Weight loss for health

In this short article I am going to share with you 5 of the best ways you can speed up and increase your metabolism. These are 5 things which you can start to do immediately that will impact and accelerate your metabolic rate from the moment you start.

There is a certain degree of power in each of these 5 things that you can do individually but the real potential power lies in the integrated affects of all 5 combined. Each step alone done can and will have a small impact on your metabolic rate but in order to increase the overall speed of your metabolism on an ongoing basis you need to apply and follow these techniques on a regular, frequent and consistent basis.

There is an accumulating and compounding affect that these 5 things will have on your metabolism when applied with consistency. With that all said let’s identify what these 5 ways of increasing your metabolism are…

1. Drink More Water
2. Eat More Frequently
3. Eat More Lean Protein
4. Use Interval Training
5. Increase Lean Muscle Tissue

Let’s take a closer look at each of these 5 and see why they work so well.

Firstly it goes without saying and yet so many people fail to do it, you must drink an adequate amount of clean fresh water throughout the day to keep your body properly hydrated. Your body is over 70% water, every organ and every cell requires water to function properly and without it, performance drops, everything slows down, including your metabolism.

Secondly by eating more frequently you are keeping your metabolism elevated and stimulated throughout the day. Eating and digesting requires energy, a lot of energy, and every time you eat something, particularly the right foods, you are kick-starting your metabolism and getting your engines firing. It costs energy and calories to digest, assimilate and eliminate food and so by eating little and often your body burns a greater amount of energy and calories over the course of a day.

Thirdly you by consuming healthy sources of lean protein you also put your bodies energy by system to work as protein is more difficult to break down and digest and therefore you are putting an even greater demand on your system which requires even more energy and calories. Think of protein as like eating a knot that your body must unravel and untie before it can digest and use it, this requires more energy and an increase in metabolism.

Fourthly you must exercise of course. You can not effectively increase, stimulate and elevate your metabolic rate with some kind of physical activity. But not all exercise is created equal. There are certain way of structuring your exercise sessions to yield a far greater result and return of your invested time and effort. One of those ways is through interval training. Your body is an extremely adaptive machine and if you continue to follow the same routine with the same intensities for too long your body will stop responding. Interval training takes this into consideration and works to give your body a shock or a jolt which places extra, often unexpected, demand on your body which again demands an increase in energy and calorie expenditure, resulting in an elevated and increased metabolic rate.

And finally the other kind of activity which will yield you a greater return on your invested time and effort are those activities which work to increase your bodies lean muscle tissue. You see muscles burn calories and they burn fat, even while at rest. Your muscles are the most metabolically active tissue in the body and therefore they are responsible for and contribute to your overall metabolic rate more than any other single factor. Muscle tissue requires energy and calories simply to maintain themselves.

There you go, there are 5 simple things you can do that will work to increase you metabolism almost immediately. If you start to apply each of these step one by one and combine all 5 over the next week and continue to apply them consistently over the next month you will increase your metabolism exponentially. You will then see your body change before your eyes and you will want to continue to take these 5 steps even further.

Dieting is frustrating! Especially when you are trying to get rid of the water weight. You may realize you weigh less in the morning but gain weight at the end of the day. Do not be surprised, as this is normal. The truth is, we gain and lose weight “everyday” causing by our daily diet and activities.

Our body weight fluctuates due to losing and gaining of fluid in our body. Water balance in the body is one the sole reasons causing our daily weight changes. Our daily activities, drinking and eating habits are major factors that affect water balance in our body.

We lose body fluid through perspiring during sleep in the night and physical activities such as household chores, walking the dog, yard work, exercise etc during the day. The body fluid is being replenished through food and drink from our meals. People who drink and eat less but maintain a vigorous daily activity tend to dehydrate their bodies which leads to water weight loss. Nonetheless, weight loss by dehydration is not advisable.

Too much intake of salt (which contains sodium) in our daily diet tends to cause water retention in the body. Processed and convenient foods contain high amount of salt/sodium. We are likely to gain an extra 5 pounds of water weight due to excessive salt/sodium intake. In some cases, there is possibility that a person gains 8 to10 pounds of extra water weight just by consuming too much of salt/sodium!

A bad diet with high salt/sodium intake increases water gaining in the body. Thus, by reducing the amount of salt/sodium in our daily diet helps to control the gaining of water weight.

Sweating is a fast and easy way to lose the extra pounds causing by excess water in our body. One may lose 2 to 4 pounds of water weight just by sweating alone. Regular exercise and workout help to reduce excess water stores in the body.

To maintain water balance in the body, a combination of healthy low salt diet and regular exercise are vitally important in our daily lifestyles.

The holidays always present a challenge to our weight loss and fitness programs. The festivities along with our normal activities consume a large amount of our time; this leaves very little time for our workout sessions. It is extremely important that we work out smarter instead of harder if we want to continue weight loss during the holidays.

One of our problems is that the things we think we know about how our bodies work to shed extra pounds and exercise programs may not be necessarily true. There are a lot of misconceptions and myths about losing fat and those extra pounds. It is important to learn about what is involved in the weight loss process.

It is a fact that we need to change our lifestyle if we want to be successful with our slimming and fitness program. This includes incorporating a healthy diet into our lives and a realistic exercise program. It is challenging to do at this time of year but it can be accomplished with just a little effort, self control and the proper knowledge.

Develop the mindset that you will be successful this year during the holidays!

Eat healthy when you can, and when you cannot; remember to use the knowledge about portion sizes!

Exercise when you can but do not beat yourself up if you cannot work it into the day!

Make it a point to do some research and learn more about how your body works when you are trying to shed pounds. Research the myths about fat loss and cardiovascular workouts.

With the proper knowledge and by working smarter instead of harder; you will definitely be happy with your weight loss during the holidays.

I consider protein the most important of all nutrients in the burning of fat. I don’t mean to the exclusion of others, but if I had to prepare a list of priorities I would place protein at the top.

Protein foods, as you know, include meats, fish, cheese, eggs, and poultry. Proteins act just the opposite of carbohydrates. They give you slow constant energy instead of a sudden surge that peters out. Also, they step up the metabolic rate of the body, instead of slowing it down. With metabolism at a higher clip, more energy is utilized and more fat is burned off. Proteins are the body’s building blocks. The body needs these building blocks just to keep in repair. As cells die, and millions die in the body every day, they must be replaced with new cells. This takes protein and lots of it.

In areas of the world where proteins are scarce, no amount of other foods will prevent the inevitable deterioration of the body that occurs. The reason protein is on the top of my list of nutrients is that that’s where nature puts it, too.

Perhaps by design, nature has made proteins the most appetizing and tasteful foods. Fat is lost only when energy is being produced by the body. It follows that weight cannot be lost unless fat is effectively burned, a process requiring many vital nutrients.

A lack of any of the B vitamins causes a marked lag in energy production. Vitamin B utilized both protein and fat so ineffectively they came grossly obese. Vitamin E added to a diet formerly deficient in it or in protein causes the rate of utilization of fat to double. Protein itself is needed for a host of energy producing enzymes.