Try These Metabolism Hacks for Losing Weight
Losing weight is challenging for most people, even under the best of circumstances. And if your metabolism is working against you, it can be that much harder.
So what exactly is metabolism?
Metabolism is simply how fast your body turns food into energy. People who are thin tend to have faster metabolisms. People who gain weight easily tend to have slower metabolisms.
Historically, the most common strategies for weight loss have involved calorie restriction. In other words, a “diet”.
The problem with these conventional diets is that our bodies have been conditioned over thousands of years to react to fewer calories by slowing down metabolism. Scientists call this the “starvation reflex”, and it works against people when they go on calorie restrictive diets. When a person’s body senses fewer calories coming in, it assumes there must be a problem with the food supply. In the interest of conserving calories, metabolism slows.
Fortunately, there are ways you can trick your metabolism into speeding up instead of slowing down. Here are a few:
Add Muscle to Lose Fat
If you already exercise regularly, nothing is more frustrating than seeing that needle on the scale stay in the same place, even as you ramp up your cardiovascular workouts.
Here’s the problem with increasing cardio only: you have to do a lot of it to make a significant difference in terms of weight loss. This is because you have to burn about 3,500 calories to burn one pound of fat.
Muscle, on the other hand, naturally burns more calories than fat. If you gear your workouts toward building lean muscle, your baseline metabolism should increase. This means your metabolism will be higher, even when you’re sleeping.
This does not mean you have to bulk up or lift heavy weights. Light to moderate resistance exercise that includes extra reps will help you to build lean, metabolism-increasing muscle.
Cut Carbohydrates to Burn More Fat
Contrary to popular opinion, reducing healthy dietary fats won’t necessarily help you to lose weight. This is because fats take longer to digest, and they keep you feeling full for longer.
Carbohydrates…especially simple carbs like sugars…are the real problem. Not only are they super easy to digest, but the human body is very efficient at storing excess carbohydrates as body fat.
By cutting your carb intake, your body will respond by first burning stored carbs (which doesn’t take much time), and then it will switch to burning stored fat.
Substituting healthy fats and lean protein for simple carbohydrates will also keep your blood sugar from crashing, which helps to curb in between meal snacking binges.
Go Keto to Ramp Up Your Fat Furnace
Diets that are simply low in carbohydrates can be effective, but they don’t directly result in burning stored fat.
Keto diets, on the other hand, can actually encourage your body to burn fat. Keto diets get their name from the term “ketosis”, and ketosis is when your body burns fat as its primary fuel source.
A properly executed keto diet that includes very low carbohydrate intake with higher fat and protein intake has been proven effective and safe for weight loss.
Balance Your Hormones
Few things will make your metabolism slow down faster than hormones that are out of balance. That’s where Renew Youth comes in. We can test your hormone levels and provide hormone therapy that is tailored to your body’s unique needs.
Want more information? Call us at 800-859-7511 or use our contact form to set up your free 30-minute consultation.
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