Boost Your Metabolism: Eat Small Meals, Eat Often
May 26th, 2007 Subscribe To Our Feed
It’s important to be aware of your metabolism when you’re trying to lose weight, and to “boost” it if you can. With a higher metabolism, your body will work more efficiently. You’ll have more energy, and you will lose weight naturally, as your body burns your fat cells.
Metabolism is the rate at which your body converts fuel (the food you eat) into energy. When you’re overweight, your metabolism slows down. This is because an overweight body is composed of more fat cells than muscle cells, and fat cells need only one eighth the amount of fuel that muscle cells require.
Eat More, And Eat More Often And Beware Of Plateaus
One of the easiest ways to boost your metabolism when you’re losing weight is to ensure that you’re eating enough. Small, frequent meals at regular intervals keep your metabolism burning throughout the day and even while you’re sleeping. There’s a danger of plateaus, however.
If you’ve been on diets, you’re aware of the plateau effect. When you’re in a plateau, it can last for weeks: you stay on your diet, you’re definitely not eating more - in fact you can be eating less - and yet your body doesn’t lose a single ounce over weeks. It stays at the same weight.
A plateau occurs when your metabolism is converting the food you eat into energy, and muscle. Although it seems as if you’re not losing weight, your metabolism can be converting fuel into muscle, without you being aware of it.
This is a good thing - muscles use more fuel (food) than fat cells, so gaining muscle is great, even though no weight loss is showing on the scales.
The danger of plateaus is that you will start to eat less, hoping to kickstart your body into weight loss. However, what happens is that your body goes into starvation mode, slowing your metabolism.
Eat - And Lose Weight Because You Boost Your Metabolism
This means that you must EAT - even though you don’t seem to be losing weight. Eating more, and more often, ensures that your metabolism keeps doing its job. The fact that you’re eating is boosting your metabolism: your body must convert the fuel into energy, and it boosts your metabolism when you do this.
So ensure that you have several small meals right throughout the day, with some protein at each meal. This will keep your metabolism high, and not only will you lose weight, but you’ll look and feel great too.
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Boost Your Metabolism: Five Easy Tips To Increase Your Metabolism And Lose Weight Today
May 12th, 2007 Subscribe To Our Feed
If you’d like to lose weight simply and easily, forget diets and dieting - starving yourself to get skinny doesn’t work. Focus on your metabolism. Your metabolism is simply the conversion of food into energy. That’s all it is - just the processes of turning food into energy in your body. You can’t really “boost” your metabolism, but you can ensure that your metabolism works efficiently.
When your metabolism works efficiently, you’re completely alive. You’ve got energy. You bounce out of bed in the morning, eager for the day. You look forward to exercise, and you handle stress well.
If you starve yourself, your metabolism seems to slow. It’s conserving every little calorie that comes your way, because your body thinks there’s a famine. It hoards calories to keep you alive. At this stage, everything you do is an effort. You don’t want to get out of bed, and everything is a struggle, because your metabolism’s switched to hibernation mode.
Here are five tips to boost your metabolism:
1. Eat More - Increase Your Meals
Eat a little, and often. Enjoy five small meals a day, and include some protein (meat, fish, eggs, beans) at each meal. This keeps your metabolism firing - it’s your body’s engine, and it needs fuel.
2. Plan Your Meals For A Week At A Time
Plan your meals. Take lunch and snacks to work, or make sure that you can buy snacks with protein.
3. Move - Walk Around Your Office For Five Minutes
Move. Forget “exercise” until your body demands it - it will, when you’re providing enough good food. Walk around your office, up and down stairs, and stand when you’re making phone calls. Every movement counts: spend less time sitting, and more time moving. You can even park your car further away from your office.
4. Choose Fast Food With Care
There’s nothing wrong with fast food, as long as it contains protein. Find out what you’re eating. If the majority of the calories in your fast food come from fat and sugar, the food won’t help your metabolism, and certainly won’t help you to lose weight.
5. Use Visualization To See Yourself Lean And Healthy
Use your imagination to see yourself lean, fit, and super-healthy. Take a few moments every day to see yourself swimming, biking, hiking - see yourself moving - in your imagination. We become what we think about, and if you see yourself healthy, you will be. Your subconscious mind will deliver what you visualize, because it “thinks” in images.
So there you have it: five easy ways to boost your metabolism, and become the lean, fit and energetic person you really are.
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