Lose Weight With a Higher RMR © Dr. Eileen Silva 2006
Do you go up a jean size just watching your best friend dive into a banana split, while she licks the bowl clean and walks away looking slim and trim? Do you feel like a calorie magnet, while she has some sort of force field going that protects her? That’s not the really the difference, although it feels like it is. The difference is metabolism.
Metabolism varies from person to person, but choices you make can also affect it. Your resting metabolic rate (RMR) is 60-75% of your total metabolism, so even when you’re not working out you can be burning those dreaded calories. Of course, exercise does boost your metabolism, but you can keep it higher all day long if you avoid four common metabolism mistakes.
Do you skip breakfast?. If you don’t break your night’s fast, your body will go into conservation mode, thinking that it will receive no fuel that day. In fact, any time you miss a meal, your body starts to conserve fuel by burning less calories, so you can actually get less good from the workout you do if you have not eaten properly beforehand.
Your body also conserves fuel if you become dehydrated. If you don’t drink enough water (at least two quarts a day), or if you drink dehydrating caffeinated beverages or alcohol, your body temperature drops, and your body stores fat. If you must drink these beverages, always drink twice as much water to compensate for the water they leach from your body.
Do you fuel up with carbs? Did you know that carbs don’t rev up your metabolism nearly as much as protein does. In fact, when you eat and digest protein, it increases your RMR two to three times more than eating and digesting carbs.
And, when you work out, I suggest that you concentrate on your body’s level of lean muscle mass instead of cardio-loading. Heart-pumping workouts do burn calories, but they don’t have the impact on metabolism that muscle mass does. The more muscle mass you have, the more energy will be required to maintain it, and the more calories you’ll burn when working out or even when resting.
If you avoid these common mistakes, you will raise your metabolism, and you may even be able to join your best friend in an occasional banana split.
Metabolism varies from person to person, but choices you make can also affect it. Your resting metabolic rate (RMR) is 60-75% of your total metabolism, so even when you’re not working out you can be burning those dreaded calories. Of course, exercise does boost your metabolism, but you can keep it higher all day long if you avoid four common metabolism mistakes.
Do you skip breakfast?. If you don’t break your night’s fast, your body will go into conservation mode, thinking that it will receive no fuel that day. In fact, any time you miss a meal, your body starts to conserve fuel by burning less calories, so you can actually get less good from the workout you do if you have not eaten properly beforehand.
Your body also conserves fuel if you become dehydrated. If you don’t drink enough water (at least two quarts a day), or if you drink dehydrating caffeinated beverages or alcohol, your body temperature drops, and your body stores fat. If you must drink these beverages, always drink twice as much water to compensate for the water they leach from your body.
Do you fuel up with carbs? Did you know that carbs don’t rev up your metabolism nearly as much as protein does. In fact, when you eat and digest protein, it increases your RMR two to three times more than eating and digesting carbs.
And, when you work out, I suggest that you concentrate on your body’s level of lean muscle mass instead of cardio-loading. Heart-pumping workouts do burn calories, but they don’t have the impact on metabolism that muscle mass does. The more muscle mass you have, the more energy will be required to maintain it, and the more calories you’ll burn when working out or even when resting.
If you avoid these common mistakes, you will raise your metabolism, and you may even be able to join your best friend in an occasional banana split.
posted by Eileen Silva, Ph.D.,N.D. | 9:53 AM
1 Comments:
That was a good tidbit of knowledge. I will pass it on along the way. More and more people are becoming interested in health.
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