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