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Want to Loose Weight or Maintain
Weight Loss?
Boost Your Metabolism!
Article by Garden of Life
Looking to lose weight? Or maintain your weight
loss? One of the best ways to do this is by boosting your metabolism.
Your metabolism refers to the processes which create and use energy
everyday. In fact, everything we do uses energy. Just digesting your
food, breathing, controlling your body temperature (trying to increase
it when it is cold out or decrease it when it is very hot), using your
brain, nerve impulses and of course using your muscles for physical
activity or just to move around - they all require energy in the form
of calories.
So, if our metabolism controls how much energy we
expend, how can we increase it? One of the best ways to increase the
energy we expend while we are just sitting around (because we all sit
around and watch TV at some point!) is to increase our muscle tissue.
Maintaining muscle tissue requires a considerable amount of energy
whereas fat tissue requires very little energy for maintenance. In
simple terms, that means that having more muscle tissue on your body
means you will burn more calories at rest, while you are not
exercising. What is the best way to build muscle tissue? Through
resistance training!
Though men eagerly embrace the thought of building
muscle and changing their physique, women are often reluctant because
they think they will get bulky. Let me reassure you that you won’t get
huge by lifting weights -- quite the contrary in fact. Muscle tissue
takes up a small amount of space compared to fat tissue and, the only
way professional female weightlifters get really big is by lifting
extremely heavy weights for years. Also, keep in mind, women naturally
cannot build mass the way men can.
Note from Christine: As a past fitness
instructor I found that higher weights and lower repetitions would
produce more bulky or massive muscles and lower weights and higher
repetitions would produce smaller or smoother muscles. Also see
isotonic exercises in the next paragraph. These are better for women
that tend to gain body mass with weights.
Resistance exercise can come in several forms:
weight training, isotonic exercise - where you are using your own body
weight as resistance (pushups, sit-ups, lunges & squats), and even
isometric exercise can be an effective form of building muscle tissue.
Isometric exercise involves contracting a muscle but not actively
moving your joints. An example would be flexing your biceps.
In addition to resistance training and moving
whenever you get a chance (just to burn those extra calories), you
must eat to keep your metabolism up! That’s right, starving isn’t the
way to go. Many individuals cut their calories and resist their hunger
pangs when they are trying to lose weight but, actually eating, and
eating frequently is the best way to ensure that you are burning
calories. When we forgo eating for long periods of time, or cut our
caloric intake to very low levels, our body adapts by decreasing our
metabolic rate (the rate at which we burn calories). What is even
worse is that we will actually lose muscle tissue, the very thing that
keeps are metabolism kicking, if we eat too little for long periods of
time (think of crash dieters)!
So how do you eat, and eat often and still lose
weight or maintain your weight loss? Every time you eat you burn
calories just by processing your food. Therefore, if you eat several
small meals a day, your ability to burn calories will jump up each
time you eat. Now, this isn’t a license to eat cake and cookies
throughout the day. But, it is a license to eat and eat well,
throughout the day. In addition to helping keep your metabolism high,
eating more frequently should ensure you are never hungry and have
more energy throughout the day.
A great way to keep your metabolism high is by
eating a good overall healthy diet. That means including protein,
healthy fat and carbohydrates on a daily basis. All three
macronutrients are vital to our health. In addition, healthy fat helps
keep our appetite satiated meaning we don’t get as hungry,
carbohydrates help keep our energy levels up and protein will help
build that muscle you are working on! Also, digesting protein requires
slightly more calories than does digesting fat or carbohydrates –
slightly increasing your metabolic rate. Starving yourself or cutting
out any one of these macronutrients won’t work in the long term and
just leave you feeling like “dieting” is too hard. There is a reason
for that – dieting is. Instead, try eating healthy, building muscle,
and moving around as often as you can. You’ll feel better and keep
your weight in check as well!
Garden of Life products that can help you boost your
metabolism and meet your weight loss goals can be found by clicking on
the following links:
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