Boosting your metabolism for weight loss

To boost your metabolism safely you will need to look at three areas:

1. Exercise

2. Lifestyle

3. Diet 

In this first part we will look at the role of muscle tone in keeping lean.

Exercise is a major factor in boosting your metabolism and burning off extra calories.

Unless you naturally have an extremely fast metabolism, where you can eat thousands of calories a day without putting on weight, you are in the same group as the rest of us who need to take action to get that metabolic burning! 

Cardiovascular exercise is an important component of boosting your metabolism. Increasing your heart rate, blood circulation, body temperature, and oxygen intake/carbon dioxide exchange, will all lead your body into a catabolic state whereby it is breaking down fat and converting it into energy. 

Many women (and some men) shy away from barbells and dumbells because they think they will get bulky muscles.! There really is no need to. You will not end up looking like Herman munster in drag! It takes many years of heavy weight and vast quantities of food and "supplements" to build big muscles. For a woman and most men to do so accidentally with light weights is impossible.

So what's the deal with muscle and metabolism? 

It is because a pound of muscle burns more calories than a pound of fat. So the more muscle you have, the more calories you'll burn. Even when sleeping you’ll simply burn extra calories, because muscle requires more energy to maintain. 

It will only last as long as you exercise though.When you stop working out your metabolism will return to it's previous sluggish state and the fat will return home at the slightest opportunity.

Catabolism will cause weight loss.

If your body need more energy to function each day then it will break down more cells to obtain this energy. In the process you will need more calories and lose weight.

I always include weights in a weight loss programme for my clients whether it be body weight dumbells or resistance bands this combined with cardiovascular exercise burns fat faster than anything else!

A full body workout 3 days a week moving quickly  in a circuit fashion from one exercise to another produces best results.

Do both high  (20-30) and low reps (6-10). Each set should be hard. Vary the weight according to the number of reps- heavy (6), light (20).

 In part 2 I will look at the effect of interval training on fat loss and boosting your metabolism.

Mark Hayward Personal Training, Exeter, Devon

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