Boost and Improve Metabolism by Eating

You've heard the old cliché that if you want to make money you have to spend money, right? Of course, you have! Did you know a similar concept applies to boosting your metabolism? If you want to increase your calorie-burning rate and help your body run leaner, meaner and more efficiently, you have to feed it!

While that sounds great and lends credence to those commercials on television that say with a miracle pill you too can eat anything you want and still lose weight, there is a little more to it than that. The trick to eating your way to a faster, more efficient metabolism is to eat frequently while being smart in the process.

Understanding The Concept
The idea behind the eat-to-lose-weight concept is simple: If your body is fed in regular, short intervals, your metabolism and digestive systems keep working most of the time. If you choose to skip meals or starve your way to weight loss, however, your body tends to flip the switch on "energy conservation mode." This means the metabolism slows down and calorie burning is actually impeded rather than helped by meal skipping or crash dieting. (After an initial weight drop, of course).

To make the most of frequent, short-interval meal plans, many diet experts recommend eating a small meal or snack every four hours or so while awake. This helps keeps the body function at its peak. If smart mini-meal choices are selected and combined with a bit of exercise, the overall impact on the metabolism is generally quite impressive.

While this sounds great, there is a trick to selecting foods for those mini-meals. No, you really cannot "eat anything you want and lose weight!" Sorry.

Mini-Meal Selection
The trick to eating your way to a big metabolism boost lies quite honestly in selecting the right mini-meals. While most normal, healthy choices work very well here, there are some things to steer clear of. These include:

* Sugary foods. Foods with a high sugar content can actually trick the body into conservation mode. Avoiding sweets, processed sugars and even foods high in starch or simple carbohydrates is a very good idea.
* Abnormal portion size. Before selecting mini-meals, get a very good handle on the real portion size for foods. If breakfast is a banana with a bowl of cereal, read the label on the cereal. The suggested half- to full-cup will help you along your path, two cups and a serving and a half of milk will not!
* Fried, cholesterol laden foods. Try to avoid anything heavy for most of the mini-meals in a day (or even week). While these won't necessarily break the bank, so to say, they can make you feel sluggish and they're just not good for you.

It is possible to eat your way to a more efficient metabolism. The trick is in how it's handled.

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