Learning how to speed up your metabolism is really useful when you’re trying to lose weight. A fast metabolism causes you to burn more calories and make you less likely to accumulate body fat. This boosts the weight loss effects of exercise and allows you to eat more without gaining much weight.

Unfortunately, not all people have a fast metabolism. And even if you do, your metabolic rate, or the speed of your metabolism, will eventually slow down as you age.

But the good news is that a slow metabolism isn’t irreversible. The simple act of removing sugary foods from your diet can help you burn more calories.

That’s according to a study published in 2017, which shows that abstaining from fructose-rich foods reduces liver fat and improves metabolism in just eight days.

Ditching fructose improves metabolism, reduces body fat

Fructose is a type of sugar commonly found in fruits and vegetables. In these foods, fructose can be incorporated into a healthy diet since fruits and veggies are chock-full of essential nutrients.

However, processed foods with fructose can be quite unhealthy because they are high in simple sugars and not much else. These empty calories are artificially sweetened with fructose-containing sweeteners like high-fructose corn syrup to enhance their flavor. Past studies show that diets high in sugary foods are linked to fatty liver disease, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and obesity.

With that in mind, researchers set out to determine how eliminating fructose from an obese individual’s diet would affect his liver fat, body fat and metabolism. To answer that question, they recruited 41 obese Americans between the ages of nine to 18 who ate a high-fructose diet prior to the study.

The children consumed a very low-fructose diet for nine days that matched the calorie content of their previous diets. Starchy foods rich in glucose – the body’s main source of fuel – replaced the calories that previously came from fructose.

Within eight days, the diet reduced the participants’ liver fat by 22 percent and significantly improved their metabolism. The researchers attributed the fat reduction to the fact that the liver converts excess sugar into fat for storage. This metabolic process, called “de novo lipogenesis” (DNL), typically happens when your body gets more than enough sugar than it needs, like when you eat too many sugary foods. In the study, the low-fructose diet reduced DNL by up to 56 percent.

Because of these findings, the researchers recommended reducing your overall sugar consumption, particularly when you get most of your carbs from artificially sweetened foods.

Too much fructose is a big blow to your liver

Both fructose and glucose are sugars, but pay particular attention to your fructose intake when trying to speed up your metabolism.

That’s because only your liver can metabolize significant amounts of fructose. Normally, it converts fructose into glucose so your body can use it for fuel. But eating a fructose-rich diet easily overloads your liver and causes it to turn the excess into fat for storage.

Glucose can also be stored as fat, but every part of your body uses it for fuel. This means that you use up a lot of the glucose that you consume. By the time you have enough energy, you usually have little left to be stored in your body.

Take note that not all foods with fructose are bad for your health. Fruits and vegetables contain a host of essential nutrients and are relatively low in calories.

What you should avoid are artificially sweetened foods and drinks, such as soda, candies, flavored yogurt, canned fruit, artificial fruit juices and energy bars. Also, read product labels carefully to avoid foods with fructose-containing sweeteners, including:

• High-fructose corn syrup
• Agave syrup
• Invert sugar
• Maple-flavored syrup
• Molasses
• Palm or coconut sugar

More tips to speed up your metabolism

Your metabolism is not 100 percent under your control because some factors, such as your age and body type, are impossible to modify. Still, there are many things you can do to speed up your metabolism and shed more weight. Check out the following:

• Get more sleep. Sleep plays an important role in regulating your metabolism.
• Increase workout intensity. Your body burns more calories than normal after an intense workout, but this effect grows weaker as you become more fit. Get around that by working out more and harder.
• Do interval training. When you swim, bike or run, increase the intensity of your pace for 30-second intervals and then return to your normal speed. This will make your mitochondria, the cell’s powerhouses, work harder to burn energy.
• Keep your calorie intake up. Reducing your calorie intake will make your body conserve energy.
• Avoid trans fat. Eating trans fat is linked to inflammation and insulin resistance, both of which can mess with your metabolism.
• Go organic. Organic fruits and veggies contain little to no toxins that can interfere with your thyroid. Your thyroid makes hormones that play a role in how fast you burn calories.
• Fill up on protein. It takes longer to burn protein, so your body uses more energy to absorb the nutrients in a high-protein diet.
• De-stress. Chronic stress stimulates the production of proteins that slow your metabolism.
• Drink coffee. Caffeine boosts your metabolism by stimulating the central nervous system.
• Sip green tea. Green tea contains a plant compound that encourages your body to burn fat.

Speeding up your metabolism can help you lose weight more easily. Cut back on sugary foods, work out more or drink green tea for a fast metabolism.

Sources:

Healthline.com 1

DailyMail.co.uk

GastroJournal.org

Healthline.com 2

MayoClinic.org

Health.com