Tricking Your Body to Lose Weight--Wisdom for Your Brain

According to Health magazine, your can use your basal metabolic rate or your metabolism to trick your body into losing weight.  Your body seems to be quite a clever thing, so make sure you tell your brain not to let your body know you are attempting this scheme.  Your body might get pissed.

1. Stoke your system with B vitamins:  Get the bulk of your B’s from food.  Foods high in the B’s include: spinach, asparagus, beans (navy, soy, black beans), melon, broccoli, fish, poultry and eggs.

2. Magnesium:  Go green with your vegetables. Green vegetables such as spinach provide magnesium. Other excellent sources of magnesium include: halibut, nuts such as almonds, cashews and peanuts, soybeans (edamame), whole-grain cereals, oatmeal, and legumes such as black-eyed peas and lentils.

3. Snack right:  Snacking can help ignite your energy by giving your body a fuel boost. Eating healthy snacks, in snack-size portions, can help you avoid the overhungry-overeating syndrome that often leads to overweight and can leave you feeling lethargic. Be sure to include healthy carbs and protein in each snack such as: peanut butter and banana, trail mix, hummus and baby carrots, or an apple with low-fat Cheddar cheese. The protein/carbohydrate combination help regulate blood sugar, energy levels and feelings of satiety.

4. Eat breakfast:  Studies indicate that eating breakfast may increase resting metabolism by 10 percent and reduce the risk of obesity and diabetes. Make sure it’s a healthy morning with whole-grain cereal and fruit, whole-wheat toast and peanut butter or fat-free yogurt and a handful of granola.

5.  Interval training or speed play is a great way to pump up your metabolism and make your workouts more fun. Interval training alternates short bursts of intense activity with lower intensity activity. For example; alternating sprints with a slow jog, or powering up a hill followed by an easy downhill lope. Interval training teaches the heart and muscles to use oxygen more efficiently.

6. Strength training:  As we get older we tend to lose muscle, gain fat and our metabolism slows down as a result. One way to combat this metabolic slowdown is with regular strength or resistance training. Resistance training stimulates muscles to become stronger and healthier, providing your body with beneficial improvements in strength and function. Resistance training also reduces fat mass and increases muscle mass. Research suggests that resistance training may even increase life expectancy.

7. Stop slashing calories:  Depriving your body of fuel is a surefire way to slow it down. When you slash calories, the calories burned by eating are greatly diminished and so is your metabolic rate. Restricting calories also signals the body that there is no food available, so it tries to conserve stores of carbohydrate and fat by slowing down its metabolism. The best way to keep your metabolism revved is to eat regular meals with snacks when necessary to give your body a constant supply of healthy fuel.

Other tips to improve your metabolism include the following:

Avoid  Stress:  Stress makes it hard to lose those last few pounds. When you're stressed, your adrenal gland secretes the stress hormone cortisol, which increases your appetite and also stimulates your body's release of the fat-storing hormone insulin. The result: Your body holds on to its fat stores as hard as it can, even if you're eating less than before.  Great... now I'm stressing that I am stressed.

Sip green tea:  In a study from Switzerland, men who took a green tea supplement three times a day with their meals, burned more calories during the following 24 hours than those who took a caffeine pill or a dummy pill. The researchers believe that flavonoids in the tea were responsible for the metabolism boost.

Drink Lots of Water:  This will also increase the amount of exercise you do by requiring you to constantly go to the bathroom.

Finally, get plenty of sleep!  Good luck sleeping through the night, though, after drinking all that water.