Basal metabolism is the minimum calories a person needs to maintain his daily life at rest. metabolic rate; It refers to your body’s capacity to convert the food it takes into energy and burn that energy as calories. If your metabolism is working enough, the foods you take are easily converted into energy and this energy is burned completely. Conversely, if your metabolic rate is genetically slow or has been slowed for any reason, such as illness, your capacity to convert food into energy and calories decreases. As a result of this; excess calories are not burned, fat is stored and weight gain is seen. Here are some suggestions to speed up your metabolism.
1. Increasing muscle ratio and decreasing body weight
Metabolism is affected by body compositions. These compositions are the ratio of muscle and fat tissues in the body to each other. Muscles use more calories in the body than fat. People with muscular bodies have faster metabolisms because they have less body fat. Take, for example, two people of the same height and weight. Of these, the body fat rate of the person who regularly applies aerobic work, bodybuilding, fitness and similar instrument programs is lower. Since the other does not do any sports activities, the body fat rate is higher than the other person and therefore the metabolic rate is also slow. In other words, the first person needs to expend more calories than the second person in order to maintain bodily functions.
2. The effect of hormones
As you get older, your metabolic rate slows down in parallel. So much so that after your 20s, your body starts to burn 2-3% less energy every 10 years. The reason for this is that your metabolism slows down when hormonal factors such as menopause come into play. On the other hand, the decreasing level of physical activity as we age leads to a decrease in muscle mass and an increase in fat stores. If the metabolic rate slows down, the risk of obesity increases. The most important features seen in people prone to obesity are excessive appetite, as well as decreased fat breakdown. Excessive intake of fat prevents fat breakdown. Therefore, fat consumption should not exceed 30 percent of daily food consumption.
3. Let’s exercise
Exercising and increasing our muscle mass are the most effective ways to speed up metabolism. So what should our heart rate be to burn fat during exercise?
Determining your maximum heart rate (MHR) during an aerobic workout is important for the purpose and efficiency of the workout. This number is calculated as follows: 220 – age formula is used for this calculation. According to the formula, the “Maximum heart rate” of a 20-year-old person is 200, and a 50-year-old person is 170. Your heart rate (HR) during aerobic exercise; It should range from 50% of your maximum heart rate (MHR) x to 80% of your MHR. This range is called the “Useful Training Limit” (Training Effect Zone). According to this calculation, a 20-year-old’s heart rate (HR) should range between 100 and 160. A heart rate above this does not provide any further aerobic benefit.
The easiest way to get rid of the weight created by low metabolic rate is to do regular exercise. If you want to gain less weight, you need to exercise more and have more lean muscle mass. That is, you should burn more calories by increasing your average metabolic rate.
4. Green tea
Green tea also contains some minerals such as chromium, manganese, selenium and zinc, herbal vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin C. This content makes green tea a powerful antioxidant. It is reported that a biological element called ‘epi-gallo-catechin-3-gallate’ found in green tea and shortly called EGCG may play a role in fighting obesity by increasing the rate of fat burning in the body. In various studies, it has been reported that people who take high levels of the catechins found in green tea have a great decrease in total, subcutaneous abdominal fat and triglycerides. Researchers emphasize that catechin taken with green tea will increase weight loss by slowing the activity of enzymes in the digestive tract and reducing the absorption of calories by the intestines. In an average cup of green tea, 50-150 mg. includes polyphenols. The recommended amount is to take 2-3 cups of green tea or 100-750 mg./green tea extract per day.
