Losing fat can improve your health. Loss of muscle mass weakens your body and lowers your resting metabolic rate, causing you to gain weight even if you eat fewer calories. This is often known as “lowering your metabolism.” Extra low calorie diets reduce metabolism.
Here’s how you can keep your metabolism revved up and still lose fat.
1. Don’t go hungry
If you wait until you’re hungry to eat, you’re more likely to overeat. Eating small meals every two hours keeps your metabolism stoked and reduces the likelihood that you’ll overeat at a single meal. When your metabolism is running at high speed, you burn more calories even when you’re sitting at your desk.
Eating small meals spaced regularly throughout the day has other health benefits. Helps keep blood sugar levels stable, which reduces the risk of type II diabetes.
Helps keep energy levels stable, due to stable blood sugar levels. The loss of energy comes from the drastic drop in blood sugar that occurs shortly after eating a meal high in simple carbohydrates. Examples of simple carbohydrates include bagels, muffins, pasta, and other processed grains.
Small, regularly spaced meals help keep the digestive system moving. You’ll be less likely to experience constipation, heartburn, acid reflux, and other common digestive discomforts.
Yet another benefit is that you will feel better overall. Your moods will be more stable. You will be less irritable, less anxious and simply happy.
2. Eat raw carrots, vegetables and fruits
Raw baby carrots and other crunchy raw fruits and vegetables are good for your health in many ways. When it comes to fat loss, the benefits are all about net caloric intake. You burn calories when you have to munch on these crunchy foods. Your digestive system burns calories breaking down food.
The foods are relatively low in calories, but still fill you up. They are also rich in soluble and insoluble dietary fiber. Increased fiber intake is associated with easier fat loss and better digestive health. Fiber absorbs some of the fat and cholesterol from the food you eat and removes it from your body as waste.
3. Aerobic exercise is commonly recommended for fat loss and more calories are burned during aerobic exercise. But lifting weights to build muscle provides an added benefit.
Muscle cells and tissues burn more calories when the body is at rest. The resting metabolic rate of a muscular person is much higher than that of a weak and flabby person. So by building muscle, you increase your metabolism.
An easy way to build muscle and improve your flexibility is to exercise with elastic bands. Rubber band sets are affordable. You can use them anywhere because they are small and light. You don’t have to invest in a gym membership or a home gym. You can even do your workouts while watching TV. If you constantly train with the elastic bands, you will get results.
4. Walk everywhere
Movement of any kind speeds up your metabolism. An easy way to move more throughout the day is to walk everywhere. Any trip that takes you less than 5 minutes by car will take you about 15 minutes on foot. So, walk to your favorite restaurant for lunch. Use the stairs instead of the elevator. Park as far as possible from your office or the store you are visiting. Take advantage of any opportunity to go for a walk.
5. Consider a standing desk
You burn more calories when you are standing than when you are sitting. Sitting at a desk all day is bad for your health in a number of ways. Recent studies have shown that desk chairs are bad for your back.
If you can’t get a standing desk, get a yoga ball big enough to serve as a chair. They are available at numerous sporting goods stores in a variety of sizes. The position is better for your back, keeps you more alert, and helps with your fat-loss efforts.
6. Try a bee pollen supplement
While there are numerous “fat burning supplements” on the market, most of them contain caffeine, which is not actually a fat burner. The old studies showing that caffeine stimulated fat loss were done with animals or people who had never consumed caffeine. If you’re like most people, you already get a lot of caffeine. You don’t need more.
Bee pollen supplements, on the other hand, are relatively new. Beekeepers have known for years that pollen improves their health, but only in recent years has the public realized the fat-burning potential of this natural product.
Another benefit of the best bee pollen supplements is that they increase your energy levels. So, you will have more desire to walk. This supplement could be your fat loss solution.
7. A genuine fat loss program
Consider a complete fat loss program that will guide you through basic movement patterns that will positively impact your daily activities. For information on how to lose fat and not just weight, click the FAT LOSS NOT WEIGHT LOSS link in the author’s resource box below.