I hear a lot of excuses from people as to why they can’t lose weight.  One of the excuses is “I have a slow metabolism”.  You can control your metabolism by how much muscle you have on your body, what you eat, and how often you eat.

• The more muscle you have on your body the higher your metabolism.
  • If weight loss is your goal, start lifting weights.
  • By adding more muscle to your body, you are burning more calories while you’re at rest.
  • Don’t worry about bulking up, you don’t need to build that much muscle to get the effect on your metabolism.

• The foods that you eat can determine how many calories your body burns.
  • When you eat certain foods together like a lean protein, a starchy carb, and a fibrous carb it is a highly thermic meal.
  • Thermic meaning that your body will burn a lot of calories digesting that meal.
  • You want to make most of your meals highly thermic to burn off as many calories as possible digesting the meal.

• Your metabolism revs up when it has fuel to burn.
  • When you eat breakfast your metabolism kicks in.  If you skip breakfast and wait until lunch to eat, your metabolism doesn’t rev up until lunch.
  • You need to eat every 3-3 ½  hours to keep your metabolism constantly revved up.
  • Keep the meals smaller, but eat every 3-3 ½ hours.

Holly Kouvo is a certified Personal Trainer, Nutrition Specialist, speaker and writer who specializes in helping people lose hundreds of pounds. Learn more at www.FittingFitnessIn.com.