Since we all want to know how to increase metabolism or or at least know how to boost metabolism in the body more than it is now -- the first question to ask is why do I have a slow metabolism now? Then we can know what to do and how to speed up metabolism again.

Make sense? Let's take a look...

Your basal metabolic rate also known as simply metabolism is the number of calories your body burns each day just to stay alive. The process of your body using or burning the food energy (calories) you have eaten. It also describes the rate or speed in which your body performs this process.

Now, since we know what it is -- Lets see what factors slow metabolism so we can find ways to increase metabolism naturally.

As a rule of thumb, the less muscle you have the slower your metabolism. Why? Because muscles use or burn calories! So the more muscle you have or the least amount of muscle that you lost on your weight loss diet the MORE calories you will burn! Increasing lean muscle mass is the first and probably the most obvious way to increase metabolism. The more muscle you have the more calories your body will burn...even when resting! This is one reason moderate resistance exercise is productive for fat loss.

Besides regular exercise making it less likely for you to lose muscle and therefore burn more calories even at rest -- you will look and feel a lot better. You will also be able to eat more food while losing weight!

Yes, that's right, you will be able to eat more food while losing weight! So be sure you avoid crash diets where you starve yourself to lose weight. Restricting your calories too much will result in a loss of lean muscle tissue resulting in a slower metabolism. In fact you may need MORE calories than you think to lose weight!

With this understanding -- lean muscle mass is not the only factor that affects your basal metabolic rate or determines how many calories you burn each day.

What's really interesting is metabolic rate declines as you get older independently of muscle loss. Young people that are physically active tend to have a higher and faster metabolism than older folks, even if they have the same amount of lean muscle mass. As people age they are generally less physically active -- the result is that they burn fewer calories each day.

To a certain extent, the more exercise you do the higher and faster metabolism you can achieve. The fact that the amount of exercise declines as you get older is responsible for the slower metabolic rate.

Metabolism is also associated with the amount of calories you eat. So the more food you eat the higher or faster you can raise metabolism! This is the other reason you could have a slow metabolism as you get older than when you were younger and ate a larger amount of calories.

But here's the catch... in a majority of cases you must balance the extra food (calories) intake with exercise to reap the weight loss rewards!

In summary for ways to increase metabolism; You must not lose lean muscle tissue while on a crash weight loss plan (fad diet). Secondly, in general, you must eat more food. And thirdly, you must exercise -- all of which makes the other two previous factors work much, much better to boost metabolism.

Now you know how to boost or speed up metabolism! Although increasing metabolism is but one factor in weight loss -- it is an excellent start and will help you lose weight and stay lean...