Increase Metabolism

[Booya99]

Is there anyway to increase your metabolism or maybe how can it be increased? If so, how can you see the difference? Or to see if there is a difference. How long will it take?

[LazyGun]

Take more exercise. Add more muscle. Although an evocative phrase, "speeding up your metabolism" is not a particularly accurate descriptor.
http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/loseweight/pages/how-can-i-speed-up-my-metabolism.aspx

[jomifl]

Metabloism is regulated to suit work done. If you had a higher than normal metabolism and did nothing you would overheat. An ex colleague of mine had a malfunction of some sort, whehter it was temperature regulation or something else I don't know but he suddenly started to get very hot, the only way he could prevent his elevated temperature becoming lethal was to lie in a bath full of cold water. After a week in hospital he was OK, there was no explanation. So don't try to mess around with your metabolic rate, you might not live to regret it.
Any idea what it was LG?

[LazyGun]

None immediately spring to mind,jomifl. Hyperthermia commonly most caused by environmental factors coupled with insufficient hydration/shade. Other than that, medication/drugs of abuse, maybe a stroke, or a viral infection?

Insufficient info to offer anything more substantive. Never heard of a case of an overactive metabolism causing hyperthermia though.

[woofgang]

Booya, why do you want to?

[jomifl]

Thanks LG, he was just sitting at home reading or watching TV one evening. The virus infection sounds most likely since it hasn't recurred and he is now at least 20 years or more older so a brain tumour can be ruled out. Viruses can do strange things, occasionally I will get strange symptoms, odd pains etc, then without my remarking on them mrs.jom will have similar symptoms a day or two later. There must be many viruses that just aren't damaging enough for us to notice or bother about.

[Booya99]

@woofgang maybe because I'm gaining weight and not losing any...

[jomifl]

Booya, excercise increases you metabolic rate. However if you can't get out turn the heating down, your body will use up energy keeping you warm.

[woofgang]

Booya then eat less and move more.....
jomifli, being cold actually slows your metabolism unless you exercise to warm up.

[jomifl]

Woof, so when it gets colder you use less energy to keep warm ...amazing. But that will be for the reptile people surely :o) mammls get to shiver.

[woofgang]

jomifli, just sitting and shivering won't do it. which is what I said. You have to MOVE

[jomifl]

Warm-blooded Animals (Homeotherms)

In humans and other mammals, temperature regulation represents the balance between heat production from metabolic sources and heat loss from evaporation (perspiration) and the processes of radiation, convection, and conduction. In a cold environment, body heat is conserved first by constriction of blood vessels near the body surface and later by waves of muscle contractions, or shivering, which serve to increase metabolism. Shivering can result in a maximum fivefold increase in metabolism. Below about 40°F (4°C) a naked person cannot sufficiently increase the metabolic rate to replace heat lost to the environment.


Read more: body temperature: Warm-blooded Animals (Homeotherms) | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/science/body-temperature-warm-blooded-animals-homeotherms.html#ixzz2lvq6NI2h