Eat To Lose Weight and Boost Metabolism!

EAT to LOSE weight! Sounds pretty good, right? Some people, for one reason or another, seem to think that you have to cut calories down so far that you are starving (and ready to eat the paper towel roll) just to lose weight. Let's take a look at why that's just not true.

Over weight vs. the right weight!

Most people in America are way over weight. They consume too much food, expend way too little energy, and have a nice big fat roll around their waist to show for it. But it doesn't have to be this way!

The human body is MADE to MOVE! That's right; we are built to chase down food - all day if we have to - and then kill it, cook it, or collect and then prepare it, which could take all day. So by the time we even eat, we have burned a lot of energy just getting ready to eat. Now, fast forward to modern times, where everything is prepared and ready to go. Food is full of preservatives, and calories. A typical meal would be about 500-700 calories for a normal person.

By not moving, we are slowing our metabolism. By eating calorie-laden food, we are storing the excess in case we need the energy should we go into starvation mode. Fat is just stored energy that our bodies use in case there is no food for a long stretch of time. In order to drop the ugly excess energy we are "WEARING" ... you've got to get up and move! Yes, MOVE!! Go walking, running, or swimming, for at least an hour per day. Does that seem like a lot? Out of 24 hours, you can't take only ONE hour to get your body and health back on track? Not a big price to pay, the way I see it.

Here is a 60 min fat melting workout!

And then you're going to have to EAT! Yes, EAT! And not the fast food or packaged stuff you have been eating. Teddy Grahams are NOT a carb source.

There is something called the "Thermic Effect of Food," which means that your body burns calories just by ingesting them. It's a very important part of human metabolism.

Here is a quick overview from Wikipedia:

Thermic effect of food (also commonly known simply as thermic effect when the context is known), or TEF in shorthand, is the increment in energy expenditure above resting metabolic rate due to the cost of processing food for storage and use. It is one of the components of metabolism along with the resting metabolic rate, and the exercise component. Another term commonly used to describe this component of total metabolism is the specific dynamic action (SDA). A common number used to estimate the magnitude of the thermic effect of food is about 10% of the caloric intake of a given time period, though the effect varies substantially for different food components. Dietary fat is very easy to process and has very little thermic effect, while protein is hard to process and has a much larger thermic effect.

In plain English, this means that when you ingest food, your body's metabolism speeds up. OR you burn more calories while not even exercising. This is why the old "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!" rings true. After not eating for 8 hours while you were asleep, you spark up the body by giving it fuel and kick start your day!

Next time, I will discuss a little scientific experiment I did with my body temperature and what happened after I ate each meal. I think the results speak for themselves.