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8 Everyday Habits That Are Reducing Your Metabolism
By: Kratika Sat, 19 Sept 2020 2:02:13
The biggest key to losing weight is by speeding up one’s metabolism. A sluggish metabolism is the reason why most people find it extremely difficult to burn fat. The most effective ways to have a healthy metabolism is by eating clean and exercising regularly. With wrong dietary choices, sedentary lifestyle, increased stress, lack of sleep, the slump in metabolism takes place. In this post, we list out 10 habits that kill your metabolism. But before that, let’s find out what metabolism actually is and how it affects weight loss.
Metabolism is the pace at which the human body burns calories to use as energy and fuel. In essence, it’s the mechanism which converts calories to energy. The rate of metabolism also determined on a variety of factors like age, gender, body fat, activity level, muscle mass and genetics. With age and lifestyle changes, metabolism drops, but there are several ways to improve and increase up the rate at which the body processes calories, and there are definitely ways to speed up metabolism. If we follows ways to boost metabolism, we could accelerate the process of losing extra pounds, burn fat, and reach our goal weight sooner. When you lose weight, you feel things are in better control with improved energy levels. When your metabolism is slow, only a lower amount of calories is burnt even when you have active lifestyle, resulting in weight gain instead of weight loss.
* Eating the wrong kind of breakfast
Your body has rested through the night and needs the right kind of nutrition to kickstart the day; however, when you eat the wrong kind of food that is low in nutrition, you are letting the metabolism slump, for example, eating out of a cereal box is the wrong way to start the day. Eat healthy, home-cooked food for breakfast to keep metabolism high through the day.
* Not Doing Strength Training/Resistance Exercises
You can run on the treadmill for the entire day, but it would not burn as many calories as one hour of HIIT (high intensity interval training) or a few minutes of resistance and weight training exercises. When you lift weight, your muscles are active and the metabolism remains high through the day, and as a result, you burn more calories.
* Sleeping for Less than 7 Hours
You can workout like crazy and have literally no food during the day, but if you haven’t slept for 7 straight hours, your metabolism will ebb to its lowest and it will lower the pace at which body burns fat.
* Increased stress
Hard to avoid but absolutely necessary if you want to lose weight, reduce stress levels. Increased cortisol levels can play havoc on the body and as a result, make it difficult for you to lose weight
* Wrong Dietary Choices
We help you lose weight without compromising on nutrition, so stick to the timings and meals, and you are definitely going to lose weight. Do not tweak the diet or timings
* Eating a carb-heavy Dinner
Go easy on carbs and avoid eating fruits at night. Have you fruits after breakfast or by evening, not near to your bedtime.
* Eating Calorie-Rich Junk Food
High-calorie junk food, high in carbs and unhealthy fat will put load on your body and lower the metabolism considerably. Stay away from all processed, high-calorie, junk food – they have no nutritious value and will probably kill your metabolism.
* You are eating too much sugary foods through the day
The one food category that you need to completely eliminate for better health and weight is “sugar.” Sugar quickly spikes up insulin levels in the body and get absorbed into the bloodstream rather quickly, it also slows down metabolism, and triggers creation of fat cells. For a healthy metabolism, say no to sugar always.