The secret to losing weight isn’t dieting. It isn’t long hours of cardio.
The “secret” is eating healthy and exercising consistently. Sorry, but that will never change. Now for the good news…
There are some “tricks” that can boost your efforts. The key is to give your metabolism a kick start. And there are ways to increase your metabolism so you know it’s fiery hot. You’ll burn fat more easily and your healthy diet and exercise program will get a lot easier.
Here are the 5 easiest ways to speed up your metabolism:
1. Intermittent fasting:
Just seeing the word “fasting” can be enough to make some people run for the hills. But intermittent fasting (IF) doesn’t have to mean going a full day without eating. It can be as easy as not eating during a specific set of hours. You can reduce body fat through IF even if you don’t “diet down” during the rest of the week.1 It can be more effective than restricting calories every day. It even reduces inflammation by itself.2
By giving your metabolism a window of time to process everything in your system, you are making it work at is best. This allows you to better digest what you do eat when you aren’t fasting. Start small by not allowing yourself to eat for 12 hours between dinner and breakfast.
2. Vitamin D3:
From strengthening bones to regulating hormones, vitamin D3 is crucial. It works wonders for your metabolism. Studies find that supplementing just 125 IU of vitamin D3 with calcium can increase fat loss by 36 percent versus restricting calories alone.3 (For the record, that’s barely any vitamin D3.) Research suggests that it regulates fat cell development and metabolism. This would explain why people with higher baseline amounts of the vitamin also tend to have less body fat.4
To see the full benefits of vitamin D3, we recommend getting at least 4,000 IU per day. You can get it from foods like mushrooms, eggs, and cold-water fish. A single serving of wild-caught salmon alone has about 900 IU.
3. Protein:
Although it may not seem logical, you can actually lose weight by eating more—if you’re eating the right foods, that is. It takes more work to digest protein than other foods. This means your metabolism gets a serious workout. Plus, high protein foods tend to leave you feeling satisfied for longer. That’s especially helpful if you’ll be intermittently fasting.
Studies show high protein diets increase resting metabolism by as much as 30 percent. In one study, people on high protein diets were compared to people who ate low protein diets. For this study, a high protein diet meant getting 25 percent of daily calories from protein.5 Both the high and low protein groups put on seven pounds. The only difference…and it’s a big one… The high protein group put on seven pounds of lean muscle. The other group? They just gained fat.
Make sure each meal contains a quality source of protein like grass-fed beef, broccoli, or fatty fish.
4. Hydration:
Water has a measurable effect on your metabolism, not to mention your physical performance. Numerous studies show being dehydrated slows your metabolism. One study shows that drinking just two cups of water can increase your metabolism by up to 30 percent.6
Though the effects only last for around 40 minutes, taking care to drink water throughout the day will keep your metabolism from slowing down.
5. Spice it Up:
Here’s good news if you like a little food with your pepper. Capsinoids are found in chili peppers. They’re popular as supplements for their ability to increase metabolic rate. One study shows that ingesting 10 mg of capsinoids can increase your metabolism by about 20 percent.7
While it may not be a great idea to get such a high amount of capsinoids from peppers alone, adding some peppers to your meals will help. Not only will it increase your resting metabolism, it will add some flavor and variety to the foods you already enjoy.
These tricks to speed up your metabolism don’t take a lot of effort. You may already be doing some of them. You should be supplementing with D3 anyway. And make sure you’re getting enough protein and water. People tend to underestimate the amount they get—especially water. So track it for a few days.
Since they’re all pretty easy steps you may not feel like you’re working very hard. But the scale will tell a different story.
The five ways to rev up your metabolism are easy and help you burn fat. But if you find you’re not losing weight after doing all these, there might be something else going on. The chemicals that tell your body to burn fat might be out of whack. We’ve uncovered the secret to quickly put them back in balance so you can keep off the weight for good… all while eating delicious food. Find out how to finally shed the fat for good HERE.
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References:
1 http://www.pnas.org/content/100/10/6216.short
2 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23582559
3 http://www.nutritionj.com/content/12/1/8
4 http://www1.umn.edu/news/features/2009/UR_CONTENT_165066.html
5 http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1103993
6 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14671205
7 http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/7/1/65