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Article Series: Weight Loss & Dieting
How Do I Really Lose Weight?
How
Do I Increase My Metabolism?
The process of metabolism (otherwise known
as the metabolic process) is the method the body uses to produce
its needed energy by combining calories from food (carbohydrates,
proteins, and fats) with oxygen. A person’s metabolic rate
is a measurement of how fast their body burns calories which
are, in turn, a measurement of energy.
Burn
more calories than your body consumes and you lose weight;
burn more calories than your body consumes and you gain weight. Another way to say that is this: consume less calories than
your body burns and you lose weight; consume more calories
than your body burns and you gain weight.
The
way to use your body’s metabolism to lose weight, then, is
twofold:
- Consume
less calories than you burn (as in dieting);
- Burn
more calories than you consume (as in exercising);
The
average body’s metabolic rate, and the rate at which the
Percentage Daily Values of the nutrients on a food’s nutrition
label are based, is 2,000 calories per day.
Your body burns a certain number of calories per day just
by virtue of you being alive – I other words, no exercise necessary.
The process of breathing, for example, burns calories. As does
the circulating of blood. All forms of burning calories based
on nothing other than the act of being alive make up what’s
called you Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). Interestingly enough,
a person’s BMR makes up about 60% of the calories their bodies
burn in a given day. The remaining 10% of the calories burned
in a day are burned by what’s called Dietary Thermongenesis,
comprising the heat-producing acts of eating and internally
processing food.
It is entirely possible to boost your body’s natural metabolism,
in other words: burn more calories in a shorter period of time,
or burn calories faster. Strength training (as in lifting weights)
is one way to achieve remarkable effects. When you lift weights,
the muscles tear and must be repaired by the body’s natural
healing processes. Those processes require the body burn more
calories. The body with a bigger muscle mass burns more at
rest calories in any given span of time. As a general rule,
we burn 50 extra calories a day for each extra pound of muscle.
Beyond weight training, the other tried-and-true method for
boosting your metabolism is simply remaining active. The mere
act of moving around burns calories, so logically the more
you move around the more calories you burn. Take walks on your
breaks at work. Park one or two streets over. Tidy up around
the house while you chat on the phone. None of these require
a gym membership or an unscheduleable block of time. A little
bit over a long time adds up to a lot.
Lastly, there are dietary measures you can take to help boost
your metabolism. Caffeinated beverages (green tea being one
of the healthier choices) and spicy foods have both been shown
to increase the body’s metabolic rate. Also, if you start having
more frequent smaller meals rather than jus 2 or 3 large ones
(“grazing” throughout the day, so to speak), your metabolism
will be in a constant state of activity breaking down and processing
your many small meals. # # # # #
SolveYourProblem.com
: 2008
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