Nutrition Strategies to Turbo-Charge Your Metabolism

This article is not about a new miracle pill that melts the fat off your body. The best strategy of fat loss is to earn it. Forget about any shortcuts and quick fixes—they do more damage than good.

The first step in earning a lean and tight body is to consume five to six small meals per day. It is something so simple, yet many of us choose to ignore it. This alone is enough to kick-start your metabolism.

* You should eat every two and one half to three hours. Each meal should be small and leave you feeling satisfied but not full. If you are not quite hungry three hours after you’ve consumed your meal, it’s a sign that you ate too much. Basically, take what you would eat during your three meals each day and spread it out over six meals.

To get the most out of each meal and turn up your metabolic furnace, it’s best to combine a lean protein, a complex carbohydrate, vegetables, and essential fatty acids with each meal. I am a firm believer in this food combination.

Eating carbohydrates alone will result in quick digestion and an insulin spike. Protein takes longer to digest and requires your body to burn more calories during the digestion process (thermic effect of food). Consuming proteins with your carbohydrates will cause the digestion of the carbohydrates to take longer, and you will stay satisfied longer as well.

The serving size of each meal is based on each individual’s needs and should be evaluated on a weekly basis by measuring your weight and body fat percentage. Modify your portions so that the result is one or two pounds of fat loss each week.

If you are losing more than two pounds each week, I suggest that you increase your caloric intake slightly. If you lose too much weight in a short period of time, chances are you are sacrificing some muscle mass and reducing your metabolism in the process.

This is a very common problem with the typical low-calorie diet, where there is a significant reduction in calories and holding them there at that low level. During the beginning stages of the diet, you may lose a significant amount of weight, but then you notice that your results start to decrease, until eventually, you are no longer losing weight, even though you are still following the strict diet.

At this point, you figure that you probably hit a plateau, and you decrease your calories a little bit more so that you can lose those last ten pounds. The plateau that you have experienced is due to your body’s defense mechanism—it is on red alert and screaming, “I’m starving!”

So what does your body do?

It releases more fat-storing hormones and enzymes into the bloodstream and decreases the fat-burning hormones and enzymes. Why? The answer is that your body is simply trying to protect itself, so it stores whatever it can as fat to prepare for this famine that you are putting yourself through. The end result is a decrease in your metabolism. So what can you do to prevent this from happening?

* Use “calorie cycling.” To lose weight, you definitely need a caloric deficit, meaning that you need to burn more calories than you are taking in. You should never drastically reduce your calories. Aim for a 15 to 20 percent reduction in calories.

Other diets fail because they maintain this deficit for an extended period of time. With calorie cycling, you follow this deficit for three days, and on the fourth day, you go back to your maintenance caloric intake, which is the amount of calories that you could eat without gaining or losing any weight. You then repeat the cycle.

What this strategy does is just when your body starts to think that it better make some changes to lower your metabolism and store up some fat, you trick it by slightly increasing your calories. This also gives you a boost in energy and does not leave you feeling deprived.

* The second strategy improves on calorie cycling and is called “carbohydrate cycling.” If you reduce your calories by 15 percent, the reduction would come entirely from carbohydrates. Follow the three days of reduced carbohydrates, and on the forth day, increase your carbohydrate intake back to normal. This is not your typical low-carb diet. A 15 percent decrease is not an absurd amount, and you get to bring it back to normal on the fourth day, which will replenish your glycogen stores in your muscles to give you more energy and strength to get through your workouts.

* The third strategy is called “calorie tapering.” In a five- to six-meal-per-day plan, you consume more calories in your first few meals of the day and reduce the amount of calories in each meal as the day goes on. For example, at breakfast, mid morning, and lunch, you may consume four hundred calories at each meal. Then for the next two meals, you consume three hundred calories and, finally, two hundred calories at your last meal.

To improve this strategy, you should consume your starchy carbohydrates, such as oatmeal, sweet potatoes, and brown rice, in the earlier meals, and for the remaining two or three meals, consume fibrous carbohydrates such as vegetables. The reason for this is that the starchy carbohydrates are more calorie-dense, meaning that a small portion of them would equal the same amount of calories as a large portion of vegetables. By consuming the starchy carbs in the morning, it will provide you with the right amount of fuel to get you through your day.

It’s not realistic to maintain a perfect nutrition plan for an extended period of time. There are several diet plans that allow a cheat day. I find that most people go way overboard on their cheat days. If you are serious about your nutrition program, you should limit yourself to one or two cheat meals per week. This would depend on how many meals you consume each day. If you are eating five to six meals each day, then two cheat meals per week is great. Make sure that the rest of your day is perfect.

This is not a quick fix weight loss strategy. Incorporating nutrition-packed, whole, natural foods into small, frequent meals is not rocket science, but it definitely works. It will take some planning to prepare meals ahead of time, but the results will be worth it. Best of all, this is a program that you can follow for life. Eating frequent meals will leave you satisfied, and the temptation to binge will be reduced.

Nutrition is a very large piece of the puzzle in your battle for fat loss and should be taken seriously. To truly ignite your metabolic furnace, it is absolutely necessary to include weight training, cardio, and the most important piece of the puzzle, which is developing a powerful mind-set. Your body will only go as far as your mind will take it.

** This article is one of 101 great articles that were published in 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Health. To get complete details on “101 Great Ways to Improve Your Health”, visit http://selfgrowth.com/healthbook3.html