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Want to Increase Your Metabolism?
TIP #1: Rev up Your Metabolism by Exercising More
When you exercise on a regular basis, you not only burn more calories, you boost your metabolism. Cardio workouts are your best choice for increasing the rate of your metabolism. Here is a bonus tip: Once you start exercising regularly, your metabolism will burn at a faster rate even while you are at rest. However, it’s important to mix it up by varying your exercise routine to challenge your body in different ways. If you do the same old exercises every day, your body can fall into the exercise routine trap and level off at fitness plateaus. For this reason, it is important to get your heart pumping in new ways.
TIP #2: Eat Smaller Amounts More Often
Avoid eating three large meals per day. Instead, you should try to eat 4-5 smaller meals throughout the day. You might think of this as eating two small meals and and 2-3 snacks. It may seem counter-intuitive that eating more often will speed up your metabolism, but it works! Your metabolism revs up in response to receiving small amounts of "fuel" several times a day. This incremental increase in the energy burned while your body digests smaller amounts of food helps to burn calories, which helps you lose weight.
TIP #3: Change What You Eat
Certain foods help increase your metabolism. Proteins, for example, require a lot of energy to metabolize. Refined carbohydrates, on the other hand, are metabolized very quickly as simple sugars and can be turned very efficiently into body fat. Try to avoid eating starchy and sweet carbohydrates. Replace all cookies, cakes, chips, crackers or breads with vegetables and proteins (try carrot sticks and hummus or celery sticks and peanut butter), and you might notice you are losing weight.
When you are grocery shopping, start in the “fresh food” aisles and choose whole foods instead of processed foods. Whole foods require more energy for your body to assimilate than processed foods. Whole fruits and vegetables and lean proteins, will always require more energy to burn than the convenient foods you eat from packages. A
Bonus Tip: Increase your intake of spices, which have a low caloric content, because they are known to enhance your metabolism.
Sample meal the low-carb way: Consider eating grilled fish or chicken with seasoning as your main course and add steamed green vegetables and a crispy salad on the side. Replace rice or potato side dishes with some cut carrot sticks or cherry tomatoes dipped in salad dressing.
Content provided to the Healthboards community by IB Editorial Staff
Total Comments 3
Posted 02-01-2013 at 04:18 AM by poetpm
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