It seems that in everything we read these days, people are writing about metabolism. Even I do it. And we all do it for good reason. Your metabolism is the key to your weight. By using energy from food to build muscle or gain fat, you increase your weight. Contrary, by using energy from your stored fat (or muscle) you decrease your weight.
The goal of everyone who fights this weight loss war every day should be to ramp up your metabolism so much that your body is burning as many calories throughout the day as possible. But just burning calories isn’t enough, we should strive to burn the right kind of calories. No one wants to work hard in the gym, building muscle, increasing their metabolism due increased muscle mass only to watch their body literally eat itself by burning muscle instead of fat. Yeah, they may lose more weight (because muscle is a little bit more dense than fat), but over time their body may get softer, less metabolically active, and their ability to keep losing weight will diminish.
Here at Get Fit Slowly, I feel that I don’t know enough about nutrition to keep my body burning fat and saving muscle. School for the kids is coming up. Theoretically, I’ll have more time to get some research done at the library. My first topic is going to be nutrition. I know the basics about calorie consumption, but I don’t really know what proportions of foods I should be eating. It’s time to expand my fitness knowledge into the realm of nutrition.
I do have some basic ideas about how to keep my metabolism ramped up. Here are my general beliefs:
- Eat Early–Don’t Skip Breakfast, EVER!
- Eat Often–Small Meals Throughout The Day
- Eat Your Big Meals Before Dinner–Big Meals Late In The Day Get Stored As Fat (I Think)
- Eat Protein–Harder To Digest, Keeps You Fuller Longer, Better Than Fat
- Weight Train As Well As Cardio Train–Building Muscles Makes Your Body More Metabolically Active
- Train Your Big Muscles (Chest, Lats, Quads, Hamstrings) Hard–Bigger Muscles Are More Metabolically Active Than Smaller Muscles
- Do More High Intensity Cardio–Keeps Your Metabolism Ramped Up Longer Than Low Intensity Cardio
- Increase Incidental Physical Activity–Walk More, Play With The Kids More, DON’T SIT AS MUCH
What are some things you do to keep that metabolism going? Stay tuned for more posts about nutrition!
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I read somewhere once that drinking a glass of ice cold water immediately upon waking would help to speed up your metabolism for a few hours.
Big Meals Late In The Day Get Stored As Fat
Not really. Excess calories are stored as fat, but it doesn’t really matter what time of day you consume those excess calories. The problem is that many people eat at night even though they are not hungry, and they don’t need those calories because they’ve already consumed enough calories for the day. If that is a problem for you, then making a rule for yourself not to eat after a certain time of night will help you to consume fewer calories, and therefore you will not store those calories as fat.
Eat Protein–Harder To Digest, Keeps You Fuller Longer, Better Than Fat
Protein provides satiety so that you don’t feel hungry as soon afterward, but it’s not exactly better than fat. You need fat, but you need it in smaller amounts than you need protein. The general rule for protein consumption, if you are exercising to gain or maintain muscle, is to consume 1 gram of protein for each pound of lean body mass.
One thing that you left out, particularly if you are going to become much more active, is to get enough rest! Without adequate rest, you will simply feel worn out rather than energized.
You could try Fast-5 for a couple of months — it has worked wonders for me over the last 12 months!!
Not just high-intensity cardio but INTERVAL cardio (google this for tons of articles/research). Also SLEEP – big one.
@Anne
Agreed – a calorie is a calorie is a calorie.
I deal with the night eating problem by having dinner at 7 or 8. Then I’m not as tempted to snack at 9. The problem with night snacking (for me) is whether or not I’m full. If I’m not full but not hungry, I’ll eat out of boredom.
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