Are you trying to lose some weight or wish to maintain your current body?
If yes, you need to boost your metabolism!
By increasing your metabolism, your body burns calories faster, even when you're not exercising. You still burn calories while you are sitting/lying down!
Metabolic rate is the rate at which your body burns calories . Very few people have a fast metabolism (i think i have a pretty high metabolism and am thankful for that because it allows me to eat a lot more than most girls). Surprisingly, overweight individuals have relatively fast metabolism because they weigh more, but if their weight is staying constant then their metabolism is not fast enough to offset their caloric intake. The bottom line is that increasing your metabolism will enable you to level your diet and weight.
---------------------
How to increase your metabolism rate?
1. Eat Breakfast. I know a lot of people don't have time for this but this will help boost your metabolism. Just have something simple like a slice of toast at the start the day! It takes no more than a minute to prepare it. Or just buy it from a bakery on your way to work.
2. Don't eat too little/skip your meals. Weird but true because if you eat too little, your body will shift into fat-storage mode(a.k.a starvation mode).
3. Have spicier food by adding chilli to your food. It is true and helps as it increases your heart rate. Thank god i LOVE chilli and hardly have a meal without it.
4. Eat more meals. If you want to kick-start your metabolism, you may also try dividing your meals up into smaller portions that you eat more often throughout the day. Every time you eat, it helps your metabolism rise, so as strange as it may sound, eating frequently can help you lose weight or maintain a healthy weight.
5. Drink a lot of ice water. Adding ice to a drink makes your body work harder because it has to heat it up in your stomach, which increases your metabolism.
6. Keep yourself cold. Go in an aircon room and not put on a jacket. This sounds weird but your body burns calories trying to keep yourself cold! But of course, pray you don't fall sick from the cold. :X
7. Go into a Sauna. Being very hot also helps! Your body has to burn calories to cool down.
8. Have enough sleep. Sleep deprivation plays a significant role in weight gain!
9. Go jogging/do aerobics at least twice a week. Don't have to be long, just 30 minutes will do! Raise your heart rate and sustain the activity for approximately thirty minutes or longer if you have the time to spare.
10. Build Muscle. Do strength training to build muscles. I will do a post of strength training soon (you can google it if you want to learn more on what to do! YouTube is an awesome place to watch videos on how to do strength training). Muscle burns more calories than fat does (73 more calories per kilogram per day, to be exact) so the more muscle you build, the higher your resting metabolic rate (means your body is still burning calories when you are not doing anything) will be. Every muscle cell that you gain is like a little factory that constantly burns calories for you, even while you sleep, and revs up when you exercise.
---------------------
I hope you learnt a thing or 2 from this post! :)