Boosting Your Metabolism - Part 10 - Variety

They say that variety is the spice of life, and most of us wouldn’t disagree with that, yet despite this awareness, many people don’t spice up their exercise program; which is surprising, since doing so often leads to valuable metabolism-boosting benefits.

There are a few easy ways to add variety to your exercise program. We’ve already talked about interval training as one effective method of shifting your body’s metabolic engine into higher gear, but there are other ways too – the first being to break up a longer routine into smaller parts.

So for instance, instead of committing to 1x1 hour workout a day, it can boost your metabolism considerably to split this up into 2x30 minute workouts; or even, on some occasions, 3x20 minute workouts.

Then there are the old tried and tested methods of adding variety into your daily exercise routine without formally exercising – taking the stairs instead of the elevator; starting your day with a brisk walk instead of a coffee and the newspaper, or even parking further away from the grocery store entrance and walking the extra distance.

If you stop to think about it for a moment, there are probably plenty of little tweaks you can make to you daily activities that can add variety and a bit of informal exercise. And the good news is that whether you decide to split up a formal exercise routine, or tweak an existing daily activity, you will gain two important metabolism-boosting benefits. Firstly, they can make exercising more fun, and in terms of weight loss, fun is often a by-word for success.

Having a boring exercise routine increases your chances of stopping considerably, and so adding new or fun elements to your overall exercise commitment simply helps encourage you to stick with your program. And since exercising is a core part of boosting your metabolism, anything that helps you continue exercising over the long term is a great strategy.

The second and equally important benefit of adding variety in your exercise program leads us back to the interval training concept, we discussed in Blog 9.

When you add variety to your workout, your body cannot get into a groove. Remember: the body is a remarkable piece of work, and will always strive to do things efficiently.

Naturally, the overall state of your health (which can be influenced by genetics and other factors outside of your control) will play a role in how efficiently your body runs.

But regardless of how your body is put together, it really likes you, and wants to do things as efficiently as it possibly can.

Therefore, when you start exercising, your body starts to develop a kind of expectation of energy output. It’s not doing this to be lazy; it’s doing this because, quite sincerely, it wants to help!

It starts to predict that you need a certain amount of energy to complete a certain task (such as jog for 20 minutes), and attempts to provide that energy output more efficiently.

So, when you first start jogging for, say, 2 minutes a time followed by 5 minutes of walking, your body may require a great deal of energy to help you achieve this.

And as a result, you may find yourself very out of breath or tired as your body strives to meet this increased demand. Naturally, of course, catabolism will be involved, and your body metabolism will increase.

But over time, say a month or so, your body will simply become more efficient. It will have become stronger, and will be able to supply your energy needs much more efficiently; you may not even break a sweat!

What’s happened here is that your health has improved; your body has to work less hard to provide you with your energy needs.

Ironically, this can actually dilute your metabolism-boosting efforts; because, as you know, you want to tell your body to start the catabolism process. But if your body is efficiently working, it won’t really dig into its reserves (e.g. fat cells) in order to provide you with the energy that you need.

So the trick is to keep variety in your workouts. Many people choose to cross-train for this very reason. It not only targets different muscle groups, but it keeps your body from finding a groove whereby it can try to ‘help’ you by slowing down metabolism.

Remember, your body doesn’t read blogs like this; it doesn’t need to, and it doesn’t care. It has no clue that a speedier metabolism is “good” or “bad”. As far as you and I are concerned, we know that a speedy metabolism is a good thing in our weight loss efforts. But our bodies don’t make this evaluation, and won’t turn on our metabolism jets because we want them to.

Of course it would be great to be able to send a memo to your body and ask it to please speed up metabolism, but sadly that’s not reality. So what we have to do is force the body to say to itself:

“Hey, I need to speed up metabolism because this person needs more energy!”

And one of the best ways for you to force your body to have this kind of thinking is to add variety to your workouts.

So, although we’ve come to the end of the ‘Exercise’ section now, there’s plenty more for you coming up in the Boosting Your Metabolism series. Next time in Blog 11, we’ll start to explore ‘Lifestyle’ and how little changes can have the most profound influence on the speed of your metabolism.

All the best till then,


Sandra


P.S. If you’re looking for plenty of fresh ideas on how to spice up your exercise routine, there’s bound to be something for you on the link. Just Click Here!

P.P.S. And if the man in your life ever fancied a 6-Pack, he’s going to love this just as much as you will!

Boosting Your Metabolism - Part 9 - Interval Training

Hi there,

Today we are going to cover interval training. Some of you it will appeal to and some of you it may not, but if you are one of the latter, don’t worry! The purpose of this ‘Boosting Your Metabolism’ series is to present as many different ways of doing so, in order to allow you to decide which is the best way for you to Boost Your Metabolism, or to perhaps give you some new ideas that you may like to try.

The basic weight loss nuts and bolts behind cardiovascular exercise (or any kind of exercise, really) is, as you know, a matter of catabolism.

Essentially, if you can engineer your body to require more energy, your body will comply by breaking cells down to deliver it; and that process (metabolism) burns calories. Simple, right?

So based on that logic, something called interval training neatly fits in with the overall plan. Interval training is simply adding a high-energy burning component to your exercise plan on an infrequent, or interval, basis.

For example, you may be at a stage where you can jog for 20 minutes every other day, therefore putting your heart into a cardiovascular zone during this time.

Obviously, this is going to help boost your metabolism and burn calories/energy, yet you can actually burn disproportionately more calories if, during that 20 minute jog, you add a 30 second or 1 minute sprint.

Why? Because during this 30 seconds or 1 minute, you give your body a bit of a jolt.

Not an unhealthy jolt - remember, we’re talking about quick bursts here, not suddenly racing around the track or through the park! By giving your body an interval jolt, it automatically and somewhat unexpectedly, has to turn things up a notch.

And to compensate for your extra energy requirements, your body will burn more calories.

It’s essential to always keep in mind that interval training only works when it’s at intervals. This may seem like a strange thing to say (and even difficult to understand), but it’s actually very straightforward.

The metabolism-boosting benefits that you enjoy as a result of interval training are primarily due to the fact that your body, suddenly, needs to find more energy. During cardiovascular exercise, if your body suddenly needs to grab some more energy in that period, it will boost your metabolism as if it were given a nice, healthy jolt.

Should you then decide to extend your 30 second or 1 minute sprint into a 20 minute sprint, you simply wouldn’t experience all of the benefits.

Yes, your body would use more energy if you extend yourself to the higher range of your aerobic training zone. But your body won’t necessarily get that jolt that only comes from interval training.

So remember: your goal with interval training is to give your body a healthy jolt where it suddenly says to itself:


“Whoa! We need more energy here FAST, this person has increased their heart rate from 180 beats per minute to 190 beats per minute! Let’s go to any available cell, like those fat cells down at the waist, and break them down via catabolism so that this person can get the energy that they need!”


Interval training can last longer than 30 seconds or a minute, indeed some experts suggest that you can use interval training for 30-40 minutes, depending on your state of health and what your overall exercise regimen looks like. But the reason we’re focusing on 30 seconds to 1 minute is simply to give you a clear understanding that interval training is a kind of mini training within a training program.

And, as always, don’t overdo it with your interval training. Your goal here is to become healthier and stronger, and lose weight in the process.

That’s all for now, but if you are interested in a seriously powerful programme to boost your metabolism by giving yourelf that healthy jolt, just take a look at this by Clicking Here, and it's amazing value!

See you next time in Blog 10.



Sandra

Boosting Your Metabolism - Part 8 - Build Lean Muscle

Many women are very cautious about undertaking any exercise regimen that can lead to muscle building.

The old perception was that muscle building leads to muscle bulking, and before long, gorging forearm veins and a shrinking cleavage, is frankly not the case.

Provided you aren’t supporting workouts with specific muscle-building supplements, there is no need to be concerned; because building lean muscle won’t make you bulk up.

Still, the question remains: why would women who want to boost their metabolism focus on muscle building? Isn’t cardiovascular exercising the only thing that matters?

Again, the answer is: No! In addition to a healthy and responsible cardiovascular program, muscle building is an exceptionally powerful way to boost metabolism.

How? Because a pound of muscle burns more calories than a pound of fat.

And what does this mean? It means that if you have more muscle on your body – anywhere on your body – you will simply burn more calories as a result.

You don’t even have to do anything. You’ll just burn more calories, because muscle simply requires more of an energy investment.

Of course, as you can probably guess, if you build muscle and then leave it alone, over time, the muscle fibres will weaken and you’ll lose that wonderful calorie-burning factory. But that’s no problem, because all you need to do is build and maintain healthy muscle.

It may sound daunting; especially if at the moment you perceive yourself to have much more fat than muscle. But the important thing to remember is that once you start building muscle – through any kind of strength training – your body will itself start burning more calories.

It has to; even while you sleep, or go to a movie, or read a book. It’s like putting your calorie-burning (catabolism) program on auto-pilot.

So don’t let a little (or even a lot) of extra flab, deter you from believing that muscle building is important.

Yes, you should enjoy cardiovascular exercise too, because that’s ultimately how your body is going to burn existing fat. But muscle building plays a profoundly supportive role in that pursuit.

And it’s an exponential one, too: the more fat you transform into muscle, the more calories you’ll burn simply to maintain that new muscle (and the wonderful cycle goes on and on!).

For more great ideas on building lean muscle Click Here and take a look...

See you in Blog 9!


Sandra

Boosting Your Metabolism - Part 7 - Exercise

It’s going to be old news for you to be reminded that exercising is a big part of boosting your metabolism and burning up calories.

Unless you’re born with one of those unusually active metabolisms which allows you to, almost freakishly, eat thousands of calories a day without gaining weight, you’re like the vast majority of us who need to give our metabolisms a bit of a kick through exercising.

Now if the very word ‘exercise’ provokes beads of perspiration and the prospect of two hours ironing is more alluring that even setting foot in a fitness club – don’t do it, because if an activity is that unappealing from the start, you won’t be keeping it up for very long.

That said, if there are no medical reasons why you shouldn’t, and you haven’t ever tried it before, give it a go – you’d be surprised how quickly you get into a rhythm after the first few weeks, and it will only ever get easier!

So, to kick off, if you think that cardiovascular (aerobic) exercise is an important part of boosting your metabolism, you’d be right! Provided that of course, your qualified doctor confirms you are able to start a program of cardiovascular exercise, this is indeed a great place to start. Increasing heart rate, blood circulation, body temperature, and oxygen intake/carbon dioxide exchange all send messages to the system to initiative catabolism (breaking down cells and using them for energy).

Yet if cardiovascular exercising is the place to start, does that mean that it’s the place to end? No!

Many people, who aren’t as educated as you’ll be when you’ve finished this blog series, responsibly start a dedicated program of cardiovascular health, but they don’t go any further. Not because they’re lazy; but because, frankly, they don’t know that there is significantly more that they can do in their home gym, or at the fitness club, that will be a potent boost to their metabolism.

We will focus upon one of these additional activities in blog post 8 – But if you want to start turbo-boosting your metabolism right now, then this is for you - just Click Here


See you then

Sandra

Boosting Your Metabolism – Part 6: Strategies, Techniques and Tips

If you’re reading this blog, chances are that you’ve tried – at least once in your life – to boost your metabolism.

Perhaps (like most of us) you weren’t quite certain what metabolism is, and perhaps (again, like most of us) you probably didn’t quite know all that you needed to know in order to accomplish your goals.

Maybe you started a rigorous exercise program of jogging and muscle toning, or eating several small portions a day, rather than three large traditional meal-sized portions, or maybe you even started taking all kinds of supplements that promised to boost your metabolism.

The thing is, is that all of these methods can indeed work. Exercise, eating strategically, and ensuring that your body has catabolism-friendly supplements are but three of many generally good ideas.

So what’s the problem?

The problem is that many of us have no real scientific understanding of what methods boost metabolism, and how or why they work. Some of us, in fact, don’t really even know if they work, we just think that they do.

To give an example, supposing a person were to start a vigorous exercise program that includes significant aerobic cardiovascular movement, such as jogging or cycling. And indeed, after a week, they noticed a drop in weight.

The obvious reason that many would conclude for this is because that person has boosted their metabolism. But have they really boosted their metabolism? May be, may be not. Could it be due to water loss through perspiration that hasn’t been adequately replenished? May be, or may be not.

The point here is that many people – at risk to their health and wellness – don’t quite understand what methods boost metabolism, and the strategies, techniques, and tips, to make it happen for them. And that’s what we’re going to rectify in the blogs ahead.

You won’t come across any casual information that a friend of a friend heard on TV. Nor will you be subjected to off-the-cuff information of how to boost your metabolism.

Rather, we’re going to look at the popular, easy, fun (yes, believe it or not), and successful ways to boost your metabolism.

To most easily introduce and discuss them here, I have taken key ideas and broken them down into 3 broad categories:

1. Exercise

2. Lifestyle

3. Diet

As you go through each of the key points, you are bound to note that there is some overlap between them. For example, it’s hard to imagine that introducing exercise into your life isn’t, in many ways, a lifestyle choice.

Similarly, integrating all kinds of metabolism-boosting foods into your diet is surely going to influence how you spend your time (less time in fast food line-ups for sure!).

So, please don’t get bogged down in the categories, they are merely provided here to help organize key points, and to help you easily refer to them in the future. The important thing for you to do is understand each of the points, and evaluate how you can responsibly integrate them into your life.

Till next time

Best Wishes

Sandra

Boosting Your Metabolism – Part 5:

A Final Word About Fat

There’s a nasty rumour floating around out there that fat cells are permanent. And the nastiest thing about this rumour is that it’s true.

Yes, most experts have conceded that once fat cells are created, they are there for life. Yet this doesn’t spell doom and gloom to those of us who could stand to drop a few pounds. Because even though experts believe that fat cells are permanent, they also agree that fat cells can be shrunk. So even if the absolute number of fat cells in your body remain the same, their size, and hence their appearance and percentage of your overall weight, can be reduced.


A Quick Recap

So while we haven’t gone into any medical detail – because we don’t need to or want to – we have covered some key basics about metabolism. In fact, you probably now know as much about metabolism as many so-called experts.

The bottom line is simply that metabolism represents a process - countless processes in fact, that convert food into energy. When this process creates cells, it’s called anabolism. When this process breaks cells down, it’s called catabolism.

For people trying to lose weight, it’s important to encourage catabolism. That is, it’s important to convert food into energy that is used to break cells down.

Catabolism is also important because it prevents excess energy (calories) from being stored by the body.

Remember: when the body has too many calories – regardless of what food source those calories came from, it can only do two things. It can desperately try and see if you have any energy needs (very handy if you happen to be running a marathon at the time), or, more often, it will have to store those calories. It has no choice. And unless you have lean muscle that is gobbling up those excess calories, you’ll be adding fat.

The remainder of this blog series however, is going to point you in the opposite direction. You’ll learn various techniques, tips, and strategies to boost your metabolism.

And then, in the latter part of the blog, you’ll be introduced to some metabolism-boosting foods that you’ll definitely want to add to your regular eating regimen.

To discover how you can eat healthily without starving yourself and lose weight naturally whilst still enjoying your food Click Here

Till next time

Sandra

Boosting Your Metabolism - Part 4: Food Lovers Fat Loss – Calories make it Happen!

Hi there,

So, what are calories any way?

Well, calories are simply units of measure. They are not actually things in and of themselves; they are labels for other things, just like how an inch really is not anything, but it measures the distance between two points.

So what do calories measure?

Easy: they measure energy.

Yup, the evil calorie – the bane of the dieter’s existence – is really just a 3-syllable label for energy.

And it is worthwhile highlighting this, because the body itself, despite its vast intelligence (much of which medical science cannot yet understand), does not really do a very intelligent job of distinguishing good energy from bad.

Actually, to be blunt, the body does not care about where the energy comes from. Let us explore this a little more, because it is very important to the overall understanding of how to boost your metabolism, particularly when we look at food choices.

In our choice-laden grocery stores and supermarkets, with dozens of varieties of foods, and perhaps even hundreds, there seems to be a fairly clear awareness of what is good food, and what is bad or junk food.

For example, we do not need a book to remind us that, all else being equal, a plum is a good food, whereas a tub of thick and creamy double-chocolate ice cream is a bad food.

Not bad tasting, of course; but for obvious reasons, if you are looking for a healthy way to lose weight, eating a vat of ice cream a day is not a great idea. So what does this have to do with calories and energy?

It is this: while you and I can evaluate our food choices and decide that something (like a plum) is a healthy source of energy, and something else (like a tub of ice cream) is an unhealthy source of energy, the body does not, and cannot evaluate.

It sounds strange and amazing, but the body, despite its vast intelligence, does not really care. To the body, energy is energy. It takes whatever it gets, and does not really know that some foods are healthier than others. It is kind of like a garbage disposal: it takes what you put down it, whether it should go down or not.

So let us apply this to the body, and to weight gain. When the body receives a calorie – which, as we know, is merely a label for energy – it must do something with that energy.

In other words, putting all other nutrients and minerals aside, if a plum delivers 100 calories to the body, the body has to accept those 100 calories. The same goes for 500 calories from a (small) tub of ice cream: those 500 calories have to be dealt with.

Now, the body does two things to that energy: it either metabolizes it via anabolism, or it metabolizes it via catabolism. That is, it will either convert the energy (calories) into cells/tissue (anabolism), or it will use that energy (calories) to break down cells (catabolism).

Now the link between calories/energy, metabolism, and weight loss becomes clearer.

When there is an excess of energy, and the body can’t use this energy to deal with any needs at the time, it will be forced to create cells with that extra energy. It has to.

It does not necessarily want to, but after figuring out that the energy cannot be used to do anything (such as help you exercise or digest some food), it has to turn it into cells through anabolism.

And those extra cells? Yup, you guessed it: they add up to extra weight!

In a nutshell (and nuts have lots of calories by the way, so watch out and eat them in small portions), the whole calorie/metabolism/weight gain thing is really just about excess energy. When there are too many calories in the body – that is, when there’s too much energy from food – then the body transforms those calories into stuff.

And that stuff, most of the time, is fat. Sometimes, of course, those extra calories are transformed into muscle; and this is usually a good thing for those watching their weight or trying to maintain an optimal body fat ratio.

In fact, because muscles require calories to maintain, people with strong muscle tone burn calories without actually doing anything; their metabolism burns it for them.

This is the primary reason why exercising and building lean muscle is often part of an overall program to boost your metabolism; because the more lean muscle you have, the more places excess calories can go before they are turned into fat.

So, now you understand calories, you do not have to be scared of them – just be aware of how your body treats them. Balance those calories and there will be no reason why Food Lovers Fat Loss cannot be a reality for you.

For great ideas on recipes and food choices, take a look at the Healthy Foods Cook Book by Clicking Here now.

Till the next time

Best Wishes

Sandra

Boosting Your Metabolism - Part 3 - Anabolism and Catabolism

The first function is creating tissue and cells. Each moment, our bodies are creating more cells to replace dead or dysfunctional cells.

For example, if you cut your finger, your body (if it’s functioning properly) will begin – without even wasting a moment or asking your permission –the process of creating skin cells to clot the blood and start the healing process. This creation process is a metabolic response, and is called anabolism.

On the other hand, there is the exact opposite activity taking place in other parts of the body. Instead of building cells and tissue through metabolism, the body is breaking down energy so that the body can do what it’s supposed to do.

For example, as you aerobically exercise, your body temperature rises as your heart beat increases and remains with a certain range.

As this happens, your body requires more oxygen; and as such, your breathing increases as you take in more. All of this, as you can imagine, requires additional energy.

After all, if your body couldn’t adjust to this enhanced requirement for oxygen (both taking it in and getting rid of it in the form of carbon dioxide), you would collapse!

Presuming, of course, that you aren’t overdoing it, your body will instead begin converting food (e.g. calories) into energy. And this process, as you know, is a metabolic process, and is called catabolism.

So, the metabolism is a constant process that takes care of two seemingly opposite functions: anabolism that uses energy to create cells, and catabolism that breaks down cells to create energy.

It is in this way that the metabolism earns its reputation as a harmonizer. It brings together these apparently conflicting functions, and does so in an optimal way that enables the body to both create cells as needed, and break them down, again as needed.



Metabolism and Weight Loss

By now, you already have a sense of how metabolism relates to weight loss (catabolic metabolism, or breaking cells down and transforming them into energy).

To understand this process even more clearly, in Boosting Your Metabolism – Part 4, we can introduce a very important player in the weight loss game: the calorie.

Click here and check out this Hot Site for more on how you can boost your metabolism effortlessly

See you again soon


Best Wishes

Sandra

Boosting Your Metabolism - Part 2 - What is Metabolism?

Hi again,

Before you can begin to boost your metabolism, it makes sense to explain exactly what metabolism is, and how it works – but don’t worry, you only need to know the basics!

Some people think that the metabolism is a kind of organ, or a body part, that influences digestion. Actually, the metabolism isn’t any particular body part. It’s the process by which the body converts food into energy.

Hence, you’ve likely heard of the phrase metabolic process used synonymously with the term metabolism, because they both mean the same thing.


The Medical Mumbo Jumbo

Again, don’t worry - this isn’t a complicated medical text (which should be great news to most of you!), and so we don’t need to spend an unnecessary amount of time and space focusing on the layered complexity of the human body and its extraordinary intelligence.

Without drilling deeply into medical details (which are not relevant for our general understanding purposes) it is however helpful to briefly look at the biological mechanisms behind metabolism.

Metabolism, is the process of transforming food (e.g. nutrients) into fuel (e.g. energy). The body uses this energy to conduct a vast array of essential functions.

In fact, your ability to read this page, literally, is driven by your metabolism.

If you had no metabolism – that is, if you had no metabolic process that was converting food into energy – then you wouldn’t be able to move.

In fact, long before you realized that you couldn’t move a finger or lift your foot, your internal processes would have stopped; because the basic building blocks of life – circulating blood, transforming oxygen into carbon dioxide, expelling potentially lethal wastes through the kidneys and so on – all of these depend on metabolism.

Keep this in mind the next time you hear someone say that they have a slow metabolism. While they may struggle with unwanted weight gain due to metabolic factors, they certainly have a functioning metabolism. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t even be able to speak (because that, too, requires energy that comes from, you guessed it: metabolism!).

It’s also interesting to note that, while we conveniently refer to the metabolic process as if it were a single function, it’s really a catch-all term for countless functions that are taking place inside the body. Every second of every minute of every day of your life – even, of course, when you sleep – numerous chemical conversions are taking place through metabolism, or metabolic functioning. Anabolism (building cells) and catabolism (breaking down cells), are two of those functions we’ll be looking at a little more in Boosting Your Metabolism – Part 3.

So to sum up, metabolism can reasonably be referred to as a harmonizing process that manages to achieve two critical bodily functions that, in a sense, seem to be at odds with each other.

And that’s it – that’s about as much as you need to know about what metabolism is to start boosting yours, and when you do, you will find out that it is not just a healthy way to lose weight, but one of the most incredibly easy ways to lose weight too!

If you would like to find out more about a really great metabolism boosting proramme, just Click Here.

Till next time

Best Wishes

Sandra