Boost Your Metabolism and Burn Fat

How can you boost your metabolism to improve your weight loss efforts and in the process burn fat? This is a question that can be answered!

Many people find it difficult to lose excess fat…you may even be one of those people that have tried every diet and run a million miles…and still say nothing seems to work. If you are one of those people that feels like they have tried everything, perhaps it is your metabolism that is causing you a problem.

You may need to turn on your fat-burning processes! There’s a video which shows why 93% of diets and exercise program’s fail:
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If your metabolism is not working effectively, it can cause different health problems. This includes diabetes, weight gain and thyroid issues. It has also been shown that a slow metabolism can be heredity. Your metabolism provides you with enough energy to keep your body moving and functioning each day.

It is described as ‘a life sustaining function’.

Understanding Your Metabolism

So let’s first take a look at what your metabolism is, so you can better understand the importance of your metabolism and how you can boost it!

Your metabolism is made up of a network of enzymes and hormones. Together they help convert food into fuel for your body. If your body can’t convert your food into fuel, you’ll have no energy to do anything. Your metabolism generates fuel, stores the extra and puts the stored fuel into use when it’s needed.

Fast and Slow Metabolisms

If a person has a fast metabolism this type of person is usually lean as their body doesn’t store fat.
If a person has a slow metabolism they may often feel weak as their body is not able to pull on their reserves for energy.

There are many influences that can affect how fast or slow your metabolic system works.

Age – It has been shown that older people have a slower metabolism. After you reach the age of 40 your metabolism generally slows down by about 5% each 10 years.

Gender – Men tend to burn calories more quickly than women when resting.

Body mass – A larger muscle mass means that you will burn calories more effectively as your metabolic rate will be higher.

Genetic condition – You may have some type of genetic condition which means your metabolic system doesn’t function correctly. This is what happens when you develop diabetes. It is also possible you could be lacking in a particular enzyme.

What is important is for you to understand how your metabolism works. Once you have identified this, you can then approach losing weight from a different angle. This will finally allow you to see those results you have been striving for.

4 Ways To Increase Your Metabolism To Help Burn Fat

Even if heredity is to blame for your slow metabolism, it is still possible to lose weight. What you want to remember is that muscles burn more calories than fat. This happens even while your body is resting. This means that if you work on increasing your muscle mass, your metabolism will work for you for longer periods.

This is often referred to as your resting metabolic rate.

Exercise

So, the next step that comes into play is exercise. The best combination of exercise will be aerobic exercise for 30 minutes – to help speed up weight loss – then 30 minutes of weight training – this is going to increase your metabolic resting rate over the long term.

Now that doesn’t mean you have to kill yourself with exercise! Aerobic exercise includes walking, not at a dawdle, but a comfortable fast pace will suffice, and weight training doesn’t have to be where you are training to be the next bodybuilder champion.

One pound of muscle burns approximately 35 calories per day.
One pound of fat burns approximately 2 calories per day.

Diet

One issue that you may have when trying to lose weight is in knowing how many calories to consume. While you may think that eating as few calories as possible is the way to go, this is not always true, as is with a low carb diet plan.

Research has shown that eating more of the right calories can actually lead to weight loss. It is better to eat small meals more often, rather than 3 large meals. Some people find eating 5 small meals over the course of a day works extremely well…as I do myself.

Try dividing your meals into smaller portions with approximately the same calories for each meal. This will help increase your metabolic rate and turn you into a fat burning machine.

Foods to Eat

It can often be difficult to know what fat burning foods to eat to lose weight and boost your metabolism. Most foods are going to actually help increase your metabolism. This increase generally takes place for the first hour after you consume any type of food.

Certain foods use more energy in order to be digested. For example it is recognized that protein foods use about 25% more energy than a food heavy in carbs, even if they contain the same amount of calories. Increase your protein intake by having a small amount of protein at each meal.

Hot peppers and spicy foods seem to help boost your metabolism by about 20% during the first 30 minutes.

Green tea has also been shown to do the same. Green tea contains EGCG which is a powerful antioxidant that is similar to those found in hot peppers.

Increase your fiber. Add psyllium husk if necessary to improve your fiber intake.

Other foods you can add to your diet are oats, avocado, asparagus, almonds, spinach and blueberries.

Building Your Muscle Mass

So you know you need to boost your metabolism to help you lose weight and your muscles are more effective calorie burners when it comes to burning off excess fat. So if you need muscle, how do you build muscle mass?

The best way to do this is by adding weight training to your exercise regimen. You don’t have to start off with heavy weights, if you did you would probably end up pulling a muscle and putting yourself out of action.

The best weights for beginners are any type of hand weight. You can even use your own body weight in many exercises! Just remember to use a low weight and increase as your fitness level improves.

Other exercises that will help build your muscle mass include push-ups and sit-ups. If you cannot perform a push-up modify it by starting out on your knees. If this is still too hard use a step on your basement stairs. Sit-ups may be easier if done on an exercise ball, just watch your posture and don’t lean too far backwards. Be careful of your back!

Yoga and Pilates are both excellent exercises for building muscle mass. Pilates strengthens your entire core and back.

In addition to specific exercises for building muscle mass don’t forget to add in cardiovascular exercise. This will really help speed up your metabolism and get you dropping excess pounds more quickly. General activities that fall into this group include cycling, walking, hiking and swimming. Your goal here is to increase your heart rate to a point where you can still talk without being out of breathe.

In Conclusion

So in conclusion, if your goal is to burn belly fat, or fat from any other area of your body, you need to increase your metabolism.

This can be done by eating 5 smaller meals a day and space your meals evenly apart.

Include extra protein and fiber in your diet.

Start an exercise program that includes some type of cardiovascular exercise and weight training. Aim to do this 5 times a week for about 30 minutes at a time. Start off slowly and increase the intensity or time as you improve. Five pound weights are more than enough. Always listen to your body and observe any exercise that is painful. While you may feel the exercises nothing should cause you major pain, if it does, stop and find out why!

If you incorporate these few things into your daily routine you should expect to see results fairly quickly. The cardio activity will help you initially lose those first few pounds. The effects from weight training may take a little longer, but they will provide you with longer term results.

There are also natural weight loss supplements that may prove to be helpful. So now you know how to boost your metabolism and burn fat!