Your metabolism is the sum total of all the physiological, energy-expending processes that take place in every cell of your body. It's common knowledge that your basal metabolic rate (BMR) decreases as you lose weight, but there can also be an "adaptive" decrease in your metabolism as a result of following very low calorie starvation diets and/or repeated cycles of yo-yo dieting. This can make it seem extremely difficult to achieve any further fat loss.

The good news is, "metabolic damage" can be repaired. All it takes is the right combination of metabolism-stimulating exercise and metabolism-stimulating nutrition, kept up consistently over time.

The irony is that most of the weight loss programs that claim to help you get rid of excess weight, only end up making it harder for you in the long run because they use harsh metabolism-decreasing diets and not enough exercise (almost never any weight training). This often leads to large losses of lean body mass, which only exacerbates the drop in metabolism that comes along with dieting.

If you have put yourself through severe starvation dieting in the past, it may take a little longer to get your metabolism back to functioning at full efficiency, especially if you've lost a lot of lean body mass, but it is never hopeless. Anyone can increase their metabolism with this approach.

Most people get an almost immediate boost in metabolic rate when they start the Burn The Fat program. However, the results are not going to be "overnight." Give it a little time...

What’s most important for upping your metabolism is consistency in applying my Burn The Fat nutrition and training principles every single day.

These are some of the principles:

• Caloric Intake: maintain a small calorie deficit sufficient for slow and steady weight loss of one to two pounds per week, and avoid starvation-level diets (suggested safe levels for fat loss: 2100-2500 calories per day for men, 1400-1800 calories per day for women; adjust for personal needs and as weekly results dictate)
• Food choices: Select natural, unprocessed foods with high thermic effect (lean proteins like chicken, turkey, egg whites and fish are highly thermic, as are all green vegetables, salad vegetables and other fibrous carbs)
• Meal frequency: Divide your calories into 5-6 small meals per day, if practical
• Meal timing: eat a substantial breakfast to help avoid hunger later in the day and eat a substantial post workout meal to provide for proper recovery and replenishment.
• Cardio training: Push up the intensity of your training if you really want to get a metabolic boost. Walking and low intensity cardio does the job, but takes longer. Higher intensity training is more metabolism-stimulating due to more calories being burned and it's potential effect on excess post exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC), also known as the "afterburn" effect.
• Weight training: The basic exercises that include the largest muscle groups or call into play the entire body as a unit (squats, front squats, split squats, lunges, deadlifts, stiff legged deadlifts, overhead presses, pullups, all kinds of rows and core-activation exercises) will have a much greater metabolism stimulating effect than isolation exercises (concentration curls, calf raises, etc)
• Mental training: Set goals, focus on positive thoughts, and use visualization for mental rehearsal and to improve your self image

The weight training is especially important because weight training is the stimulus that tells your body to keep the muscle you have and begin rebuilding new muscle tissue. Lean body mass is the engine that drives your metabolism.

The men don't usually have a problem with the weight training, but I still hear women say they don't want to lift weights as part of their fat loss programs. Well, people who wont lift weights can expect a very, very long metabolism "repair process" if they achieve it at all.

Remember that consistency is the key. Nothing will undermine the "re-building" of your metabolism like inconsistency. If you skip workouts often or fall on and off your nutrition plan, you will not even get off the ground.

After your metabolism is running efficiently again, it takes continued "stoking" of the metabolic fire to keep it there. You've got to keep feeding it fuel and keep training or the fire will die down. In fact, research consistently shows that training is extremely important for maintaining your fat loss once you've achieved your ideal weight.

Your goal is to get your metabolism burning hot and keep it burning and this cannot be achieved by missing meals, missing workouts or with sporadic, infrequent training. You have to make this a part of your lifestyle.

If you’re interested in the healthy, sensible way to take off the fat, while keeping all your muscle and actually increasing your metabolism in the process, then my Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle program can teach you how. No gimmicks or false promises. Just the truth - you have to work at it and you have to be patient. Visit the home page for more information:
Burn Your Fat - Feed Your Muscles - Increase Your Metabolism!

Train hard and expect success,

Tom Venuto, author, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle
Fat Loss Coach
www.BurnTheFat.com

About Fitness Coach, Tom Venuto

Tom Venuto is a natural (steroid-free) bodybuilder, independent nutrition researcher, freelance writer and author of the #1 best-selling e-book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle. Tom’s articles have been published on hundreds of websites worldwide and he has been featured in IRONMAN, Australian IRONMAN, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular Development, Men’s Fitness, Men’s Exercise as well as on dozens of radio shows including Martha Stewart healthy living (Sirius), ESPN-1250 and WCBS. To get more information about Tom's e-book about natural fat loss, visit the home page at: www.BurnTheFat.com