Healthy Living: 5 Lifestyle Changes to Kickstart Your Metabolism & Lose Weight

Is there a link between your lifestyle and metabolism?

I get asked all the time how I maintain my weight. My usual response over the years is that it’s just down to good genes and a fast metabolism. However as I’ve gotten older I’ve started to realize that it can’t only be down to what you are naturally blessed with. Sure your genes play a vital part in your overall health, but does that mean you are stuck with what you have or can you kick start your metabolism based on your lifestyle.

From my experience and all that I’ve learnt over the years, I do believe your lifestyle choices have a huge influence on your metabolism rate and consequent weight gain. Here are 5 things you need to change to speed up your metabolism:

Sleep

I can’t emphasise this one enough. If you’re not getting at least 6-7 hours of sleep a night it will definitely affect your metabolism and make you gain weight. Many studies have shown this to be true, and the results have shown the link is even stronger than once thought. Here is a great article by the New York Times Blog which highlights this point.

Water

The human body is 50-75% water. That’s a lot! So it makes sense that we should be drinking a lot of it. Water is essential for carrying out all our cellular functions and its used to clean our blood from harmful toxins. The more water you drink, the more toxins and waste your body will remove and that will impact your metabolism as well. Water will also fill you up so you are less likely to eat huge portions of food. Find out more about the importance of drinking water in this article by Shape Magazine.

5 Meals Spread Throughout the Day

It’s important to spread your meals out through the day so that you aren’t eating too big portions in one sitting. Having 5 small meals during the day is much better for your metabolism than eating 3 big meals. This also helps to control your portion size for every meal. Normally I get up for work at 6:30 and before I leave the house I have a cup of tea with a little pot of yogurt to start my day. Once I’m at work I have a small bowl of a healthy fibre cereal like Weetabix. Then I have lunch which usually consists of a sandwich. In the afternoon I’ll have a fruit salad or something light as a snack. I have dinner around 7 which is my main meal of the day although I try to keep it to a healthy portion size. However everything in moderation as I do cheat on the weekends!

Daily Vitamins

Our body requires certain nutrients and minerals to function properly. We get most of these through a balanced diet, however with the busy lives we have these days it can be hard to give our bodies exactly everything it needs. Incorporating a daily multivitamin into your routine will do wonders for you and your metabolism. Not only that, you will like you have more energy and be able to live a more active lifestyle. Which leads me to my last point.

Living an Active Lifestyle

I know not everyone has time to go to the gym or workout too often but it’s still important to live an active lifestyle. If you are at work all day staring at a computer screen all day it can be even harder to do active things but little things like taking the stairs and going for a walk during lunch can do wonders. Try to walk instead of taking a bus or driving, if you have time.

So those are the 5 major things you can do right NOW to kickstart your way to a faster and healthier metabolism and in turn make it easier for your body to lose weight! Hope you guys find this useful! xo