HOW TO BOOST YOUR METABOLISM FOR FAT LOSS
With fat loss, there are a few key things that you must be working on consistently to ensure you can achieve your goal. Such as strength training, calorie intake, walking more, and improving your sleep quality, these are called the ‘what’ factors. Your metabolism on the other hand determines how effectively your body will burn fat.
The ‘what’ gives you the tools needed to achieve your goals, the ‘how’ equips you with the knowledge to sharpen those tools. So by the end of this, I hope to leave you with 3 tips you can begin to action straight away that will improve the rate at which your body burns fat.
The amount of exercise you undertake per week, along with your height and weight is used to calculate what we call your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). This provides a guide into the amount of calories your body burns at rest for basic daily functions.
Age and height are factors you won’t have much control over, but the amount of exercise you undertake on a weekly basis will directly impact your bodies BMR. The link here is that as you begin to increase the amount of weekly physical activity, there will be a direct positive impact on your BMR making it more effective at burning calories even when at rest.
Strength training should always be your main focus where possible. Where this may not always be always accessible, home workouts couples with long periods of low-intensity cardio will still work towards fat loss. Remember even light activity is still better than none at all.
TEF (Thermic effect of food) is known as the amount of energy used by the body through the process of digestion. Even though you may not feel like your expending energy, this process includes ingestion, digestion, absorption, utilisation, and the storage of food consumed.
This is why you should be eating smaller but more frequent portions throughout the day, as the more times your digestive system has to work in a day the more energy it will be using up. As long as you are staying within your caloric goal this can account for anywhere between 6 - 10% of your daily energy expenditure.
For you right now the thought of eating anything more than 2-3 meals a day might seem daunting and even unrealistic, however, this doesn’t have to be full meals. In between meals you can have smaller snacks to help break up your day, whilst still boosting your metabolism.
Last but by no means any less important is TEA (Thermic effect of activity), which is the amount of energy used up for any planned and unplanned activity. Even if you’re completing all your planned workouts, but spend the rest of your non-active you will still find it difficult to burn that extra body fat.
Whether that be sitting down in front of the TV, Netflix, or spending hours on your phone in bed, these all lead to a very non-active lifestyle. If you are still far away from leading an active lifestyle, start small and gradually build up. Set an alarm every 2 hours to remind yourself to get up and move for 10 - 15 mins.
This could start with things as simple as hanging up the washing, cleaning the house, going for a lap around the park, or even some mobility & yoga movements. Depending on the amount of unplanned & planned activity you partake in any day, this can account for 20 - 40% of your total daily expenditure.
By now I hope you have a better understanding of how each point helps to boost your metabolism, and makes your body more efficient at burning fat. All that’s left now is for you to make it happen!
If you take a moment to think back about the past few evenings, I’m sure you can begin to make the connection as to why less thought was given to certain decisions, if any at all.
So how does this relate to your ability to lose fat & optimise your health?
Roy F.Baumeister, went on to suggest that low levels of self-control and willpower are often a result of spending long periods of time decision making.
Now when it comes to being able to lose fat effectively and manage health, most people’s struggle isn’t necessarily with training or nutrition. But rather, their inability to continually make the choices that best serve them and their goals.
After spending most of the day exhausting the mind, these are some of the decisions that are left to be made in this state of decision fatigue;
Should you work out or not?
Should you cook or just order a takeaway?
Should plan your meals for the next few days or just wing it?
Should you get into bed early or watch the next episode of that show?
If you’re completely honest with yourself, you can begin to see how decision fatigue could be affecting your choices and thus limiting the amount of progress you’re making.
At the beginning of your journey, you might feel motivated about where you want to get to. This can often be the driving force that allows you to exercise the willpower that is necessary, in order to keep making those tough decisions.
However, as you get further along your journey, there is one thing that is guaranteed to happen. Motivation will slowly die out and becomes a less than frequent visitor.
This is where it becomes even more important to look at how you can create the best possible environment for your mind, body, and health to thrive in.
To help you do just that I have put together my 5 top tips to limit the number of decisions you have to make, build your ability to continue making better decisions, and get you the results you deserve.
1. Create a morning routine.
Having a routine allows you to create a set of habitual behaviours that you don’t have to think about. This alleviates some of the fatigue caused by all the decisions that you often have to make first thing in the morning. Your routine could include a set time you wake up, what you do in the first hour(s) of your day, your first meal of the day, and the route you take to work.
2. Unload the information overload.
With the increase in the amount of technology the average person uses, our brains are constantly working to try and keep up with the amount of information it has to sort through. Something as simple as opening your email inbox multiple times a day comes with a decision of whether to open, read, ignore, delete or mark as spam per email.
The same categorising decisions are made for every social platform you might check on before you start your day. Whether to like this post, read the caption, ignore it, click on this link or watch the full video. Limit the amount of time you spend on such menial things or perhaps set a time later in the day to do this, after you’ve dealt with the most important decision for your day.
3. Schedule some quiet time across your day
Have you ever wondered why you tend to stumble over great ideas when you’re in the shower? This isn’t a coincidence. At that moment in time, your mind is not having to deal with any demands of everyday life, which gives room to your pre-frontal cortex (the part of your brain responsible for thinking). Giving yourself time to tap into this part of your brain, allows you to make stronger neural connections leading to better decisions.
4. Plan ahead
It probably sounds cliche, but with this new insight into decision fatigue, it should hit home a lot harder. If you took an hour or two each weekend to plan, what days and times you were going to work out, plan some meals for the week you’d have fewer decisions to make in the week. It no longer becomes a question if you have time or feel like working out, but you’ll know when it hits quarter to, it’s time to get your gym gear on.
5. Create a not urgent & not important list.
Across the week, so many things will pop up that demand your attention. Often many of these things can be delegated to someone else, a later time or just whenever you have downtime.
Create somewhere that you can access easily (notes on your phone) to jot down these things as they come in. You’ll create more mental fatigue trying to hold it in your head throughout the day, whilst keeping tabs on everything else you have to remember. You can then come back to this list at a later time in the day or week, to give them your undivided attention.
