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Make the Most of Your Metabolism

Everyone wants to live a fit and healthy life, but sometimes beginning a new low fat diet can be daunting and even challenging. Changing your eating habits and learning to prepare low calorie, low fat food might be difficult to acclimate to at first, but having a solid knowledge base about the types of foods that you can enjoy without guilt and some inspiration towards creating a delicious menu full of diet-friendly meals is a great start. Healthy snacks, exercise, and a refrigerator makeover are great steps for diet beginners, and this will help jump start your diet easily. But the most important of all is to exercise!

It's my metabolism!
Sound familiar? If you're carrying some extra pounds (and having a hard time losing them), it's tempting to put the blame on a sluggish metabolism.

But is your metabolism really the reason it's often so hard to lose weight? And, more important, is there anything you can do about it?

There are things you can do to help boost your body's calorie-burning power.

What Is Metabolism?
Your metabolism, involves a complex network of hormones and enzymes that not only convert food into fuel but also affect how efficiently you burn that fuel.

"The process of metabolism establishes the rate at which we burn our calories and, ultimately, how quickly we gain weight or how easily we lose it.

Of course, not everyone burns calories at the same rate.

Your metabolism is influenced by your age (metabolism naturally slows about 5% per decade after age 40); your sex (men generally burn more calories at rest than women); and proportion of lean body mass (the more muscle you have, the higher your metabolic rate tends to be).

And yes, heredity makes a difference.

"Some people just burn calories at a slower rate than others.

Occasionally, a defect in the thyroid gland can slow metabolism, though this problem is relatively rare.

And here's a fact that may surprise you: the more weight you carry, the faster your metabolism is likely running.

"The simple fact is that the extra weight causes your body to work harder just to sustain itself at rest, so in most instances, the metabolism is always running a bit faster.

That's one reason it's almost always easiest to lose weight at the start of a diet, and harder later on, "When you are very overweight your metabolism is already running so high that any small cut in calories will result in an immediate loss."

Then, when you lose significant amounts of body fat and muscle, your body needs fewer calories to sustain its self , That helps explain why it's so easy to regain weight after you've worked to lose it.

"If two people both weigh 250 pounds, and one got there by dieting down from 350 and the other one was always at 250, the one who got there by cutting calories is going to have a slower metabolism," That means they will require fewer calories to maintain their weight than the person who never went beyond 250 pounds.

Reviving Your Engine
Though some of the factors affecting metabolic rate can't be changed, happily, there are ways to maximize the metabolism you're born with -- even when you're dieting.

Among the best ways is exercise. This includes aerobic workouts to burn more calories in the short term, and weight training to build the muscles that will boost your metabolism in the long run.

"Since muscle burns more calories than fat -- even while at rest -- the more muscles you have, the higher your resting metabolic rate, which means the more calories your body will be burning just to sustain you.

Every pound of muscle in our bodies burns 35 calories a day, while each pound of fat burns just 2 calories per day.

Only exercise has a long-lasting effect on boosting metabolism."

Having extra muscle also means you can eat more and gain less.

Exercise builds muscle and that is what will help you burn more calories and maintain the weight loss you work so hard to achieve.

Eat More, Burn Better
What really works is "Eat more often, and you'll lose more weight." Small, but frequent, meals help keep your metabolism in high gear, and that means you'll burn more calories overall.

"When you put too many hours between meals, your metabolism actually slows down to compensate.

If you then eat a huge meal -- at the same time your metabolism is functioning as if you're starving -- your body wants to hold on to every calorie.

While this won't make much difference on an occasional basis, make it a way of life and it can get harder to lose or maintain weight.

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