Look After Your Metabolism And Watch Fat Loss Happen

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Some of us are guilty of a long history of dieting and yo-yo weight cycling. On again, off again, stop/start the latest fat diet or exercise program and our weight goes up and down like the tide coming in and going out.  The more we do this the harder it becomes to really become leaner and lose excess fat weight as each time we go round on that merry-go-round we do a little bit of damage to our fat burning mechanism – our metabolism.

 Is your metabolism out of whack?

You can tell if you have done any damage to your metabolism – are you experiencing any of the following?

 1)    constant low energy levels

2)    hungry much of the time

3)    preoccupied with thoughts of food

4)    not losing any weight despite not eating very much

5)    weight loss has gotten slower or has hit a plateau

6)    returning to ‘normal eating’ means weight gain in record time

If you are experiencing any of these symptoms you have now got yourself a sluggish metabolism and it will do you no favors in regards to managing your body weight. What you have done is put your body into a kind of ‘diet shock’ which is very common during many popular weight loss diets.

Your body perceives the food shortage (your diet) is actually a real life famine so it has activated its ancient defense system against such situations that have plagued humans during their existence on planet earth.  Protective mechanisms are kicked into gear to decrease the rate of body fat loss, including reducing energy output and at the same time increasing hunger hormones that increase appetite to drive you to search for food to prevent starvation.

Your whole metabolism and the rate your body burns fuel (calories) is slowed to counter the situation and is responding in the same way as it did tens of thousands of years ago. It does not know there is a fridge full of food in the next room and you only want to fit into your skinny jeans for an upcoming party and there is no danger of starvation. But it doesn’t know the difference.

Make friends with your metabolism

The best way to lose weight and not trigger this survival mode mechanism is to do metabolism friendly things so it is not forced to take protective action. Just two main things will do this – eating enough quality food (especially protein) and proper strengthening exercise to keep your muscle tissue toned and strong.

These are the main two things that you need to do to keep you metabolism from putting the brakes on fat loss and working against the very goal you want to achieve – a strong, lean healthy body. That is what you want isn’t it? 

Well, if you do, get your butt into the nearest gym 2-3 times each week and  put some effort into a proper strength training program to re-tone, restore and rebuild the main driver of your metabolism – your muscle tissue.

Support this program with healthier eating which means ditching as much processed food (you know the stuff – packets, bags, tins or frozen) and replace it with quality natural whole foods that you cook from scratch.

Just these two strategies will boost your metabolism and coax your body into believing that there is no food famine looming and it will slowly lest go its fat stores rather than hanging on to them for dear life. It may take a few weeks/months to really make the transition but every healthy meal and every workout will take you one step closer to that slim trim body that you want so much.

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