Exercises to boost your metabolism, according to a personal trainer

Metabolism is the chemical process that occurs in your body to maintain life. In addition to converting food into energy, your metabolism also allows your body to breathe, digest and circulate blood.

However, the chemical process also controls the number of basic calories you burn (or your resting metabolic rate), which means that it can affect the speed with which you lose weight.

Although the metabolism is generally relatively stable, exercise is the best option to stimulate or accelerate your metabolism, as training leads to muscle growth, which in turn accelerates metabolism and increases the CMA.

To learn how to boost metabolism through exercise, we talked to Matt Roberts, personal trainer at Matt Roberts Personal Training in London – who explained that some exercises are more beneficial than others.

Roberts told us, "There are many exercises to choose from, but ultimately, any multifunctional movement involving large muscle groups causes a metabolic spike."

To use these large muscle groups, Roberts recommends squatting, jumping and walking, as well as the importance of stretching and warming up before any exercise to avoid injury.

squats

To activate "glutes (the largest muscle group in your body)," Roberts suggests squatting at home or at the gym.

"It's ideally squatting barefoot to make sure your knees do not go too far on your toes and sit about 90 degrees on an imaginary chair, then get up and shake your bad as hard as you can up to what you felt them pulling "

He recommends targeting three to four sets of 20 squats of body weight, with 30 seconds of rest between sets.

Jumping slots

"If you want to challenge yourself, try super fast squats with rope jumps," said Roberts.

"Standing, one foot in front of the other (about a meter away), split up and then straighten up, lifting your legs up and landing with the opposite feet (start with your foot right forward, your left foot back, then swap it). "

He suggests doing three to four sets of 20 repetitions (10 on each side), with 30 seconds of rest between sets.

While walking

According to Roberts, walking is the "most underrated form of exercise that many people neglect".

Roberts recommends taking the tube a few stops earlier than your destination and walking instead.

"Aim for 10,000 steps on non-workout days," he said.

Roberts also shared his non-workout tips for boosting metabolism, which revolve around the diet.

According to Roberts, the most important food group to focus on is protein, because "high levels of protein help repair muscle tissue after a workout and suppress the feeling of hunger."

Various studies have shown that a high-protein diet could boost metabolism and increase the amount of calories burned by about 80 to 100 per day, according to Healthline.

In addition to healthy proteins such as chicken, salmon, tuna, eggs, chickpeas, quinoa and tofu, Roberts also recommends incorporating chili and coffee into your diet, both of these products being known for their stimulating properties for metabolism.

"Capsaicin is the chemical found in chilli peppers that can help boost metabolism, oxidize fats and suppress your appetite, essentially helping you stay constantly in caloric deficit," Roberts said. "Depending on your tolerance levels, I would recommend a third of a pepper for those with low tolerance and a whole pepper for those with high tolerance."

When it comes to coffee, Roberts told us that drinking coffee has the benefits of boosting metabolism and giving you energy – that's the perfect drink before training.

According to studies, caffeine resulted in a 3 to 11% increase in the CMA.

Roberts recommends drinking black coffee avoiding sugar and milk to get the most out of the drink.

Although exercise is beneficial for increasing your metabolic rate, it is important to incorporate the changes inside and outside the gym.