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Metabolism and Weight Loss
Boosting your metabolism is one of the best ways to lose weight.
Unfortunately, many people don't understand how their metabolism actually
works within the body, so they take steps which actually decrease their
metabolism and sabotage their weight loss efforts.
If you think about your body as a machine, it might help you to understand how
things work a little better. If you were to try to save money on gas for your
car by mixing water into the tank, the car wouldn't run well... if it ran at
all, right? The same concepts apply to your body. Many people have been taught
that the only way to lose weight is to reduce the amount of calories they eat
each day. They assume that if they reduce the calories enough, they'll
automatically lose weight. This isn't how it works though.
When you reduce your calorie intake too severely, you simply cause your body
to not run well. Unlike your car or any other machine, though, the body is
very smart. It's determined to make sure you stay alive at all costs. So, when
you restrict your calories too severely, the body responds by going into
something of a hibernation mode. It works to conserve as many of those
calories it can and it does this by reducing your metabolism. When your body's
metabolism is low of course, it won't be burning calories very fast, so it
doesn't matter that you've drastically reduced the calories you eat because
the body is now using much less than it was before.
You can force your body to use more calories though, just by being more
active. This is why every single weight loss plan or diet pill out there says
you'll see the best results if you combine exercise into your daily routine.
What many people don't seem to realize, though, is that by simply increasing
their daily activities, they don't technically have to reduce their calorie
intake. Reducing calories and increasing activity at the same time will of
course help you lose weight faster.
Another thing people don't realize is that it's theoretically possible to "eat
your way slim". Because the foods you eat can increase or decrease your body's
metabolism, you can choose to eat foods which are constantly making your body
work harder at all hours of the day and night.
Eating every few hours for instance, will keep your body continuously working
on digesting foods. If those foods also take more work to digest, then the
body will be expending calories for hours if you give it the right foods.
Proteins, fruits and raw vegetables, for instance, take the most energy for
your body to digest. Simple starches and sugars require little or no energy at
all, so limiting those is usually best when you're trying to boost your
metabolism and lose weight.
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