If you’re trying to maintain your weight or help boost your weight loss. We have some great news for you on how you can give yourself a metabolism boost. Daily routines can become monotonous. Sometimes spicing it up can not only make things more fun, but beneficial, too.
Metabolism Review
The metabolism is the number of calories you burn over the course of a day, it has absolutely nothing to do with your diet or your workouts. The body burns calories to fuel many things over the course of the day:
- Your Basal Metabolism. These are the calories your body burns to power your organs and physiological functions. This accounts for between 60% and 75% of your daily calorie expenditure. (Interesting fact: your liver, brain and skeletal muscle are the top 3 calorie burners.)
- Digesting Your Food. About 10% of your daily calorie intake goes to digest your food! This includes breaking it down, converting it into energy, and/or going through the process of storing it as fat if it’s not immediately used.
- Physical Activity. This category of calorie burn is broken into two groups – calories you burn while you’re exercising (and directly after), and calories you burn while you’re doing other things like walking around, doing chores, engaging in hobbies, etc. Physical activity accounts for between 15% to 30% of your total daily energy expenditure.
The physical activity you perform during your daily routine are the calories that we’re going to talk about today. It’s called non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) and it can make a huge difference in maintaining and/or losing weight. That’s because any “extra” activity you do during the day (taking a shower, walking up the stairs, washing the dishes, doing laundry, playing with kids/pets, etc.) vs. sitting down can add up to hundreds of extra calories burned over the course of the day.
Burn Calories and Boost Your Metabolism
Just how many calories you burn depends on how much you weigh and how hard are working. Doing household chores burns between 150-300 calories an hour, while working in the yard can burn 200 to 600 depending on whether you’re weeding, raking, chopping down trees, etc. Compare that to time spent on the couch, you only burn 70 calories an hour sitting and just 45 calories an hour lying down, think of what you could do instead to burn additional calories.
Everyone has an enzyme called lipoprotein lipase which helps your body turn stored fat into energy. When you’re not very active, you have less of it in your body, but staying active during the day will help keep your levels up. Basically, if you want to keep your metabolism up, move more! This is incredibly important if you sit all day for work or if you’re giving into a lazy rut because you’re in control of your enzyme levels.
You can find ways to sneak more activity into your day. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Park farther away from work and stores. Stand instead when you would normally sit. Walking your dog or play with the kids. Over time, these little upgrades in your activity will pay off! Next time you binge watch Netflix, add some movement in between!
Stronger for Today,
The Method3 Fitness Team
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