Normally, it’s believed that one’s metabolic rate naturally slows when you are resting or sleeping and goes up when you are up, especially during the workouts. Metabolism includes all the things the body does to turn food into energy and keep one going, and some people have a faster metabolism than others. Gerald Luzindana, a health consultant and wellness expert at Amazon Nutrition Cabinet-Kigali says some things that affect whether your metabolism is speedy or sluggish include things you dont control, like your age, sex, and genes. He says sometimes a sluggish thyroid could decrease your metabolism. However, finding ways of speeding up metabolism is essential especially when it comes to exercising, which is just one of the effective ways of speeding up your metabolism. Studies indicate that muscle is a metabolic currency, and building muscle helps boost your metabolism. Photo/ net. In fact, he says, exercise becomes even more important as one gets older since one naturally loses muscle mass with age, which slows down your metabolism, and working out becomes a way out. Luzindana says it doesn’t matter which kind of exercise one decides to get involved in, any kind of aerobic exercise whether running or dancing helps burn calories. Also, he notes that trying weight lifting can work out as muscle cells need a lot of energy, which means they burn a lot of calories. In fact, he says this burns more calories than fat cells, even when one is not exercising. Theogene Nteziryayo, a fitness trainer at Modern Gym Kimironko-Kigali says because muscle uses more calories than fat, strengthening your muscles will make you a more efficient calorie-burning machine, even when youre at rest. He says one can do this twice a week, do one or two sets of 12 to 15 repetitions on each major muscle group. He says one will be doing more than just helping your metabolism, but also ensures that your heart , bones, and even your mood benefit, which according to him is very essential. Other high-intensity interval training routines he says can also help significantly increase your burn rate, noting that a cardio workout is a great metabolism booster because it can be done in short sessions but gives a long-term burn. “This means that the body has to work harder both during the exercise and also to recover back to its resting state. The more intense the exercise, the more your body needs to recover which means one is burning more calories, he says. Meanwhile, studies indicate that muscle is a metabolic currency, and building muscle helps boost your metabolism. In fact, it’s even proven that if one increases their muscle mass by 20 percent; they will definitely increase their resting metabolic rate by 4–5 percent.
