One of the keys to breaking through the plateau is to maintain a good basal metabolic rate and not to let it drop too much in order to have a chance of sustained and stable weight loss.
There are many reasons for a decline in basal metabolism. Prolonged dieting and fasting can lead to a low basal metabolic rate and in order to continue to lose weight steadily you need to find ways to readjust your state and regain a relatively high basal metabolic rate level.
As you age, your basal metabolic rate slowly declines. Statistics have found that basal metabolic rate declines with age after the age of 30, by an average of 5-10% every 10 years. When exercise decreases, weight naturally increases gradually, which is one of the reasons why many people lose weight in middle age.
What is basal metabolic rate?
Imagine that you have spent the whole day lying in bed doing nothing, the amount of calories your body needs to maintain basic physiological functions such as breathing, heartbeat, kidney filtration, hormone production, etc. This is the minimum amount of energy required to sustain life.
Three major sources of calorie consumption in the human body.
- Basal metabolic rate: 60-70% of the total
- Physiological activity, exercise: 20-35%
- Thermic effect of food (TEF) is the amount of calories consumed by digestion, absorption and metabolism after ingestion of food: 5-10%
This means that your basal metabolic rate is the biggest contributor to your body’s energy expenditure, so in order to maintain your weight loss it is important to increase your metabolism and maintain a high basal metabolic rate to make it easier for you to maintain your weight loss results.
Drink plenty of water to help your body metabolise
The body is made up of about 70% water, so “water” plays an important role in the body. Having enough water is essential to transport nutrients to the body, to get rid of waste products, to boost the body’s metabolism, and to help suppress appetite, especially during exercise.
Improves muscle mass and enhances metabolism
We burn 10-14 more calories per kilo of muscle than fat each day, and research has found that when your body increases muscle mass, it also increases your basal metabolic rate, automatically helping you to burn calories. But how do we actually build muscle mass? It’s as simple as moving and doing ‘resistance exercises’ such as weight training, burpees, barbells, dumbbells and kettlebells.
If you prefer aerobic exercise, one of the most effective ways to determine if you are in the effective exercise zone is to monitor your ‘heart rate’. Heart rate monitoring can help you determine the intensity of your workout and estimate the conversion rate from aerobic to anaerobic exercise, and keep track of your results with a sports bracelet, at least
Next, the right diet will double the muscle building effect. Generally speaking, after an effective weight training session, the muscles are in a damaged and torn condition.
Adequate sleep to ensure the body’s metabolic rate
A good night’s sleep is good for energy and metabolism. Staying up late will not only affect your energy the next day, but also your body’s metabolism. It is advisable to go to bed before 11pm and get a full 6-8 hours of sleep. It is also important to pay attention to foods that affect your sleep, such as fried, soy and spicy foods.
Finally, please get in the right frame of mind
If, after following the same methods for a period of time, your body is going to have to change in order to move to the next step, and the most important way to achieve this change, apart from the methods mentioned above, is to adjust your “mindset”.
It is inevitable that you will feel frustrated occasionally during a period of stagnant weight loss. If you are obsessed with not losing weight, even to the point of going off the rails, it can cause major emotional ups and downs, and after a while, you will be prone to poor sleep quality. Conditions such as irritability, irritability and depression, and too much negativity can affect your physical and mental health, causing all aspects of your body to function less well and your autonomic nerves to start following suit, which can be very damaging to your body.
Negative emotions are a stumbling block, so don’t let them get you down Don’t ignore the other things we can change in order to lose weight, focus on learning how to break through the weight loss stagnation, plan a plan you can implement, follow it step by step, believe in yourself and stick to it! Once you break through it, I’m sure you’ll have a greater sense of achievement! Come on, keto learners!
