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Increasing Your Body's Burn Rate

By Michelle I. Cox

Increasing your body burn rate is one activity that is essential to energy, burning fat faster, and staying lean for life.

Often a confusing term, metabolism simply refers to the rate at which our bodies burn energy. Similar to the 'horsepower' on a car engine, increasing your metabolic 'horsepower' allows the body to burn more 'fuel' all day long.

Long-term Health. Increasing your body burn rate is essential not only to stay lean, but to avoid those 'extra pounds of blubber' that slowly creep up on us. Over time, a few pounds of extra body fat per year can add up significantly giving many an alarming 'wake-up call' in their 40's, 50's, and 60's.

By developing the habits required to increase metabolism early, many of the weight-related health issues can be completely avoided including high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, and more.

Increasing Your Body Burn Rate. Increasing your body burn rate is not an 'overnight process'; but through commitment to the 5 steps below, significant results can be achieved.

  1. Increase meal frequency: By dividing caloric intake into 5-6 mini-meals each day (rather than the standard breakfast, lunch, dinner) the metabolic fire can be constantly stoked. Feeding the body frequently is like burning 'small kindling' rather than 'giant logs.' Mini-meals burn faster, keep blood sugar stable, and, therefore, maintain an 'anabolic' muscle building state.

  2. Balance meals: Planning meals that provide a balance of low glycemic starch carbohydrates, lean protein, and fibrous fruits and vegetables is essential to increasing metabolism and keeping the body in a 'fat-burning' state. Strive for whole grains such as brown rice, sweet potatoes, and oatmeal for carbohydrate sources.

  3. Include protein: Including the right protein sources at each meal forces our 'internal engine' (digestive processes) to work harder - giving the body an internal workout in the process! Protein is required at each meal to maintain a steady supply of amino acids available for muscles. Without this steady supply, the body must break down existing tissue for nourishment. This is counterproductive to the goal of maintaining our existing lean muscle mass and adding to it! Foods such as seafood, fish, chicken, turkey, eggs, and soy, are great protein choices because they include the broadest range of complete amino acids and are also low in saturated fats.

  4. Increase lean muscle mass: Muscle is the only metabolically active tissue in the body. By increasing lean muscle mass, we increase the 'size' of our engine. Think of increasing muscle mass as upgrading from the 4 cylinder engine to the big V8! That is why it's essential to be involved in some type of resistance training program whether it be weight training, calisthenics, or even swimming.

  5. Engage in morning exercise: When possible, morning exercise is preferable over an evening workout for two reasons. First, it ensures it gets done. All too often, the best of intentions to exercise in the evening (after work) get pushed aside by a late work night or a rough day at the office. Those conflicts are non-existent in the early hours of the day. Second, there are also slight metabolic benefits to morning exercise. By 'revving up the engine' in the morning, the body maintains a slightly higher burn rate for the remainder of the day thereby burning more calories all day long.

Conclusion

Implementing these simple daily strategies are the key to increasing your body burn rate. Raising metabolism leads to increased energy, the ability to burn fat faster, and maintaining a lean and healthy physique. Neglecting to cultivate a fit metabolism results in an inevitable decline and increased health concerns over time. Through the tools of diet and exercise, your metabolic engine can be 'tuned up' and 'revved up' - leading to a happy, healthy, and long life.

About the Author:

Michelle Cox earned her Masters of Science in Exercise Physiology for Northeastern University. She is the owner of Fitness Together in Cohasset & Duxbury, MA. Michelle has helped hundreds of clients achieve the health and fitness goals. You can learn more from her website http://www.ftsouthshore.com