Metabolism is the sum of processes that transform food into energy, used by the body in order to perform essential operations (but not only for that), like: transforming oxygen into carbon dioxide or circulating blood.
The energy level in food is measured by the level of calories. Your body will use more than half of the calories you eat in a day to perform those essential operations I mentioned, the rest would go to physical activity and to process the food you ate. To maintain a healthy body would mean that what you take in equals the calories you use. If the body has too much energy from food, it will see if you have any energy needs and use the energy in that direction, but when the energy is not needed the body will store it into lean muscle tissue, or if it lacks that into fat.
In that line of logic, it is easy to see that any actions intended to increase metabolism would regard exercise and diet.
1. Exercising
Cardiovascular (aerobic) exercises will increase your heart rate, blood circulation, body temperature, breaking down cells and using the energy. This will raise the metabolism while you are exercising, and it is believed, by some experts, that because the muscles burn calories to recover and repair themselves, the metabolism will also be boosted for several hours.
Additionally to the cardiovascular program, building muscle is the method to increase metabolism, because muscle cells burn more calories than fat cells, muscle simply requires more energy.
Another useful type of physical exercise is interval training, this is an activity that combines periods of rest or low activity with bursts of high intensity work. Walk-back sprinting is a good example: you sprint a short distance, stop and walk back to your starting point. However, interval training can be done in any type of workout – rowing, cycling. This exercise boosts your metabolism because your body suddenly needs to find more energy, and so it will burn more calories.
2. Diet
After eating protein your resting metabolic rate increases two or three times, because it needs more energy to break it down, so you can increase the thermic effect if you eat lean protein or low-fat cheese, legumes, yogurt; high-fiber fruits and vegetables.
As I already wrote, you shouldn’t take in more calories than your body needs to use, but you shouldn’t take in fewer calories either, because that will make your body slow down the metabolism, saving energy and making you feel tired. So, the daily calorie intake should be proportionate to your body type and seize, and you could find out what amount you need by consulting a nutritionist or fitness expert.
Eating habits are also important: starting the day with breakfast means kick starting the metabolism that slowed down during sleep and by eating frequent meals throughout the day instead of the classic three times a day way, you are constantly keeping your metabolism in motion.
You should also remember to take vitamin supplements, especially vitamin b and c and to hydrate, because when you dehydrate the temperature drops and your body begins to store fat.
These are some useful guidelines, but as you already know, all health conditions should be treated by a doctor, and you should follow an optimized treatment.
Sources:
http://www.wikihow.com/Increase-Your-Metabolism
http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/guide/make-most-your-metabolism
http://thyroid.about.com/od/loseweightsuccessfully/a/metabolism.htm
http://www.scribd.com/doc/19013297/Increase-Metabolism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interval_training
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