What kind of food boost your metabolism? Your metabolism is the system that processes and uses food for energy. A healthy lifestyle is impossible without a robust metabolism. The question now is, what is your metabolism?
Your metabolism can be defined as the rate at which your body burns calories for energy and carry out other processes.
There are three primary purposes of your metabolism, and they are:
- Convert food into energy to help carry out cellular activities.
- Turn food into building blocks for proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and some carbohydrates.
- Eliminate nitrogen wastes in your body.
It might interest you to know that your metabolism continues to work even while you are at sleep. The only time your metabolism stops working is when you die. Essential functions such as breathing and your heartbeat are a part of your metabolism. There are many benefits the body enjoys when it has a healthy metabolism. For instance, a strong metabolism can clear toxic substances from your body. Also, it helps with blood circulation and provides the body with more energy.
Types of metabolism
There are mainly two types of metabolism, and they are:
- Catabolism: This is the breaking down of complex molecules into simpler forms in your body. It occurs mostly after eating, so the food you eat is broken down into simple units for your body to use.
- Anabolism: This is the building up of simple molecules in your body. Here your body makes use of small and simple molecules to build up larger molecules. For instance, anabolism helps the kidneys and liver to produce glucose from non-carbohydrate substances.
You can say that catabolism releases energy and anabolism consumes energy. Also, a proper understanding of catabolism and anabolism can help you lose weight and gain muscles.
Meals you should eat to boost your metabolism.
To create a good metabolism, certain factors come to play. The food you eat plays a vital role, and here are some foods you can eat to boost your metabolism.
- Chili peppers
According to a study carried out in 2015, capsaicin is very useful in speeding up your metabolism rate. What you might not know about capsaicin is that it can be found in chili peppers. When trying to boost your metabolism rate, including it in your meals can be helpful. The study also reported that capsaicin helps with weight management, as it burns fat and reduces your appetite.
Other benefits of capsaicin found in chili peppers are, it helps reduce pain and inflammation, it acts as an anticancer agent, and it offers antioxidant benefits.
- Coffee
Caffeine can also help boost your metabolism. Due to the caffeine content in coffee, consuming coffee can increase your metabolism. Do you know that consuming up to 270mg of caffeine daily or three cups of coffee can help you burn up to 100 calories daily? You must know that decaffeinated coffee doesn’t offer this benefit. Adding too much sugar and cream to your coffee can work against the caffeine benefit for your metabolism.
- Protein Foods
Consuming foods with protein such as beans, meat, fish, eggs, dairy, legumes, nuts, and seeds can boost your metabolism. Protein-rich meals can increase your metabolism by 15-30%.
In summary, your metabolism is part of your life and plays a role in everything you do or don’t do. A healthy metabolism rate can also drastically reduce your body fat and help you maintain the right body mass. Consult your doctor before making any significant changes to your diet and activities.
Question and Answers
Homeostasis is how the body automatically maintains a constant internal body environment through various processes. The multiple methods involve hormones and neurotransmitters that serve as a check and balance. When the body goes through changes, it is homeostasis that returns the body to its original state.
Metabolism is how the body changes and adapts to the world around it. The body uses energy to change and adapt to the world around it. Power can come from food, exercise, or body fat. When there is too much or too little energy in the body, homeostasis uses anabolic and catabolic processes to return the body to a balanced state of life.
The basal metabolic rate is the smallest amount of energy needed to keep the body alive when it is at rest. Fitness experts express the basal metabolic rate in calories. It determines how much a person must eat to burn body fat or build muscle. The basal metabolic rate is determined by genetics, environment, diet, and lifestyle.
