How To Rev Up Your Metabolism To Lose Weight

We've all heard it or even said it one time or another: "I'm not able to lose weight because of my metabolism." It is easy to blame our extra fat on an abstract idea like metabolism, but let's examine the real importance of metabolism - and better yet, how to get the most "burn" for your buck by recharging your metabolism.

In the most basic sense, metabolism encompasses all of the physical and chemical changes that happen within the cells of the body. Most often, however, metabolism refers to the manner in which the body obtains and uses energy from food, so it really does have an important part in weight gain and loss.

Not everyone has the same metabolism, and our rates actually change throughout our lives, so someone who blames their metabolism is not necessarily making excuses. Age affects metabolism, which will slow about 5% every 10 years after age 40, and by gender, as males typically burn more calories at rest than females, and by the amount of muscle mass you have (more muscle generally means a higher metabolic rate). Heredity also influences metabolism, not to mention having children, as well as whether a woman chooses to breast-feed.

In spit of all of the wild cards, the simple fact is that when your calorie intake surpasses your metabolism, surplus energy will get housed in the body as fat. Though some of the issues affecting metabolic rate can't be helped, thankfully, there are methods to rev up the metabolism you're born with.

The first rule is to eat the correct foods in the correct quantities. When you miss a meal, your body switches to starvation mode, which slows metabolism to save calories, because it doesn't know when it will get to eat again. And when the metabolism slows down, so does your weight loss.

When you finally do eat after skipping a meal, instead of using the calories in the food you've just had, your body converts them to body fat to keep for the next "fast." To keep your metabolism efficient, eat 4 - 6 small meals during the day and aim to eat close to the same times every day. Most importantly, never skip a meal.

You can also step up your metabolic rate with exercise, including both aerobic workouts and strength training. Aerobic activities, such as dancing, biking and running, burn more calories in the short term, while strength training will build more muscle, which increases metabolism and burns more calories in the long term - even when you're resting, muscle requires more calories to function than fat.

In fact, every pound of muscle burns 35 calories a day, while every pound of fat burns just 2 calories per day. Despite this, you may be surprised that the more weight you posses, the faster your metabolism is likely to run. Simply put, the extra weight makes your body work harder to maintain its processes.

This is partly why it's nearly always easiest to drop weight when you begin dieting, and becomes harder as you go along because, when you are significantly overweight, your metabolism is already at a high rate, so that even a slight reduction in calories will yield an immediate weight loss.

But what happens after that immediate loss, when a plateau occurs and motivation seems to go by the "weigh" side? Persistent compulsions and cravings can quickly return, and when they do, do not overlook a valuable resource - weight loss hypnosis. Hypnotherapy can actually retrain your unconscious so that, in essence, you can get rid of food cravings. When we examine why we snack, realizing why weight loss hypnosis works so well becomes evident.

For most of us, snacking has become a habit - maybe you do it without thinking when you're watching TV or driving or when you're under stress. Hypnosis can actually reprogram your thoughts to cut those associations, leaving you to watch TV or drive without experiencing the need to eat.

One of the most successful lose weight hypnosis methods for ending the snacking cycle is Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP, which relies on collaborating with the unconscious mind and getting it to use the same thought processes that are creating your appetite, to eliminate your appetite. NLP takes many years of study and practical experience for a hypnotherapist to learn and master, but positive results can come very rapidly and seem almost magical to someone who has always fought against cravings.

NLP can be equally as important as motivation and exercise because, as you learned above, it can help ensure that you eat the right kinds of foods at the right times, and this is a main ingredient for turbo-charging your metabolism. If you aim to keep your metabolism at full speed and ensure that all of your exercise and hard work aren't being wasted by giving in to your food temptations, weight loss hypnosis and NLP can be a secret weapon to eliminate your cravings once and for all.

Article Source: http://www.rightarticle.com

Alan B. Densky, CH has been assisting clients with appetite control and weight loss since 1978. Visit his self-hypnosis website to watch his Free hypnosis videos, or learn about his effective lose weight hypnosis CDs or his effective video hypnotism for losing weight DVDs.

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