Metabolism Magic
Diet Tricks Can Amplify A Weight Loss

We've all heard it or even said it one time or another: "I'm not able to lose weight because of my metabolism." It's easy to blame our extra pounds on an abstract idea like metabolism, but let's look at the real importance of metabolism - and better yet, how to get the most "burn" for your buck by recharging your metabolism.

In the most fundamental sense, metabolism means each of the chemical and physical changes that happen inside the body's cells. Most often, however, metabolism refers to the process in which the body acquires and uses energy from what we eat, so it really does play an important role in weight loss and gain.

Not everyone has the same metabolism, and our rates actually fluctuate over the course of our lives, so someone who blames their metabolism is not necessarily making excuses. Age affects metabolism, which will slow about 5% every 10 years after age 40, and by sex, as males typically burn more calories at rest than females, and by the amount of muscle mass you possess (more muscle generally means a higher rate of metabolism). Our genes also influences metabolism, not to mention pregnancy, as well as whether a woman chooses to breast-feed.

Regardless of all of the wild cards, the simple fact is that if your calorie intake surpasses your metabolism, excess energy will get housed in the body as fat. Though many of the factors affecting metabolic rate can't be altered, fortunately, there are ways to rev up the metabolism you're born with.

The first rule is to take in the correct foods in the right amounts. When you skip a meal, your body goes into starvation mode, which slows metabolism to save calories, because it doesn't know when it will get food again. And when the metabolism slows, so does your weight loss.

When you finally do eat food after having skipped a meal, instead of using the calories in the food you have just eaten, your body transfers them to body fat to hold for the next "fast." To keep your metabolism efficient, eat 4 - 6 smaller meals during the day and try to eat close to the same times every day. Most importantly, never skip a meal.

You can also step up your metabolic rate with exercise, including both aerobic routines and weight lifting. Aerobic activities, such as biking, dancing and running, use more calories in the short term, while weight lifting will create more muscle, which increases metabolism and burns more calories in the long term - even when you're at rest, muscle needs more calories to function than fat.

In fact, every pound of muscle uses 35 calories a day, while every pound of fat uses only 2 calories per day. Despite this, you may be surprised that the more weight you have, the faster your metabolism is likely to run. Simply put, the extra weight makes your body work more to maintain its processes.

This is partially why it's almost always easiest to lose weight when you start dieting, and gets challenging as you go along because, if you are significantly overweight, your metabolism is already at a high rate, so that even a slight decrease in calories will lead to an immediate weight loss.

But what happens after that immediate loss, when a plateau occurs and motivation seems to go by the "weigh" side? Persistent cravings and compulsions can quickly come back, and when they do, don't neglect a valuable resource - lose weight hypnosis. Hypnotherapy can actually retrain your unconscious so that, in essence, you can do away with food cravings. When we study why we snack, understanding why weight loss hypnosis works so successfully becomes clear.

For a lot of us, snacking has become a habit - maybe you do it unconsciously when you're driving or watching TV or when you're under stress. Hypnosis can actually reprogram your thoughts to cut those associations, leaving you to watch TV or drive without having the need to eat.

One of the most successful lose weight hypnosis methods for stopping the snacking cycle is Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP, which relies on working with the unconscious and making it use the same thought processes that are creating your appetite, to eliminate your appetite. NLP requires many years of study and practical experience for a hypnotherapist to learn and master, but positive results can come very quickly and seem almost magical to a person who has always suffered from cravings.

NLP can be equally as imperative as motivation and exercise because, as you read above, it can help ensure that you eat the right kinds of foods at the right times, and this is a key ingredient for turbo-charging your metabolism. If you want to keep your metabolism at full speed and ensure that all of your exercise and hard work aren't being wasted by succumbing to your food temptations, weight loss hypnosis and NLP can be a secret weapon to eliminate your cravings altogether.

Alan B. Densky, CH has been assisting clients with weight loss and appetite suppression since 1978. Visit his hypnotherapy website to enjoy his Free self-hypnosis videos, or learn about his effective self-hypnosis weight loss CDs or his powerful video lose weight through hypnosis DVDs.

by Alan B. Densky, CH -

Back to Top

###