faster metabolism? [Forum Archive]

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faster metabolism?

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Posted by: DRiedl

Is there any way i can speed up my metabolism. it's not like im not an active kid or anything, i work out everyday after school. I am about 6'4" 270lbs. is there any special foods i can eat to do this, or am i just asking a dumb question? help me out here. thanks.

Posted by: lojasmo

Quote:

Originally Posted by DRiedl

Is there any way i can speed up my metabolism. it's not like im not an active kid or anything, i work out everyday after school. I am about 6'4" 270lbs. is there any special foods i can eat to do this, or am i just asking a dumb question? help me out here. thanks.

Eat 6 meals a day.

Drink lots of water, I guess.

Really, you should lift weights and do HIIT if you want to speed your metabolsim.

Posted by: Irons77

You workout everyday?? Not good. Eat 5-7 meals a day will help, if you can't eat 3 meals then snacks in between your meals. Key is eat every 2-3 hours, clean food not junk. Drink a lot of water.

Posted by: DRiedl

when i say work out everyday, its not like hardcore lifting everyday. i lift mon, wed, and fri, and then do running/conditioning on tues, thurs.

Posted by: PappaD

You will know when you get there when you atart heating up at the thought of eating!!! I will actually sweat when I eat!!

Posted by: Prince

gaining muscle mass will speed up your metabolism.

Posted by: Witchblade

Contrary to popular belief eating 6 meals a day will NOT speed up your metabolism.

Posted by: IainDaniel

Quote:

Originally Posted by Witchblade

Contrary to popular belief eating 6 meals a day will NOT speed up your metabolism.

Yep.

Posted by: GoLdeN M 07

then what does eating 6 meals a day do for you?

Posted by: P-funk

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoLdeN M 07

then what does eating 6 meals a day do for you?

1) it allows you to spread out your meals so that you don't get hunry and over-eat when it comes time for food.

2) If you need to consume a lot of calories through the day, it is easier on the stomach to do so in more frequent feedings.

There was a study looking at calorie intake....one group at 5 times a day and the other ate 3x's a day. They both ate the same amount of calories and both had the same amount of weight loss at the end of the study....regardless of how many meals they ate.

Posted by: GoLdeN M 07

Quote:

Originally Posted by P-funk

well thats a bummer. All this time I thought it would help take off fat without me doing much or any cardio. Lifting helps increase metabolism, though, right?

Posted by: Plateau_Max

I think you should start with 6-7 meals a day just to help yourself with overeating.

Honestly the best way to have a faster metabolism is to increase your lean muscle percentage and decrease body fat. I know it sucks because people want it the other way around... they want a faster metabolism so they will be leaner. Unfortunately you have to work for every improvement.

Find a gym where you can get your BMR measured and do bi-monthly comparisons if you really want to track your progress. Unfortunately for civilians this can be expensive. If you eat good clean food and mix high intensity weight training with both high and low intensity cardio (and take 1 or 2 days off per week for recovery) -- you will be well on your way to a faster metabolism.

Also don't binge on caffeine, it damages your metabolism on the short term sort of like driving a car where you accelerate real fast and slam on the brakes all the time.

Posted by: chelsea

you should eat regularly, follow the exact way of taking meals. My metabolism is faster and its a big problem for me. I want to gain weight and no matter how fast I eat still dont achieve any weight because I had a very fast metabolism. Can you help me on what to do? I eat 4 meals a day, Im health conscious and I take supplements daily. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Posted by: x superman

With increasing of your muscle mass your metabolism will become faster. Doing a cardiovascular exercises will speed up your metabolism too.

Posted by: Built

"fast metabolism and I can't gain weight" = eat more. FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal track your food.

"I need to drop fat"= eat less and lift weights. This will not raise your metabolism - it will lower it, anything that lowers your weight will drop your metabolism. But not by much.

And the answer is not cardio.

Posted by: r00kie

Some what related to this topic...I had a question-

How do I slow down my metabolism? My resting heart rate is too high and body fat is too low(6%)

Posted by: Built

You'll just have to eat more.

Posted by: Elson

like it was said before, to speed it up you need more muscle mass and anaerobic exercise raises metabolism better than aerobic. and r00kie - a high resting HR just means your aerobically unconditioned.

Posted by: Plateau_Max

Quote:

Originally Posted by Built

"fast metabolism and I can't gain weight" = eat more. FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal track your food.

"I need to drop fat"= eat less and lift weights. This will not raise your metabolism - it will lower it, anything that lowers your weight will drop your metabolism. But not by much.

And the answer is not cardio.

Having more lean muscle will raise your metabolism because more energy is required to keep you going through the day thus more kcals are burned.

Cardio can slow down the metabolism only in the sense that it lowers your heart rate as your heart becomes more efficient at circulating blood throughout the body with each beat. However on the same note, doing more cardio gets your body in better shape and you will be more apt to lead a more active lifestyle thus burning more kcals on a daily basis.

Posted by: Plateau_Max

There is a method that I keep hearing about which I'm not sure is effective or not (as I have not tried it myself) - apparently drinking ice water regularly boosts your metabolism because your insides have to heat up to warm the water during the digestion process.

I think that idea would encourage people to drink too much water though..... I guess it's better than eating too much

Posted by: Built

Quote:

Originally Posted by Plateau_Max

Having more lean muscle will raise your metabolism because more energy is required to keep you going through the day thus more kcals are burned.

It will - but sadly, not by all that much. If you were significantly overweight to begin with, even though you may add a few pounds of lean mass, you still weigh a lot less overall and your maintenance calories will be lower than they were when you were fat.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Plateau_Max

Cardio can slow down the metabolism only in the sense that it lowers your heart rate as your heart becomes more efficient at circulating blood throughout the body with each beat.

It actually drops your maintenance calories through more than just lowering heart rate: it can reduce lean mass, drop testosterne... and as an added perk, stimulate appetite. Sucks all around, hey?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Plateau_Max

However on the same note, doing more cardio gets your body in better shape and you will be more apt to lead a more active lifestyle thus burning more kcals on a daily basis.

Not in my experience. I was a fat jogger. I'm a lean bodybuilder now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Plateau_Max

There is a method that I keep hearing about which I'm not sure is effective or not (as I have not tried it myself) - apparently drinking ice water regularly boosts your metabolism because your insides have to heat up to warm the water during the digestion process.

I think that idea would encourage people to drink too much water though..... I guess it's better than eating too much

You can actually die from drinking too much water - but I'm sure that's not what you meant lol - the slight increase in metabolic rate from heating the cold water you drink will be trivial at best. Better to run a small deficit and lift weights.

Posted by: darren m

Quote:

Originally Posted by Built

so what is the answer???
i have a similar prob , i can gain weight / fat fast but not muscle , i would like to speed up my met bol rate and hopefully burn the fat thus leaving the muscle behind .
i always thought cardio was the answer , can you explain why cardio wont work .
thanks

Posted by: Witchblade

I second everything our great new female addition to the mods team says. All the traditional means of speeding up metabolism are trivial.

Posted by: Jack P

I've always understood that more muscle is the only way to raise metabolism. I'm reading about interval training as a way to "fake out" your body and up metabolism. Does anyone know anything about how this works?

Posted by: Built

Quote:

Originally Posted by darren m

I gave you the answer: eat less than you need and lift heavy weights. You can look at the information in my blog for more on this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Witchblade

I second everything our great new female addition to the mods team says. All the traditional means of speeding up metabolism are trivial.

Thank you Witchblade, for the props and the backup.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jack P

I've always understood that more muscle is the only way to raise metabolism. I'm reading about interval training as a way to "fake out" your body and up metabolism. Does anyone know anything about how this works?

On my blog, you'll see a link to an article called "How to do cardio if you MUST!" - read up on how HIIT works in there.

More muscle will raise your metabolism. It just doesn't raise it by much.

Weight loss is diet.
Fat loss is diet with heavy lifting to preserve lean mass
Cardio is good for your heart.

Posted by: cpush

so are you saying that everyone has a set metabolism, which is not affected by the addition of lean muscle mass or the practice of habitual cardio?

or what I'm trying to ask is that- we have no control over our metabolism and it doesn't have as great of an impact on overall body/weight composition as we think? we cannot influence our metabolism for the better?

what if, as they say, it "slows" after a long cut? is the only answer to eat more/gain weight = increased metabolism?

Posted by: Built

You take diet breaks, you don't try to cardio off the weight, you don't cut hard for too long without refeeds and breaks, you lift heavy while you diet... and you try to gain muscle. It DOES help - just not as much as you wish it would.

Posted by: cpush

ok, thank you.

I understand refeeds, and I also find them an interesting topic as I've read several articles both for and against them. I believe it was an article by Berardi claiming they aren't as beneficial as many believe- I'm not interested in a debate, just an observation.

and by diet breaks, do you mean throwing in a few "cheat meals" and easing off the strict diet, then getting back on? If so, how long do you recommend the breaks to last. I understand this is an attempt to "reset" or "trick" the body, and get it back into fat burning mode. Have you found it effective?

Posted by: Built

I think so - it's good for your head in any case.

I do refeeds as my cut deepens - the leaner I am and the greater the deficit, the more frequent the refeeds - at times once or twice a week, very low fat.

Diet breaks are just that - I eat, but don't track. I try not to go CRAZY, but it's when I eat cake and ice cream a bit, yanno?

Maybe two weeks, then back to cutting.

Posted by: Hoglander

I can tell everyone here from experience a greatly increased metabolism is not that cool. Mine was so threw the roof my thyroid had to be destroyed. Now I control my metabolism artificially. I could increase or lower my metabolism anytime I wanted. I never would though.

Posted by: Plateau_Max

Quote:

Originally Posted by Built

Are you judging maintenance calories just from weight alone? Excess adipose just sits there as storage for the body to use if it's not getting enough energy from food. Sure you need to have more calories to maintain body heat through more mass, and there is more blood circulation required but it's not as much as you would think. Every lb of lean mass however requires a specific and significant amount of energy for expanding and contracting, feeding nutrients into, etc. One lb of muscle requires far more kcal support than a lb of fat.

Honestly I think we're splitting hairs here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Built

It actually drops your maintenance calories through more than just lowering heart rate: it can reduce lean mass, drop testosterne... and as an added perk, stimulate appetite. Sucks all around, hey?

It stimulates your apetite because you are burning calories. When you aren't doing the cardio (like an off day for example) then the only reason you would have an appetite spike is because your body thinks it's going to do some cardio. I think I'm talking in circles.... what I mean is cardio spikes the appetite because it wants fuel for the calories you're burning, not because of a change in your metabolism. Yeah....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Built

Not in my experience. I was a fat jogger. I'm a lean bodybuilder now.

That's 'cause you were jogging

Try HIIT, sprinting, and running (not jogging) running for a straight hour. Did I mention I love you Built?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Built

Actually that is what I meant lol, I was saying I wouldn't recommend drinking water for the metabolism boost because some people would probably take it too far and hurt themselves. Gotta love dumb people right?

Posted by: Built

Quote:

Are you judging maintenance calories just from weight alone?

Actually, I never do this. I track my intake on fitday and track my weight. If the trend of my weight doesn't fluctuate, I'm eating at maintenance.

Quote:

Excess adipose just sits there as storage for the body to use if it's not getting enough energy from food. Sure you need to have more calories to maintain body heat through more mass, and there is more blood circulation required but it's not as much as you would think. Every lb of lean mass however requires a specific and significant amount of energy for expanding and contracting, feeding nutrients into, etc. One lb of muscle requires far more kcal support than a lb of fat.

I absolutely agree with you.

Quote:

Honestly I think we're splitting hairs here.

No, we TOTALLY agree here.

MY point is that if you have someone who is obese, say a 5'7" woman who is 40 lbs overweight - well, let's suppose she starts lifting weights and fixes her diet. Loses the excess fat, packs on a little muscle. Let's say for argument's sake she goes from 105 lbs lean mass, 170 lbs to 115 lbs lean mass, 130 lbs. (Okay, this was me. FINE. Took me four years. )

Now she weighs 130 lbs, and has more muscle on her than she had before. Awesome.

But she only gained 10 lbs of lean mass. She's down 40 lbs net - lost 50 lbs of fat.

If she's lucky, her metabolism is the same at 130 as it was at 170 - but it might have dropped a bit. Mine did, a little. Not much. I'm SURE the lifting helped me NOT DROP it down to nothing, I'm not complaining, trust me!

Now, if we're talking a young man in the same situation, he may have managed to gain three times this much muscle over this time frame. HIS metabolism will be higher when he's leaner.

Make better sense now?

Quote:

Actually, the activity itself stimulates the appetite.
"The present data suggest that low rather than high-intensity exercise stimulates ghrelin levels independent of exercise duration. "
Translation: low intensity exercise increasing ghrelin is responsible for the increased hunger that ensues. IE jogging makes me freaking HUNGRY LOL!

Carbs do this to me too - but I need them for my lifting and sprinting so I target them around my workouts.

I lift and do HIIT three times a week. I eat about 2300 calories on these days - and about 1400 calories on my non-training days, where I do little or no cardio. I'm actually hungrier on the training days. I blame carbs. <shakes tiny fist in rage>
That plus I was fat for a long time. Fat cells shrink, but sadly they're forever. And they want to be FED. Grrr....

Quote:

Try HIIT, sprinting, and running (not jogging) running for a straight hour. Did I mention I love you Built?

I'm so glad you love me!

I pretty much ONLY do interval work. Read my article and you'll see why:

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