Читать книгу The Quick Start Guide to Healthy Eating - Gretchen Scalpi RD CDN CDE - Страница 8

These days it seems that everybody's looking for something to help boost their metabolism. We all know that our metabolism naturally declines as we get older. It is also affected by our gender, body size, activity level, and general health. Note though that there is not really a single food or a safe supplement that you can take which is a magic bullet to instantly boost your metabolism and help you lose weight.

However, there are some things that you can do to increase your metabolism:

•Eat breakfast. When you eat at the beginning of the day, the digestion of your food causes an increase in your metabolism.

•Eat smaller meals throughout the day. Again, as you digest your food your metabolism increases. You feel more energetic if you are not hungry, and you are less likely to binge on unhealthy food.

•Avoid starvation. If you go all day without eating you actually suppress your metabolism. You may believe that you are saving calories, but not eating contributes to a slowing of your metabolic rate. If you repeatedly go without eating, your body may adjust to a lower caloric intake and try to conserve as much energy as possible.

•Consume protein. Eating a small amount of protein at each meal will help to increase your metabolism because it requires an extra amount of energy to digest.

•Eat spicy foods. This will cause a temporary increase in your metabolism.

•Stay well hydrated, which means drinking plenty of water throughout the day. A rule of thumb is to drink 6 to 8 glasses of water per day.

•The most effective way to boost your metabolism is to remain active throughout the day. Don't just sit for hours on end, especially if you have a desk job. Get up and move around, at least periodically.

•Include some weight resistance training in your exercise program. If you do this two or three times a week you will increase your lean muscle mass. Lean muscle is more active metabolically, so it burns more calories than stored fat does.

•Make sure that you get enough sleep.

•Supplementation with a B complex vitamin may be of some help. It doesn't have to be a high potency vitamin supplement.

•There is some evidence that drinking green tea or using a green tea extract may cause a slight boost in metabolism as well.