Increasing Metabolism To Decrease Weight

Looking At Food Increases Your Weight!

Image courtesy of Ohmega 1982

Do you know the feeling of just looking at junk food and you feel like the weight has just piled on?

Has this happened to you?

As you age, this can be the case indeed.  I know for me, since I've turned 40 years old, it seems that no matter what I did, calorie restriction, increased exercise, less alcohol, nothing would stop the weight creep! 

Sadly, as we age, our metabolism is well known to slow down.  Ever heard any of your friends exclaim, but I used to eat this much and never put on weight!! Now it just creeps on!!

The trick is to understand that there are ways to increase your metabolism, even as you age, and therefore allow your body to burn more energy throughout the day.

So, how do you do this?

1. Have more muscle
2. Intense exercise
3. Grow more muscle

Simple, right?  Okay, now for some more details!

1. Have more muscle
By increasing your muscle mass, your body will burn more calories to move it around, it also requires more energy to replace your protein cells that are constantly building within the body.  The way to increase your muscle mass is to do resistance training. Resistance training is essentially lifting your weights!  Girls, you need to do this too, it tones and creates muscles.  Four simple resistance training exercises you can do next time you're in the gym are:

chest press (chest)

lat pulldowns (back)

shoulder press (shoulder)

squats (legs)

2. Intense exercise

When you are exercising at only 50 - 60% of your capacity, you may feel like you are doing a long hard workout, but in reality, you're taking the easy option, and only burning up calories during your workout! This option does not increase your metabolism for the longer time!!  The intensity of your workout will determine how long you burn calories for after your workout. The less intense, the shorter the time!  So, all this information that is out there on HIIT (High intensity interval training) is important! Exercising at 80% capacity has been clinically shown to increase your metabolism! Short, hard and burn baby burn!!! Burn up those calories during and after your workout. HIIT it!

3. Grow more muscle

Isn't this the same as having more muscle? Well, no, it isn't.  In order to have more muscle (increase the size of your muscles), you need to feed your body the right 'stuff' to grow more muscles.  So, while you're exercising to increase the size of your muscles, you need to feed your body to grow more muscle that can then, in turn, become bigger!  To do this, you need to feed your body protein.  Studies have shown that whey protein is more effective to grow muscles than other protein sources. Whey protein has even been shown to boost the metabolism for longer than soy protein (so is then classified as a thermogenic food, needs more energy to digest).  Interestingly enough, fibre has also been shown to be thermogenic. There are also a couple of other interesting foods/drinks that can be classified as thermogenic, and these include green tea (ever heard of the green tea diet?), chillis and cayenne pepper (also caffeine).

So, exercise effectively, support your body with protein building and thermogenic foods, and speed up the metabolism so that weight gain is not an issue for you!

For more tips and info, always remember you can contact me or check out my Facebook page