Body Shop: 10 ways to jump-start your metabolism - Off Duty, Military Health and Fitness - Air Force Times

Body Shop: 10 ways to jump-start your metabolism

Is your tried-and-true PT program failing to keep the pounds off the way it used to? Scientists say human metabolism starts to ebb when people reach their 30s, so this slowdown may be the culprit.

“Some people are genetically programmed to be active; they’re naturally restless and use more energy,” says Rochelle Goldsmith, director of the Exercise Physiology Lab at Columbia University Medical Center. Those are the lucky high-metabolism types.

Gender also plays a role. “The average man’s metabolism is about 10 [percent] to 15 percent higher than a woman’s,” Goldsmith notes. That’s mainly because men have more muscle mass than women do, which means they burn more calories.

The good news is, you can make your metabolism faster, experts say, despite genetics and gender. These are the 10 simple steps to boosting it big-time.

1. Exercise more often. The more lean muscle you have, the more calories you burn all day. That’s because muscle uses energy even when you’re resting.

Do at least five workouts a week: “Three days of aerobic activity and two days of weight lifting,” advises Shawn Talbott, an exercise physiologist and executive producer of “Killer at Large,” a documentary about the U.S. obesity epidemic.

2. Kick up your cardio. Aerobic intervals will help double the number of calories you torch during a workout, studies show. Intervals also keep your metabolic rate higher than a steady-pace routine for as long as an hour after you stop exercising, according to Michele Olson, professor of exercise science at Auburn University at Montgomery in Alabama. The ideal metabolism-boosting interval routine is to “go hard for a couple of minutes, then take it down to an easier pace for a minute or two, and keep alternating,” Talbott says.

3. Put some muscle behind it. A head-to-toe strength routine will turbocharge your calorie-blasting quotient. Add five pounds of muscle to your body and you can zap as many as 600 calories an hour, Olson says. Be sure to choose a weight-lifting routine that targets your core, legs, arms, chest and shoulders.

4. Don’t skip meals. “Simply chewing, digesting and absorbing food kicks your metabolism into gear,” says Jim White, a national spokesman for the American Dietetic Association. Conversely, missing a meal, or going too long between meals, brings your metabolism to a crawl.

5. Fill up on smart foods. Start by serving yourself protein at every sitting, says Dr. Darwin Deen, co-author of “Nutrition for Life.” Not only does your body need it to help build lean muscle mass, but protein takes more calories to digest. Try low-fat yogurt at breakfast, chicken in your salad at lunch and salmon for dinner. Between meals, snack on protein-rich walnuts.

While you’re at it, eat more foods that slowly release the sugar you need for sustained energy, such as high-fiber fruits and veggies and whole-grain breads and pastas. Eat a food high in fiber three hours before your workout and you’ll also burn extra fat, a study at the University of Nottingham in England found.

6. Eat breakfast. It will shift your metabolism from idle to high speed because cortisol, a hormone that helps you use calories to build muscle, is highest just before you get up in the morning. When you eat a morning meal, your body is primed to turn those calories into muscle — the only time during the day this happens.

7. Get off your butt. Sitting too much slows your metabolism, even if you’re exercising regularly. An easy fix is to stretch, stroll and fidget throughout the day. That’s what scientists call nonexercise activity thermogenesis, and it can boost your burn and help you drop weight, says Dr. James Levine, professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

8. Go to bed earlier. Deprive yourself of sleep and your body starts to respond as if it were under siege. “When you get two hours less shut-eye than you normally do, your system becomes stressed and produces about 50 percent more cortisol,” Talbott says. “That in turn triggers your appetite.” At the same time, lack of Z’s throws the body’s hunger hormones leptin and ghrelin out of whack, making you more likely to overeat.

9. Schedule a nighttime workout. Do 20- to 30-minute moderate-intensity cardio routines before you hit the hay to keep your metabolism humming all night, says John Porcari, director of the clinical exercise physiology program at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. And don’t worry that the activity will keep you awake, as long as you exercise at least 2½ hours before lights out, Breus says.

10. Check your meds. Some of the most dramatic metabolic dips occur with prescribed antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs. “These drugs commonly slow the metabolism because they affect the functioning of the thyroid gland, which regulates how our bodies use energy,” says Dr. Kent Holtorf, a thyroidologist. If you start taking medication and the scale inches upward, ask your doc if there’s an alternative treatment that is less likely to cause weight gain.

— Gannett