After the Christmas and New Year break it’s completely natural to feel tired, bloated and sluggish. Many of us overindulge during this period, drinking more alcohol than normal and eating foods we wouldn’t normally eat. This, coupled with a lack of exercise can mean when we head back to normal life in January, we’re just not feeling our best.
With that in mind, many people look for ways to increase their metabolism.
What do we mean by metabolism?
Your metabolism is the rate at which your body burns calories for energy. The speed of metabolism depends on a variety of factors, including age, sex, body fat, muscle mass, activity level, and genetics.
Whilst you can’t change the impact your genetics has on your metabolism, there are steps you can take to help speed it up.
Best ways to boost your metabolism
Drink more water
Staying hydrated is essential for the body to function at its best and unfortunately, many of us just aren’t drinking enough day-to-day. If we’re feeling tired and sluggish as we head into the New Year we’re also most likely even more dehydrated than usual after overindulging in alcohol and salty foods over Christmas.
Water is necessary for optimal metabolism, and it can even help us lose weight. Studies show that drinking water increases the amount of calories you burn, which is known as resting energy expenditure.
Eat at regular intervals
Fuelling our bodies at regular and consistent times helps to promote metabolic balance. The best way to boost your metabolism is to eat smaller and more frequently. This is because if we eat large portions of food and then go for long periods without eating, the body may burn calories more slowly and store more fat cells. It’s what is sometimes referred to as the body going into “starvation mode.”
Consistent exercise
Both strength training and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) can increase metabolism and helps you burn more calories, even while resting. Doing both types of these exercises on a consistent basis can help bring about metabolic balance.
Increase NAD+ levels
NAD+ helps our cells’ mitochondria – the ”powerhouse” – to convert food into energy to enable the body to carry out all the functions it needs. Basically NAD+ powers our body on a cellular level and this is directly linked to our metabolism or the rate at which we convert fuel to energy.
NAD+ IV therapy is a fantastic way to increase levels of NAD+ in the body, especially as we get older as our NAD+ levels naturally decline and slow down our metabolism. Additionally, a boost in NAD+ levels helps to combat fatigue and tiredness so we can go for longer, either in just our daily movement or at the gym. So by undertaking NAD+ IV therapy, you optimise levels of NAD+ to help improve both energy levels and metabolism.