When it comes to weight loss and staying in shape, the trick is that the faster your metabolism ticks along, the more effectively you burn calories and in turn burn excess fat in your body.

Obviously, lots of good exercise is the main thing for keeping your metabolism nice and high, but you don’t always have to be in the gym to be working on maintaining it. Here are eleven rules to keep your metabolism revved all day.

Don’t starve yourself in order to try to drop the pounds quicker, it will only prove to slow your metabolism down and put it in survival mode, which means that you will be burning calories at a much slower rate.

Give your metabolism a wake up jolt in the morning by eating a breakfast that feeds it perfectly. Foods like yoghurt and oatmeal topped with nuts are perfect for the job. Whatever you do, don’t skip breakfast.

Either is fine, it just depends on your personal preference. A daily cup of coffee, for example, can rev your metabolism by between five and eight percent, which translates to around 100 to 170 calories per day.

Having good amounts of fibre in your diet can increase your ability for fat burning by as much as 30 percent. Aim for about 25g every day, which is the equivalent of about three servings each of vegetables and fruits.

Keep your metabolism ticking over by drinking as much water throughout the day as you can. Drinking more than six cups, or 48 ounces, of water every day can make the difference of about 50 extra calories per day, which isn’t anything to be sniffed at!

The more organic food you can eat, the faster your metabolism will stay. This is down to the lack of pollutants from pesticides that might be present on non-organic products. The toxins can interfere with energy burning.

Even if you are vegetarian or vegan, you need to find ways to include protein in your diet. Including protein in a meal can up the post-meal calorie burn by as much as 35 percent!

Your muscles need oxygen in order to burn fat, and that can be best distributed in your body if you have lots of iron. You can get great boosts of iron through eating things like lean meats, beans, spinach, and shellfish.

Vitamin D plays an essential part in keeping your metabolism running. You can get 90 percent of your daily recommended intake in just a three and half ounce serving of delicious salmon.

Did you know that drinking the equivalent of two martinis can reduce your metabolic rate by as much as 73 percent?

Calcium deficiency can be a leading cause in slow metabolism, so it’s important to top yourself up by drinking milk and consuming other dairy products too.