Many people are confused about our metabolism (our body’s engine) and have little idea of how to keep it in good running condition.
What do you think has the biggest impact on it? Age? Activity levels? Thyroid function? Wrong, wrong and wrong. These things all do affect our metabolism but not nearly as much as….Any idea? It’s our muscle tissue.
To have a metabolic motor that burns up the food we eat and use it all for energy is to die for. But it is not something that we just get lucky (or not) with.
We can easily create a hot burning metabolism by keeping our muscles strong and toned. Sadly, in our modern sedentary world this is becoming increasingly rare.
Most of us sit for up to 80 percent of our day in one chair or another. Our muscles deteriorate, become weak and flabby and their energy requirements nose-dive. And, guess where the excess ends up? Yes as stored body fat, making you gain excess fat weight, spoiling your looks.
But the damage does not end there. Becoming overweight not only spoils your exterior looks it attacks how you feel about yourself. It reduces personal self worth while increasing the risk for some nasty disease/condition somewhere down the track to take hold.
Muscle cells are where fuel (calories) are burned for energy so never underestimate how this will affect whether you remain slim and trim or become overweight which if you do nothing will only increase as you get older.
Just as there are things that you do in your lifestyle that boost metabolism there are also things like the types of food you eat and the type of exercise that you do that can slow it down and have a significant impact on how you turn the food you eat into energy and how and when this energy is used by your body.
Three things have the most impact on your metabolism –
eating the wrong types of foods
eating too much of them and…
not enough muscular exertion.
These are the main things that you do or don’t do that will determine how fit or fat you are. They are at the root cause of the problem of being overweight and will determine if you have a fat storing body or a fat burning one.
If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need to fix your sluggish metabolism and bring it up to speed first. Dieting, low carbohydrates, low fat, long duration, low intensity activity will do nothing to help do this. In fact these are the things that will further put you into a ‘metabolic hole’.
So then, how do we fix our metabolic engine?
Reducing food intake and dieting are the very worse things you can do in this situation as it will further work against your metabolism. The same with adding long duration low intensity exercise as it will do nothing to boost your metabolic rate. If you go on some ‘fad’ diet that restricts calories too much (instead of following a healthy eating plan) your metabolism will slow down.
Failing to do enough muscle building and maintaining activity is the major culprit to slowing metabolism down.
The best and quickest way to reboot your metabolic motor is to get a proper strength training program in place 2-3 times each week to rebuild and re-tone muscle tissue so it can in turn boost your metabolic rate and start burning off excess body fat.
The goal is to get the muscular system strong and toned so you burn more calories every minute of the day and night. Once you get it back up and toned in a few months of consistent strength training with a bit of effort put into it, you will be burning more calories when you are active and burning more calories when you are resting, sleeping or watching television.
Additionally, along with a healthy, active muscular system, we need to get back into the kitchen and start preparing and cooking natural whole foods from scratch. Packaged, convenience non-nutrient foods have no place in any healthy eating plan if losing weight is a goal. The chemicals and additives in them stimulate appetite, so the chance of sticking to a healthy eating plan is unlikely. These things change the chemistry and hormonal response of your body and favor fat storage hormones instead of fat burning ones.
Once these things are sorted through and in place, you’ll enjoy a strong, lean, healthy, slim body.
It’s time to spend your energy on something that contributes to your health!
“Reclaim Your Longevity” helps you do just that…
Everything you need to know about a healthy metabolism, diet, hormones and exercise are included.For more tools and resources from Carolyn Hansen to assist you in attaining your health and fitness goals please visit:
