MAX your Metabolism
By: Yes You Can! Health & Fitness

Have you ever heard someone say “I can’t lose weight because I have a slow metabolism” or even said this yourself?  Did you know you can raise your metabolism through exercise, and specific exercise raise your metabolism more, not just during the exercise itself but in the hours to come?

Your metabolism is the most important weapon you have when it comes to losing weight.  There are 168 hours in a week.  Even if you exercised 2hrs every single day (who can do that!?) that would still leave 154 hours where you’re body is at rest.  You want to make sure that your metabolism is working  and burning stacks of calories for those other hours right?

Following is some information on the MET index, which allows you to gauge how your exercise is increasing your metabolism, and how you can use it to lose weight and tone up faster than ever before!

MET is short for Metabolic Equivalent.  It is an indexed number that gives an indication of how hard your metabolism is working compared to quiet sitting, which is given a rating of 1.0. The more intense the exercise, the higher the rating.  For instance medium pace jogging gives you a rating of 8.0.

Another great use of this index is it gives you a rough calculation of how many calories you’re burning in your training session.  The equation is 1 MET = 1 calorie per kg of body weight per hour.  So if you weigh 70kg, quiet sitting will burn 70 cal per hour.  If you weigh 70kg, medium paced jogging will burn 560 cal in an hour.  That’s huge!

Which Exercises are Best?

So you’re next question of course is, what exercises will raise my metabolism?  Well below is a chart of some popular exercises and their MET rating.

As you can see, there is a pretty common trend – the harder the exercise, the higher it will raise your metabolism.  The rating of course will depend on how hard you participate in the activity – eg. the Spin class itself doesn’t have a rating of 10, it’s just a general rating given if you participate at a pretty vigorous level, the same for running.  These ratings can even be higher depending on how hard you push!

How Hard Can I Train?

So is this relative to each person?  Does an unfit person who has never done Spin before or someone who has not run on the treadmill in years have the ability to immediately train at a 10+ level?  Probably not.  The MET’s index is relative to how intense the exercise compared to the average person.  So if you’re very fit, you have the ability to train even harder than the figures above, only raising your metabolism even further!

Another measurement of this is the amount of oxygen taken in during the exercise.  1 MET = 3.5mL of oxygen per kg per minute.  So the harder you’re breathing, the higher the MET rating will be.  Fitter people are able to breathe more oxygen at a time.  This means that the fitter you are, the further you can raise your metabolism.

What You Can Do

The best thing for you to do is to start training harder and faster!  Below are some quick tips you can incorporate into your training:

·         Try interval training – 10sec Fast, with a 50sec slow(ish) recovery. Then 10sec fast again!

·         Use free weights and your own body weight as opposed to machines (squats / lunges instead of leg press)

·         On many pieces of cardio equipment the MET’s rating will be displayed every 2min.  Use this to gauge your performance.  Each time you train, try to increase the MET by just a little bit

·         On day’s you’re committing yourself to train, perform a high intensity exercise.  On other days, perform something easier like Yoga, slow walking or easy Exercise Bike in front of TV

·         Instead of riding a bike for 60mins at a slow speed, ride at 30mins at a fast speed, maybe with some intervals

·         Run more!  Running is hard work, it burns stacks of calories and tones your legs at the same time

·         Play a team sport.  Get some friends or work colleagues together and play a game of soccer or netball

·         Swap at least 1 Pump class for a heavier weights session.  Women will increase their strength and metabolism for hours afterwards, men will build lean muscle and burn more fat.

Next time you’re in the gym, make sure you’re getting out of breath, working as hard as you can.  Then you’ll know that not only are you burning calories in the gym, but you’re a fat burning machine for the next 24 hours to come, even while you’re sitting at your desk at work!