the right foods. / Getty Images

Boost your metabolism with exercise

Your body uses a certain amount of energy every day to function and survive. Falling below this basal metabolic rate is harmful to your health. Exceeding it leads to unused energy being stored in fat and muscle cells.

If you exercise or are physically active in some other way, the body can retrieve and use the stored energy. If, on the other hand, you are rather sedentary, you will eventually gain weight. To prevent this, you should always reduce the excess energy again. To do this, it is a good idea to move consciously in your everyday life and to exercise at least twice a week for at least 30 minutes.

Strength training activates your metabolism very effectively. This will help you to burn a lot of energy. Even afterwards, the muscles still consume energy, even if they have already been put into a state of rest. This after-burn effect should not be underestimated when it comes to reducing calories. You build muscle, thus increasing your basal metabolic rate and driving your fat metabolism to peak performance.

Endurance training also offers a good option to boost fat burning. 30 minutes of cardio, interval training, swimming or jogging is enough to burn calories. With alternating phases of exertion and recovery, as in the HIT workout, you achieve a very high acceleration of the metabolism. You consume a lot of oxygen during the training sessions and push your body to its limits.

Regular endurance training makes the body burn energy. The more effective and strenuous the training, the more this effect burns off and the basal metabolic rate is increased. Ideally, you should organise your training in such a way that there is something from each type of training. With a training mix you can optimise your metabolism.

As a beginner, you should do strength training on two to three days and endurance training once a week. The remaining days are for regeneration. Advanced users can increase the strength training to 4 days and the endurance training to 2 days per week. However, here too, at least one day should be planned for regeneration.

Combine strength training and endurance sports to optimise your metabolism. / Getty Images/AleksandarGeorgiev

Allow yourself rest and recuperation

If you are permanently under stress, your metabolism will also suffer. Your body remains constantly active, which does not allow the blood sugar level to drop. This means that insulin levels are also kept high. Since insulin transports blood sugar into the cells, this subsequently leads to the automatic storage of unused energy. Your weight climbs up.

However, stress does not only cause the metabolism to suffer. Usually, sleep disorders, an increased craving for alcohol and eating the wrong foods are also on board. All this together causes the body to get out of balance. Rest and relaxation help to regain the balance. Then the metabolism automatically optimises itself again.

A balanced, conscious diet, regular exercise and sport as well as breaks in your daily work routine, sufficient sleep and consciously taking longer breaks help you to recharge your batteries and relax. This also keeps your metabolism in balance.