How Can I Increase My Basal Metabolic Rate

Before discussion of raising the Basal Metabolic Rate or BMR, it is necessary to define it. Your BMR is the rate at which your body burns calories when you are at rest, completely at rest. To be as accurate as possible, your digestive system should not be actively digesting food, because digestion increases your metabolic rate too. Therefore, any testing to determine your BMR should be done after fasting for approximately 12 hours.

The factors that influence the basal metabolic rate are what must be determined in order to make your body burn more calories while at rest. The most important factor is muscle mass. One pound of fat burns 2 calories per day, while one pound of muscle burns 14-16 calories per day. Your muscles burn 7 to 8 times more calories than your fat cells! Basically this can be achieved through exercising with the aim of increasing your muscle mass. By raising your BMR in this way, you will be increasing the number of calories burned per day and therefore, provided that your eating habits remain the same, you will lose weight.

The best way to increase muscle mass is with resistance weight training. By lifting or pulling or pushing weights, you will progressively increase your muscle mass and strengthen you skeletal system as well, so that both get stronger. Slowly increasing the load while continually challenging yourself is the safest approach to reaching maximum results.

Recent studies have also shown that heavy endurance exercises, like marathon running or cycling, cross-country skiing, any aerobic activity that lasts a considerable amount of time and is performed on a regular basis, can also increase your BMR.

Why is it so important to increase your BMR? There are many factors in place, such as getting older (starting in your late 20's), menopause, and your genetic makeup, that decrease your BMR naturally. Staying fit and strong is the best way to prevent weight gain and improve quality of life as we age. These are the best reasons to increase your BMR.