10 ways to burn more calories in the day
10 Ways to Burn More Calories In The Day
A burst of activity is all that is needed to get calories extinguished. An extended burst of activity on a daily basis will be the ideal way to burn calories. But, when you get up and barely have enough time to get on your way to work, you need to be aware of ways to achieve the calorie-extinguishment in small increments through the day. This is what we are going to discover with 10 ways to burn more calories in the day.
What is a Calorie
To get started on this journey of burning calories, let us first find out what exactly a calorie is. Take one kilogram of water and raise its temperature by one degree Celsius. The heat or energy that is required to do so is a calorie. The word comes from the Latin word for heat which is Calor. This is not the most accurate description of calorie as there are different measurements of the required energy when the initial temperature is different and when the atmospheric pressure is different. However, you must have gained an idea with the overall definition of calorie that it has to do with energy. Where do these calories come from? The answer is food. This energy is needed to undertake all the mechanisms that the body carries out on the inside unseen by us. It is also used up in all of the things we do in the outside world. You will realize that even if you do not have any physical exertions, your calories will still be expended in the maintenance of the bodily mechanisms. The problem arises when you intake too many calories by way of lot of food consumption, especially calorie-rich foods. When you put yourself through physical exertions, calories of energy will be extinguished in powering your activity. Knowing many of the small and simple ways to shed these calories will enable you to get away from the predisposition with counting the calories that you have consumed, which can be a real dampener with enjoying your foods and snacks.
Drink lots of water and bring protein into your diet
The first of our 10 ways to burn more calories in the day is to drink reasonably high amounts of water. The basis of this ploy is that calories get extinguished in breaking down food and water. When you have a good amount of water being brought into the system through the day, your accumulated calories are always being put to work and therefore used up. It is also prone to reduce hunger and can keep you from snacking too often. When you do have a snack, fruits and vegetables are ideal as they also have water content. This aspect of burning calories to break down food also makes it essential to intake food that needs a lot of energy to be broken up. This is what proteins require. Just by increasing your protein intake, you are tapping further into all of those stored reserves of calories of energy and utilizing them in the breaking down of the proteins that you have consumed.
Simple and smart ways to burn calories
The second of our 10 ways to burn more calories in the day is to get as much work as is possible through the day to the body. It can be as simple as standing up when you have the time to do so. What is required is to move different parts of the body as much as possible. Give work to the body. Just stepping up from your seat in the office and taking a few steps back and forth is work. This means getting up and walking about your office as much as you can. Once you start doing this, it will slowly become a routine wherein you can just get up, go to a predefined spot in the office or home and get back right away to your desk or seat. The key aspect is to spread it over the entire working, awake hours and not just confined to a couple of times or more. At home, you can get up from a favourite program during the advertisements instead of waiting for the program to return. Another trick is to place your phone away from you when you sit down to watch TV or work. You will need to walk over to pick it up. And if you sit on the floor while watching TV, you will need to get up and then walk.
Speed it up
The third of our daily simple ways to reverse the effects of food consumption relates to the way that you do these small physical activities through the day. You need to rev up the speed of walking wherever possible. One easy way to do this is to jog up the stairs instead of walking up, which is in itself a part of the previous point. But, when you jog or run, you obviously are doing more work. When the heart starts to beat fast as a result of such activities, your metabolism takes cue and becomes activated.
Well rested leads to well toned
Next on the 10 ways to burn more calories in the day has to actually do with the night but also what you do just prior to hitting your bed. You need to have a light dinner and to sleep well. If you are able to follow this basic routine, you will be setting your body clock in tune with the circadian rhythms. This is also linked with the need to avoid stress. While stressful situations will see you forget your eating regimen and are bound to send unhelpful signals to the controls in the brain. One way to get over any stressful situation is to concentrate on healthy foods so that your mind has something else to chew on. The stress could be related to your physical appearance. Being stressed because you are on a diet is not going to be of any help. Forget about the diet and start to focus on ways to gain a good rest each night which will do far more good than a diet. You need to try and go to bed earlier. This might require a shorter amount of time with your cable TV.
Chilled water and calories
Returning to the mechanism of the body using up calories is what we do for the fifth component of our list. When you drink cold water, the body has to do work in maintaining the temperature of the body. The more that you drink cold water, the more calories are being drawn out and spent on maintaining the temperature of the body. Remember the definition of a Calorie being derived from the energy required to raise the temperature of a kilogram of water. You can do a rough substitution with a liter of cold water to replace a kilogram of water. As cold water will be close to freezing temperature, the body has to do a lot of work to raise the water to the temperature of the body. And when you drink two, three or even four liters of cold water during the day, you are continuously drawing on those calories to work on maintaining the body’s temperature. A related trick is to reduce the temperature of your working and living areas which will force the body to work extra hard to maintain your body temperature.
What does coffee do to calories
Now, we come to the second half of our list of the 10 ways to burn more calories in the day where we take a look at some beverages and foods that can help you along the way. Caffeine and green tea are what we focus at. Caffeine is a drug with about 100 or 200 milligrams being present in a cup of coffee. It steps up the pace of the basal metabolic rate of the body. This consists of the mechanisms of the body that we earlier referred to. These include breathing, control of body temperature, circulation of blood, growth of cells and the contraction of muscles. Green tea contains caffeine and many other vitamins and minerals. It also delivers the same effect as caffeine with respect of speeding up of the functioning of the bodily mechanisms and therefore the burning up of calories. When you have a cup or two of these beverages, you are helping to bring out the calories that are stored in your body.
The essential breakfast
A breakfast sets the tone for the day. It gets the body onto a rhythm that keeps you from losing track of mealtime and having lots of calories along the way. It is a signal to the body that there is no need to conserve energy but rather to use it up. This gives the metabolism a kickstart to the day. When you have made a great start, you will also not be prone to wolfing down a heavy lunch, or especially unbeneficial, a heavy meal before going to sleep. When the body has set down to do its work in the morning, the activities that are undertaken to break down food and distribute it keep the metabolic rate going well. When you have small snacks and small meals spread around the day, the metabolism is continuous which is exactly what you want to burn the calories that have accumulated or the ones that come into the system with each meal.
Spices get the system all worked up
Spices have the ability to trigger signaling from the brain to activate the metabolism. You can add pepper to your meals to make use of this beneficial aspect of spicy food. Chili pepper has many chemicals that trigger activity in your body. The ingredient that gives the spice to chilli pepper is capsaicin. When it enters the body, a signal is sent to the brain that an extreme heat-producing substance has entered the system. The brain in turn speeds up the metabolic processes.
As we wind down our list, we return to the basic activities that are related to physical activity and the achievement of fitness.
Build muscles and get help in burning calories
Muscles draw on your energy resources more. Fats use up less. This means that the more muscle you have, the more likely you are to not accumulate fat. Sounds simple? It seems to be predictable but what happens is that once you have some fat on you, it is essential that you pay attention to slimming it down. Whereas when you have muscle, you can expect them to do a little bit of the work of clearing away the incoming calories. When compared to fat, the rate of drawing of calories is ten times more by muscles.
Stationary jogging
This seems to be something that you would be wondering as to why it did not strike you. It seems to be the perfect solution to all of our time constraints. Just get on to a quick jog as and when you have the time or at the beginning of the day or at the end of the day. Related aspects are exercises that you can do while seated at your desk. There are quite a number of exercises that you do such as extending your legs outward and then bringing them towards your body or just rotation of your wrists. You can also try to get on your toes while standing. It also helps to stand whenever possible while at work.
When you combine all of these easy steps along with a healthy selection of food and exercise more often than not, you are bound to be in the best shape all through the year, even during those times when you do not have even a minute to spare for rest and recreation. It is all about focusing on the body on a full-time basis rather than relegating the needs of your body to what you do at the gym. With these ten ways to burn calories, you are a step ahead in the quest for physical fitness.
