When Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other holidays come around where I eat more than usual, I never feel guilty about how much I have eaten. The reason is that I’ve learned how to train my metabolism to burn enough body fat to allow me to have more “cheat” days. I’m not saying to eat anything and everything once you increase your metabolism (this is unhealthy), but what I am saying is that once your body is used to being in the fat-burning mode, the guilt of eating “fattening” foods on holidays is not there (at least not for me). Whenever I feel that my metabolism is slowing down, I don’t worry at all because I know what to do to get my metabolism back on its fat-burning track. Once you understand how powerful your metabolism is when you feed it energy (continuous small meals throughout the day along with exercise) and how powerful it is to burn fat, you will experience guilt-free “cheat” days too.
Increase metabolism for easy weight loss and fat burning
Metabolism = the number of calories our bodies burn per day. To permanently lose body fat weight, you must increase your metabolism. To increase your metabolism, you must do weight training exercises to condition your muscles and feed your metabolism by eating regularly throughout the day. A slow metabolism results in less fat loss
When we lose weight, we also lose protein from our muscles. The faster we lose weight (by cutting down too much on our calorie intake), the more protein is used for energy; and when you lose too much protein from your muscles, the result is a slow metabolism. Your muscles need protein to grow and stay strong. When protein is taken from your muscles, you lose muscle tissue. Muscle tissues are metabolically active and burn calories (even at rest). Your body needs calories to feed these metabolically active tissues so that it has the energy to continue to burn calories. The calories that are burned also come from the fat stored in your body. So, in other words, the more calories you eat, the more energy your metabolism has to burn the fat stored in your body. Without calorie intake, your metabolism has no energy. Therefore, it will slow down, and you will burn fat at a very slow rate (if you burn any at all). Having energy is not the only reason for a fast or slow metabolism. You see, when you significantly cut down on your daily calorie intake, your metabolism burns calories slower to prevent your body from starving. Now that your body doesn’t know when you will feed it; your body will store the calories to be used later. The calories are stored as fat.
Increase your metabolism and lose more body fat weight than water weight
When you lose protein from your muscles, you not only lose muscle tissue, but you will also lose water. Protein holds about 4 times its weight in water. To lose 10 pounds of body fat, you need to burn 35,000 calories (3500 calories = 1 pound). If you lose those 10 pounds in one week, do you honestly believe that it was body fat? The answer is no, only about 2 pounds was fat, and the rest was water (Do not be fooled by what the scale says!) When you increase your metabolism, your body has a reason to hold onto the protein (remember protein holds water) and use the energy to burn fat.
Yes, you will lose some protein from your muscles even if you lose weight the right way. The key is to provide your muscles with enough protein each day so that it can not only replace your protein loss but use the extra protein to help build new muscle tissue and stay conditioned.
Eat more food to increase your metabolism
Protein helps build muscle, but carbohydrates are your body’s main source of energy. When your body has a deficiency of energy (carbohydrates) and takes the protein from your muscles as energy, the protein is converted to carbohydrates before it’s used as an energy source. Therefore, when you eat, you must have the right amount of carbohydrates and proteins in your body so that energy can be used efficiently. Also, eat more frequently to fuel your metabolism all day long. Eating at least 5-6 small meals each day will give your metabolism the continuous supply of energy it needs to burn fat longer and faster. If you are short on time and can not cook, do not resort to eating junk food as one of your meals; instead, opt for a good meal replacement product to satisfy your body.
Exercise to increase your metabolism
Exercise in general burns calories. Weight training will help you increase your metabolism because that is how you condition your metabolically active muscles. Whenever you increase your physical activity, especially through exercise, you must increase the number of calories you consume each day. Remember, the more energy (calories) you give your muscles, the more energy it has to burn fat that is stored in your body. Also, remember the less energy you give your body, the more protein will be taken from your muscles to be converted to carbohydrates as energy, which leads to a slow metabolism.
