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Overview
The easy way to boost your metabolism and lose weight... for good!
People often wonder why their dieting and exercise efforts seem to result in little or no weight loss. Some people may have to work hard to simply maintain their current weight. With such a dilemma, they may blame their woes on a "slow metabolism". Unfortunately, there is no miracle diet that works for everyone because everyone has a unique body type and traits which impact their metabolic rate. Boosting Your Metabolism For Dummies helps you identify why your efforts have failed in the past and determine how to shift your unique metabolism into high gear by eating specific foods and performing particular exercises. Transform your mind and body for good with what Boosting
Your Metabolism For Dummies offers:
An explanation of common misconceptions about metabolism
How to calculate and influence one's metabolic rate
How to get in the right mindset and embark on the path to lifestyle change
How to navigate the grocery store for metabolism boosting foods and 40+ quick and easy recipes
Meal planning tips and smart strategies for eating out
Metabolism boosting workouts
Tips to get family onto the healthy metabolism wagon
If you're looking for a fun and easy-to-understand guide that shows you how to put your metabolism to work, increase overall health, and get the body you've always wanted, Boosting Your Metabolism For Dummies has you covered.
Along with making some lifestyle changes and adding exercise, your diet has a lot to do with boosting your metabolism. Sometimes making the right choices about what to eat isn't so easy, and these decisions are often fraught with anxiety because of the conflicting messages we all receive about food and health in the media.
About The Author
Rachel Berman, RD, a nationally recognized nutrition expert, has helped thousands of clients lose weight and improve their health. She is the Director of Nutrition and an editor at About.com Health. As a contributor to numerous publications, and through appearances on various local and national radio and television health segments, she regularly shares her core philosophy of balance and moderation as well her passion about helping others develop a healthier relationship with food. Meri Raffetto, RD, LDN and Wendy Jo Peterson, MS, RD, coauthors of Mediterranean Diet Cookbook For Dummies, share this philosophy and are contributors to this book.
Articles From The Book
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Metabolism
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Here are meal ideas for a sample week’s metabolism-boosting plan. Use the information as a jumping-off point to plan your meals ahead. Pick foods that you love and are likely to incorporate without feeling like you’re on a restricted diet.
Each day is about 1500–1600 calories. If you require more calories, add another serving of a whole grain, lean protein, fruit, vegetable, or heart-healthy fat to the meal.
Metabolism
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''It's okay to have a snack before bed, especially if it's been many hours since dinner. This will prevent you from going to bed hungry, which can interfere with sleep. However, now that you know it's okay to eat before bedtime, that doesn't give you free rein to finish off that carton of ice cream or leftover lasagna!
Metabolism
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Along with making some lifestyle changes and adding exercise, your diet has a lot to do with boosting your metabolism. Sometimes making the right choices about what to eat isn't so easy, and these decisions are often fraught with anxiety because of the conflicting messages we all receive about food and health in the media.
Metabolism
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Some food-related chemicals were created by man with the purpose of improving your health. However, in many cases, they have the opposite effect. They're disguised within foods in one way or another, and it's important that you make sure they're not a mainstay of your metabolism boosting diet. The three food biggest culprits of this are trans fats, artificial sweeteners, and monosodium glutamate (MSG).
Metabolism
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Do you automatically correlate stress with negative emotions and situations? Here's a reality check for you: Stress is a normal response to events and is unavoidable. But it's not always a "bad" thing in our lives. Stress can actually be a positive force to motivate us to succeed, keep us focused, and help us grow personally and professionally .
Metabolism
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The first meal of the day is called breakfast because you’re literally breaking a fast of many hours without food. Your metabolism is moving less overnight when you’re sleeping because you’re not physically active or eating.
When you wake up, you want to eat something within a few hours so that you wake up your metabolism too.
Metabolism
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Eating a meal or snack every 3 to 4 hours is something that is integral to keeping your metabolism moving all day long. If you’re someone who has one big meal at the end of the day, be aware that spreading those calories out more throughout the day can help your metabolism, improve your energy, and reduce your stress levels.
Metabolism
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The standard American diet is synonymous with overly processed, high-salt, fatty foods. When you start focusing on eating real food — as it's found in nature — you're automatically cutting out a lot of metabolism-busting nutrients and adding back in the nourishing factors like vitamins, minerals, fiber, and heart-healthy fats.
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When you’re short on time, you can make the most of the weight or resistance work that you do using metabolism-boosting exercises that work multiple muscles of your body.Dumbbell front squatThese work your full body but can also be done without weights if you don’t have them for an anytime workout on-the-go for your legs.
Metabolism
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No matter how much activity you do, sleep is your way of recharging to power up for the day ahead. It's true that your metabolism slows by about 10 percent during sleep, but functions like muscle growth and tissue repair occur almost exclusively while you are powered down. In a way, your body takes all the energy you've consumed throughout the day to work on restoring it at night.
Metabolism
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If you’re taking in more calories than you’re burning, you will gain weight. The Law of Thermodynamics governs the fact that calories in versus calories out regulates body weight. Not sure what a healthy body weight for your height is? To get a general idea, use the Hamwi Method.
For men: 106 lbs. for the first 5 feet + 6 lbs.
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Your body composition has a big impact on your metabolic rate. Your body is composed of fat mass and fat-free mass. Fat-free mass includes your muscle, organs, bones, skin, and so on. The proportion between the two can vary from person to person based on DNA, sex, age, and fitness level. The takeaway here is that muscle mass is metabolically active tissue that burns more calories than fat mass.
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Although being overweight and having unhealthy habits can result in a disease diagnosis over time, what about day to day? Maybe your metabolism is slowing down for the first time in your life, and risk for disease isn’t something that can motivate you to make healthier changes. Perhaps you aren’t overweight and just want to break unhealthy habits because you’re sick and tired of feeling sick and tired?
Metabolism
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The most basic way to estimate resting metabolic rate, RMR, is to use the Mifflin-St Jeor equation. This equation, derived in 1990, came about from measuring indirect calorimetry in human subjects. As far as energy expenditure equations go, it’s currently the most accurate, although it has limitations is normally used as a starting-off point.
Metabolism
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You may have heard that 3,500 calories is equal to a pound of body weight — so, the less you eat, the more you’ll lose. By reevaluating your meal plan and your goals to make sure they’re realistic, and making small tweaks to your meal plan instead of an overhaul, you can stay on the healthy weight loss straight and narrow.
Metabolism
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When thinking about eating to boost their metabolism, people too often focus only on the types of food they’re eating and not enough on their behaviors surrounding food and drink. You may have read and heard a lot about what to eat, but how you eat is very important for metabolism. Do you fall into one of the following eating behavior categories?
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What aspects of your lifestyle could be impacting your ability to burn calories off? How are your habits affecting your metabolic rate? Following is a list of lifestyle factors that have the greatest impact.
Not moving enough
To lose weight, women are more likely to focus on reducing calories, and men are more likely to increase exercise than change their diet.
Metabolism
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The phrase "living clean" means a lot of things to a lot of people, but for the sake of this article it's defined as any of the lifestyle choices you make that will boost your metabolic rate.
What you eat affects how you sleep, your energy levels, and how stressed out you may get, and vice versa. All these factors are interconnected, and once you start working on one, you may find the others falling into place as well.
Metabolism
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It's not always realistic to only eat real — whole — foods. Convenience foods are simply more, um, convenient sometimes because they're processed in ways that make them more accessible and easy to eat and prepare for anyone with a hectic schedule. You may enjoy these foods. Just remember that everything can fit into the boosting metabolism diet — in moderation.
Metabolism
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Each pigment present in fruits and vegetables is due to a compound that serves up different health benefits. Fruits and veggies provide a more natural sweet fix that’s loaded with fiber, vitamins, minerals, and other metabolism-maximizing goodies.
Aim for 4–5 servings each fruit and vegetable per day:
Fruits: 1 serving = 1/2 cup fresh fruit = 1/2 cup juice = 1/4 dried fruit.
Metabolism
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A study published in Nutrition and Metabolism found that people who drank the recommended amount of dairy — about 3–4 servings per day—were more likely to have increased metabolic rates and greater fat oxidation during weight maintenance. As a kid, you drank milk for strong bones. As an adult, you can choose low-fat dairy products to burn more fat (and also maintain bones and reduce blood pressure).
Metabolism
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Whether or not you’re vegetarian, nuts, seeds, and beans are nutrition powerhouses that help keep your metabolism moving efficiently. They all contain lean protein and fiber; nuts and seeds contain heart-healthy fats that keep you feeling satisfied and energized.
Metabolism-boosting nuts
Almonds: These are rich in vitamin E, a powerful antioxidant that protects heart health, and magnesium, a mineral that’s important to metabolism.
Metabolism
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It seems like every day there is a new health benefit that omega-3 fatty acids bestow upon you: they’re good for your heart, improve arthritis, reduce depression, help with hot flashes during menopause, and now they help boost your metabolism.
But what are omega-3 fatty acids, where can you find them, and why are they all the rage?
Metabolism
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Most Americans get enough protein — double the protein needed — to keep their metabolism on track. For the average Joe, that’s okay as long as that protein is from lean sources — meaning low in artery-clogging saturated fat — and as long as what you’re consuming isn’t exceeding the amount of calories you need.
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When it comes to dessert, you may never think you’re able to have it in moderation. But if you make the most of the nutrition, make some concessions with your portions and how frequently you have dessert, or prep recipes that are a healthified versions of your favorites, you can certainly satisfy your sweet tooth, guilt-free.
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Balancing your meal is the secret to metabolism-boosting success. When you just have carbohydrate, like pasta with tomato sauce, without an added source of protein, your metabolism doesn’t have to work as hard to digest, your blood sugar levels spike, you aren’t as satisfied, and you’ll be craving another meal or snack soon after.
Metabolism
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Planning ahead to have a lunch that powers you through the day is easy with these simple recipes you can prep ahead of time and brown bag so that you keep your metabolism maximized throughout the day. With these recipes for satisfying salads, you’ll get a variety of flavor combinations to keep your midday routine interesting.
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Without a metabolism-boosting lunch chock-full of nutrients, your blood sugar levels drop, you feel sluggish, and you tend to go overboard calorie-wise at dinnertime. Without lunch, the math never adds up to fewer calories or weight loss.
Make sure your sandwich bread isn’t more calories than you’ve bargained for.
Metabolism
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Having a balance among all those nutrients in your breakfast foods helps provide you with the most energy to awaken your metabolism for the day. No wonder people who eat breakfast are more likely to lose and maintain their weight loss. Breakfast eaters are also more productive throughout the day, including with exercise, another major part of the metabolism equation.
Metabolism
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Ending the day with a light but nutritious dinner can help you finish getting all the nutrients you need while keeping your metabolism in high gear. Always pair carbohydrates with a serving of protein and heart-healthy fat. It doesn’t matter whether you eat the foods directly together in a combo dish or separately as an appetizer or a side.
Metabolism
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A major part of the boosting-your-metabolism way is substituting the foods you eat with more nutritionally dense foods so that you’re satisfied and energized throughout the day. Note that snack is not a four-letter word. People who snack smart are more likely to lose weight and keep it off.
When should you have a snack?
Metabolism
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Soups can be a great metabolism-boosting meal as long as you’ve got veggies, beans, or another lean protein like white meat chicken in the mix. You may want to pair with a piece of fruit or have a small soup plus half a sandwich. A serving of soup like the White Bean Pumpkin can also make for a great winter snack.
Metabolism
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Breaking your overnight fast with breakfast is the first line of defense for the day against a sluggish metabolism. No matter what you eat, having breakfast within a few hours of waking up helps wake up your metabolic rate. But like a domino effect, making more nutritious choices and having a balanced breakfast helps you also make healthier choices all day long.
Metabolism
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Sodium chloride, more commonly known as salt, lurks in many of the foods you eat. Sodium causes an increase in blood volume, which puts a lot of added burden on your kidneys, which are your filtering system. When that system slows, you are also effectively slowing your metabolic rate.
Sodium functions in the body to regulate nerve impulses, balance fluids, and contract and relax muscles.
Metabolism
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Trans fats have been shown to negatively impact proper breakdown of glucose and fat in the body, thereby slowing metabolic rate and increasing fat storage. And not only do trans fats increase your LDL (bad) cholesterol, but they lower your good cholesterol, HDL. Trans fat also increases inflammation in the body which puts you at risk for chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes.
Metabolism
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Your food supply is rampant with a variety of sugar substitutes that aren’t metabolized the same way as sugar. Sugar substitutes can have a negative effect depending on whether they come from natural or artificial sources. Different types of substitutes are used for a variety of reasons:
For weight loss: They provide fewer calories.
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Products containing more and more added sugar also hit the marketplace in the 1990s. These synthetic carbohydrates are not nutritious and slow down your metabolism. American’s consume too much of them, and they should be seriously reduced in your diet.
Minimize refined grains
When a grain is whole, it contains a germ, bran, and endosperm.
Metabolism
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Although many metabolism-boosting foods are nutritious on their own, pairing foods together can maximize their metabolism-boosting potential. Having a balance among your meals helps you get all the nutrients you need and keeps your metabolic rate high.
Pairing fiber and protein at breakfast is great for satiation, and that’s also true for lunch, snack, and dinner.
Metabolism
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The first step to making your kitchen your healthy eating sanctuary is to remove the foods that are problematic. These are the foods that clog up the space in your pantry and slow your weight loss progress, or the foods that result in overeating.
What's "problematic" for you may not be for your family member or friend — everyone is different.
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Adding herbs and spices to your meals can not only add a pleasure factor to a dish, they may also help increase your metabolic rate. That’s not to say these are miracle seeds to sprinkle on your dish and negate the need to make nutritious choices.
But if you’re choosing foods that are jam-packed with nutrition, staying within your calorie needs, and incorporating these flavors, research has shown herbs and spices can help up your burn rate and improve your health.
Metabolism
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You can stick to your metabolism-boosting diet when eating out. You just need a strategy. Whether you’re taking a look before you go online or you’re opening up the menu as you sit down at the table, knowing the low-down on restaurant lingo can make all the difference when making healthy choices.
Depending on where you’re dining, you face unique challenges with the options available — from freebies on the table to accompanying cocktails to specific dishes.
Metabolism
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As you improve your diet to boost your metabolism, you experience changes in your body and your mind. Seeing these positive changes helps keep you motivated to continue down a healthy path.
Just because you don’t see immediate weight loss, that’s not a reason to bow out of the race and give up. Many factors are in play when it comes to your metabolism, and weight is definitely not the only indicator of health.
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You deserve to relax. And making time for it allows you to be more productive the rest of the day, which boosts your metabolic rate. Taking a break gives your brain and body time to recover and operate the best they can. Research shows that taking just 15–20 minutes to relax every day can do all of the following:
Improve your immune system
Lower blood pressure and risk for heart attack and stroke
Reduce pain, headaches, and digestive issues like Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Improve pre-menstrual symptoms
Reduce cortisol levels and junk food cravings
Improve your sleep, energy levels, and mood
Improve your memory and help you make better decisions
At some point in your life, you knew how to chill out, and it's possible you just forgot along the way.
Metabolism
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No matter where you store fat, you can rev up your burning furnace with activity. Consistent activity — especially weight-bearing, resistance exercises during which you build and tone muscle — can help offset the 5–10 percent in muscle mass decline per decade of life. That’s one of the reasons your metabolism slows as you age.
Metabolism
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If you have diabetes mellitus, you may already know what a huge impact diet and exercise have on your metabolism, blood glucose levels, your need for medication, as well as how you feel. A disruption in the action of the hormone insulin is responsible for this feeling.
But by being conscious of what you eat, getting exercise, and having regular check-ins with a physician, you have the power to control your diabetes and reduce complications.
Metabolism
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Weight gain and a slower metabolic rate is common in menopause due to the natural aging process and fluctuations in estrogen. Also, an increase in testosterone is one reason for the decreased sex drive. Menopause is a clear sign that your body is changing, and women in menopause tend to
Move less and eat more calories than needed.
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If you’re dealing with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), you’re in the company of roughly 1 out of every 15 women in the U.S. who have the condition. Your hormones become unbalanced, which can affect how you look and feel, your menstrual cycle, and your fertility.
You have a greater risk of developing PCOS if another woman in your family also had small cysts on her ovaries.
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If your metabolism is the engine of your body, your thyroid is a key that turns the ignition. The thyroid gland, located in your neck just below the Adam’s apple, is responsible for producing hormones that regulate metabolism and growth. If the thyroid isn’t working the way it should, that usually means the hormones it produces are out of whack.
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Grocery shopping is one of the greatest ways to jump-start a healthy eating regimen — that is, of course, if you're planning ahead for the excursion, making nutritious choices, buying foods that you'll realistically eat, and understand how to pair those foods together into snacks and meals.
How not to go grocery shopping
There's a time and a place for grocery shopping, and it's not wise to go on a whim without a plan.
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Cortisol is produced by your adrenal glands and is released in response to stress. It has many primary functions in the metabolism realm and basically functions to make energy available if needed for quick use, like if you need to escape from a risky situation (also known as the fight or flight response) or even to face a challenging day at the office.
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Insulin, a hormone produced by the beta cells of your pancreas, regulates carbohydrate and fat metabolism. Insulin is one of four main need-to-know hormones that plays a major role in your metabolism.
It’s released when it senses carbohydrate or protein in your blood as they’re being digested.
It causes your cells to take up glucose to be used for energy or to store either in the liver or muscle as glycogen or in your fat cells as triglycerides.
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If you’ve lost weight, only to gain it back, you may be all too familiar with your hunger and satiety hormones. Leptin and ghrelin are your body’s main hormones that regulate when you’re hungry and when you’re full and may be the key to your metabolism and body weight.
Leptin is what makes you feel full:
It’s secreted by fat cells, and the more fat you have, the more leptin is secreted.
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Whether you’re a man or woman, the hormones testosterone and estrogen play a leading role in your metabolism. Most notably, your sex hormones impact your body composition, which may be seen with a glance at the male and female physiques.
Males tend to have more muscle mass and burn more calories at rest, which is why men can typically eat more and not gain weight.
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Core, or abdominal, exercise is integral to almost every movement because it helps with so much: balance, coordination, and flexibility. It also improves your performance with cardio workouts. Although your abs may recover more quickly than other muscles, remember that they still need rest too.Triceps kickbackStarting position: Stand up in split-stance position, with your right leg forward, holding a dumbbell in your left hand.
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Also known as Syndrome X, metabolic syndrome is defined as several conditions that can increase your risk for diabetes and heart disease. These include: insulin resistance, high blood pressure, elevated blood glucose and lipid levels, tendency to develop blood clots, and too much fat around the waist.
More than 30 percent of Americans (and rising) are thought to have metabolic syndrome.
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On the most basic level, metabolism is the process by which your body converts the food and water you consume into energy for immediate use or to be stored for later. This energy doesn’t only power your jog — every action your body performs, including brushing your teeth and getting dressed in the morning, requires this energy.
Metabolism
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Metabolic rate is the rate at which your body burns calories. You can separate the types of calories your body burns into two categories: resting calories or activity calories.
While you’re just sitting on your couch or at your desk working, your body is burning a certain amount of baseline calories. This is your body at rest.
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Taking exercise classes is great when you're trying to boost your metabolism. You can discover new movements that speak to you, learn proper technique from an instructor, and stay engaged with a variety of workouts.
Yoga is not only for spiritual peace of mind — it can be super hard. There are many different kinds of yoga, from Bikram (hot yoga) to Hatha (slow poses, good for beginners) to Vinyasa (more fast-paced, flowing movements).
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Metabolism is a two-step process between catabolism and anabolism. The balance between the two is controlled by hormones, chemicals released by cells that have specific functions. Hormones are either classified as anabolic or catabolic depending on what they do:
Catabolism breaks down macronutrients into their smaller units to release energy for physical activity or to use for anabolism.
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The thyroid is an endocrine gland in your neck that’s responsible for regulating the pace at which your metabolism is working. It basically uses the iodine you consume in foods to produce two main hormones called T3 and T4. Every single cell in your body responds to these hormones to either pick up the pace or slow down when it comes to converting oxygen and calories to energy.