A high metabolism is important for achieving and maintaining weight loss.

However, some common lifestyle can result in slow metabolism, which could make it more challenging to lose weight. These habits may even make you more susceptible to weight gain in the future.

Here are 6 reasons why your metabolism is slowing down.

1. Lack of protein intake

High protein intake can be beneficial in achieving and maintaining a healthy weight.

It can help you feel fuller for longer and significantly increase the number of calories your body burns.

Thermic effect of food is defined as the increase in metabolism after digestion, and protein has a much higher thermic effect compared to carbs or fat.

Eating protein has been indicated in studies to temporarily increase metabolism by about 20–30% compared to 5–10% and 3% or less for carbs and fat, respectively.

Your metabolism inevitably slows down during weight loss and weight maintenance; however, higher protein intake has been suggested to minimize this effect.

For example, one study has shown that at least 0.5 grams of protein intake per pound of body weight is necessary for people to prevent their metabolism from dropping during and post weight loss.

2. Too few calorie consumption

Too few calorie consumption can lead to a major decrease in metabolism.

Although weight loss requires calorie deficit, dropping your calorie intake too low can be counterproductive.

Dramatically lowering your calorie consumption makes your body sense that food is scarce, thereby also lowering the rate at which it burns calories.

In fact, consuming less than 1, 000 calories per day has been shown in controlled studies in lean and overweight people to have a significant impact on your metabolic rate.

So if you want to lose weight through calorie restriction, make sure you don’t drop your calorie intake too much and too long.

3. Lack of high-quality sleep

Sleeping is as important as eating, drinking water, and resting—it is essential for good health.

Sleeping less than the recommended number of hours, which is at least 7 hours for adults, may increase your risk of several illnesses, including diabetes, heart disease, and depression.

Inadequate sleep has been noted in several studies to decrease metabolic rate and increase weight gain.

For example, healthy adults who slept 4 hours every night for 5 days straight have been found in one study to experience an average of 2.6% reduction in resting metabolic rate, which refers to the number of calories burned when your body is at rest. Their rate bounced back to normal after a 12-hour, uninterrupted sleep.

Sleeping during the day instead of at night only makes sleep deprivation worse; it disrupts your body’s internal clock, or circadian rhythms.

Prolonged sleep deprivation, along with disrupted circadian rhythm, has been shown in a five-week study to decrease metabolic rate by 8% on average.

4. Drinking sugar-sweetened beverages

Sugary drinks are harmful to your health. High consumption of these drinks has been linked to several ailments, including obesity, insulin resistance, and diabetes.

Most of the negative effects brought about by sugary drinks are attributed to fructose—a type of sugar that makes up 55% of high-fructose corn syrup and 50% of table sugar.

Consuming sugary beverages frequently may cause your metabolism to slow down.

In fact, overweight and obese individuals following a weight-maintaining diet who consumed 25% of their calories as fructose-sweetened beverages have been shown in a 12-week controlled study to experience a significant decrease in metabolic rate.

Study results are however mixed. Overconsumption of high-fructose corn syrup compared to whole wheat has been noted in one study to have no effect on 24-hour metabolic rate.

Excessive fructose intake has been shown in research to promote increased fat storage in your liver and belly.

5. Lack of strength training

Strength training is also key to fast metabolism.

It has been shown to increase metabolic rate in people who are healthy and overweight or obese, as well as those who have heart disease.

In addition, working out with weights also increases muscle mass, which constitutes much of the fat-free mass in your body.  It should be noted that with a higher amount of fat-free mass also comes an increased number of calories you burn at rest.

What’s more, even minimal amounts of strength training may cause an increase in energy expenditure.

Those who work out with weights for 11 minutes per day, 3 times a week, have been found in a 6-month study to experience a 7.4% increase in resting metabolic rate and burn, on average, 125 extra calories per day.

Not doing any strength training, on the other hand, can cause your metabolic rate to drop, especially during aging and weight loss.

6. Living a sedentary lifestyle

Living a sedentary lifestyle can significantly reduce the number of calories you burn every day.

A notable number of people are living lifestyles that mainly involve sitting at work, which can negatively affect your metabolic rate and overall health.

Exercising or playing sports, as well as basic daily activities, such as cleaning, standing, and taking the stairs can have an impact on the number of calories you burn—this is called the non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT).

A high amount of NEAT has been found in one study to potentially burn up to 2,000 additional calories every day; however, the same effect does not apply to everyone.

Watching TV while sitting has also been noted in one study to burn an average of 16% fewer calories than standing and 8% fewer calories than typing while sitting.

Simply going out for a short walk or cleaning your house several times a week can help increase your NEAT and subsequently prevent your metabolism from slowing down.

Conclusion

Weight gain can oftentimes result from engaging in lifestyle behaviors that may slow down your metabolism, such as too low calorie consumption, lack of quality sleep, lack of strength training, and living a sedentary lifestyle. Minimizing these behaviors as much as possible is a great idea.

So basically, this article tells you that there are a number of simple activities that can improve your metabolism, thereby helping you lose weight and maintain it.