Boost Your Metabolism

They say that variety is the spice of life, and this is indeed quite true.  But despite this awareness, many people don’t spice up their exercise program; which is surprising, since doing so often leads to valuable metabolism-boosting benefits.

There are a few easy ways to add variety to your exercise program.  We’ve already talked about interval training, and that is indeed one way to shift your body’s metabolic engine into higher gear. 

Other effective ways are to break up a longer routine into smaller parts. 

For example, instead of committing to 1x1 hour workout a day, it can be metabolism-boosting to split this up into 2x30 minute workouts; or even, on some occasions, 3x20 minute workouts.

Furthermore, you can add variety into your daily exercise routine without formally exercising. 

For example, you can take the stairs instead of the elevator.  Or you can start your day with a brisk walk instead of a coffee and the newspaper. 

Or, instead of parking close to the grocery store entrance, you can walk the distance between a far away parking spot and the entrance. 

All of these tips provide two metabolism-boosting benefits. 

Firstly, as you can easily see, they can make exercising more fun.  While, indeed, it’s important to have an exercise routine, you don’t want to have a boring exercise routine (because then your chances of stopping are that much greater!). 

So adding these new elements to your overall exercise commitment simply helps encourage you to stick with the program.  And since exercising is a core part of boosting your metabolism, any technique or tip that helps you continue exercising over the long term is a wise piece of advice.

The second important benefit of variety in your exercise program leads us back to the interval training concept, discussed above. 

When you add variety to your workout, your body cannot get into a groove.  Remember: the body is a remarkable piece of work, and will always strive to do things efficiently. 

Naturally, the overall state of your health (which can be influenced by genetics and other factors outside of your control) will play a role in how efficiently your body runs. 

But regardless of how your body is put together, who what genetic influences you have to deal with, your body really likes you, and wants to do things as efficiently as it possibly can. 

Therefore, when you start exercising, you body can start to develop a kind of expectation of energy output.  It’s not doing this to be lazy; it’s doing this because, quite sincerely, it wants to help! 

If your body starts to predict that you need a certain amount of energy to complete a certain task (such as jog for 20 minutes), then it will start to achieve that energy output more efficiently.  

For example, when you first start jogging for, say, 2 minutes a time followed by 5 minutes of walking, your body may require a great deal of energy to help you achieve this. 

And as a result, you may find yourself very out of breath or tired as your body strives to meet this increased demand.  Naturally, of course, catabolism will be involved, and your body metabolism will increase. 

But over time, say a month or so, your body will simply become more efficient.  It will have become stronger, and will be able to supply your energy needs much more efficiently; you may not even break a sweat! 

What’s happened here is that your health has improved; your body has to work less hard to provide you with your energy needs. 

Ironically, this can actually obscure your metabolism-boosting efforts; because, as you know, you want to tell your body to start the catabolism process.  But if your body is efficiently working, it won’t really dig into its reserves (e.g. fat cells) in order to provide you with the energy that you need. 

So the trick is to keep variety in your workouts.  Many people choose to cross-train for this very reason.  It not only targets different muscle groups, but it keeps your body from finding a groove whereby it tried to help you by slowing down metabolism. 

Remember: your body doesn’t read books like this; it doesn’t need to, and it doesn’t care. 

It has no clue that a speedier metabolism is “good” or “bad”.  Now, as far as you and I are concerned, we know that a speedy metabolism is a good thing in our weight loss efforts. 

But your body doesn’t make this evaluation.  And so it won’t turn on its metabolism jets because you want it to. 

You can’t (unfortunately) send a memo to your body and ask it to please speed up metabolism. 

If you could, then that would be amazing!  But that’s not reality at all.  What we have to do is force the body to say to itself: hey, I need to speed up metabolism because this person needs more energy! 

And one of the best ways for you to force the body to have this kind of thinking is to add variety to your workouts.