Exercise Increases Metabolism for Better Health and Wellbeing

Metabolism is the process through which your body converts food into energy via chemical reactions within your cells. Your metabolic rate measures how many calories (energy units) your body uses to function.

Some individuals have faster metabolisms than others, meaning their bodies burn calories more rapidly. Most factors affecting your metabolism speed, like genetics, size, age, and sex, are beyond your control. Occasionally, a slow thyroid or other hormonal issues can reduce your metabolism.

However, you can influence certain aspects that impact your metabolic rate, such as muscle mass and physical activity. Muscle cells burn slightly more calories than fat cells, even when resting. Naturally, exercise also burns calories.

Remember, the speed of your metabolism likely isn't the reason for any extra weight you carry. It's more likely related to your eating habits and level of physical activity.

Nonetheless, burning calories and building muscle are crucial, especially as you age. Muscle mass naturally declines with age, affecting both strength and metabolism to some extent. Working out regularly can help slow this decline and offers many other significant health benefits.

Benefits of High Metabolism

A fast metabolism means your body uses more energy for basic functions. Essentially, you burn more calories than someone with a slower metabolism, even when inactive. You can consume more food without gaining weight.

Regardless of whether your metabolism is fast or slow, your body is designed to store excess calories as fat. Research indicates that many overweight or obese individuals have fast metabolisms.

The key point is that your metabolism plays a smaller role in your weight compared to your lifestyle, including your diet and activity level.

How Does Exercise Increase Metabolism?

One way to influence your resting metabolic rate is by altering your body composition to have more muscle and less fat.

Weight or resistance training helps build muscle and is beneficial for your bones, joints, and balance. Experts recommend strength training exercises targeting every major muscle group at least twice weekly. Even one set per exercise can be effective if you use enough weight or resistance to tire your muscles after 12-15 repetitions.

Combined with cardio exercise and a healthy diet, strength training can be a valuable component of a weight-loss regimen. However, most regular exercisers gain only a few pounds of muscle, insufficient to significantly impact metabolic rate. Your large organs — brain, heart, kidneys, liver, and lungs — account for most of your resting metabolism.

Exercise, particularly cardio, also aids weight loss by helping you burn more calories.

Exercises That Increase Metabolism

More intense workouts temporarily boost your metabolic rate (calorie burn). However, any physical activity, whether gardening, household chores, or playing with children, uses extra calories. Some research suggests that lean individuals often fidget more, potentially burning hundreds of calories daily.

Many people who start exercising compensate by moving less during the day or consuming more calories. Be mindful of these habits if weight loss is your goal.

Consistency is crucial in any exercise routine. It's also essential to get your doctor's approval if you're new to exercising.

Endurance exercise

The most effective way to burn calories is through heart-pumping aerobic exercise like running, cycling, or jumping rope. This type of workout is also known as endurance or cardio exercise. Experts recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate cardio activity or 75 minutes of vigorous cardio activity weekly.

Endurance exercise increases your breathing rate and heart rate. Regular practice enhances the health of your heart, lungs, and circulatory system, reducing the risk of serious conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, and stroke.

High-intensity interval training (HIIT)

HIIT involves incorporating short bursts of intense exercise into your routine. For instance, you might walk briskly for a minute or two, then run or jog for 30 seconds at a challenging pace. Repeat this cycle until your workout concludes. 

The calories burned depend on your size and the workout type, but you can expect to burn more during an HIIT session than a steady-paced workout of the same duration.

Some scientific evidence suggests that HIIT maintains a higher metabolic rate post-exercise compared to other workouts. A small study showed that women who performed HIIT running workouts burned more calories after their sessions than those doing aerobic endurance exercise or high-intensity strength training, with this effect lasting up to an hour.

Weight training

Weight-lifting burns calories while building muscle. Depending on your size, you might burn around 126 calories in a half-hour of weight-lifting. The benefits likely extend beyond this. A small study found that, after six weeks of strength training, previously inactive women showed higher metabolic rates even without significant changes in body composition.

For optimal health benefits, incorporate both strength and cardio exercises into your routine.