http://abetteryou.msn.com/?section=articles&category=3&contentId=23675950&source=msn>1=25067#/articles/3/23675950/Weight Loss and Calories
Boost sluggish metabolism and shed fat faster By Selene YeagerOne day you wake up and, suddenly, cutting back on calories for a few days or doing some extra hours of aerobics just won't get rid of those stubborn pounds. You're not crazy. Weight loss gets harder as you get older, especially after you turn 40. But it's not impossible!
Prevention's metabolism-revving program can help put your body's fat-burning engines on autopilot, so your body's working around the clock to slim you. With the right kind of weight-loss workout, you could burn up to 200 extra calories a day, many of them while doing nothing more challenging than watching your favorite movie, eating dinner, or, yes, sleeping.
The result: You could have up to 20 pounds of weight loss in a year -- without eating less.
Our metabolism-revving plan can help you burn more calories every day, lose fat, boost your energy, feel stronger and more fit, and look and feel years younger.
Managing your metabolismThe Metabolism Meltdown: Metabolism is all the work your body does that requires calories (energy): staying alive, thinking, breathing, and moving your muscles. Obviously, it plays a major role in how much you weigh, especially with each passing birthday.
Sometime in your 30s, your metabolism starts slowing down by about 5 percent every decade. That means if you eat about 1,800 calories a day and fit into size 10s when you're 35, you'll be shopping for 12s when you're 45, even if you're eating the same number of calories. By the time you're 55, well, you get the idea.
The culprit behind this decline in calorie-burn is muscle loss, says Steve Farrell, Ph.D., associate director of The Cooper Institute in Dallas. Every pound of muscle you lose can decrease the number of calories you burn by as many as 30 a day. During perimenopause, you start losing about a half-pound of muscle a year, a loss that can double once you hit menopause (blame it on lack of activity and just plain aging). If you're not careful, by the time you're 65 it's possible to have lost half of your muscle mass and see your metabolism slowed by 200 to 300 calories.
Firm and burn: To keep your metabolism chugging in high gear, you need strength training. If you work your major muscle groups twice a week, you can expect to replace 5 to 10 years' worth of muscle loss in just a few months. Lifting weights can reverse the aging process, so you look and feel years, maybe even decades, younger.
Lifting weights increases your calorie-burn in other ways, too. In one study, 15 sedentary people in their 60s and 70s who strength trained three days a week for six months increased their daily calorie-burn by more than 230 calories. Almost one-third of the increase was from a boost in their metabolism due to the muscle they gained.
The remaining calories were burned as a result of their workouts, their increased daily activity, and something called "afterburn," which is an added attraction of strength-training exercise. Depending on how hard you work out, explains study author Gary R. Hunter, Ph.D., of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, your metabolism can stay elevated for up to 48 hours after you've finished lifting.
"As a bonus, strength training builds bone," says Dr. Farrell. "Though we tend to think of bones as 'dead,' they are very alive and highly active. Strong bones use more nutrients, and ultimately they burn more calories than weak bones do."
Stay away from the scale: When you first start lifting weights, the best way to measure progress is by how your clothes fit, not by pounds of weight loss, says Louis J. Aronne, M.D., associate professor of medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City. Muscle is heavier than fat. So, when you begin, the scale may not budge, or it may even go up a few pounds. Don't panic! Muscle takes up less space than fat, making you look smaller. The first changes you'll probably see will be in your waistline and clothing sizes. The scale will catch up.
Metabolism boosters- Kick your cardio into high gear. Your metabolism may stay revved up to five times longer after a vigorous aerobic workout than after an easy one.
- Spicy food. A few small studies from Japan have shown that eating a fiery red pepper-spiced meal may boost metabolism up to 30 percent. One downside: They used a lot of red pepper — between 5 and 6 teaspoons per meal.
- Sip green tea. In a study from Switzerland, six out of 10 men who took a green tea supplement (the equivalent of 1 cup of green tea) three times a day with their meals burned about 80 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.
- Have a cup of java. The amount of caffeine (about 135 mg) in an 8-ounce cup of brewed coffee is enough to raise your metabolism for more than two hours. Drinking it before a workout may give you an extra kick. Caffeine may help free stored fat, so your body can burn it for energy as you exercise. (If you have high blood pressure, avoid caffeine before exercise.)
Metabolism busters- Eat too few calories. When you deprive your body, it thinks you're stuck on Survivor Island. The result: your metabolism slows so you don't have to resort to eating rats to stay alive.
- Skip breakfast. According to one study, not eating breakfast may cause your resting metabolic rate to dip by 5 percent -- a small decline, but one that may creep up to a 10-pound weight gain in a year's time.
Beginner workout: Get shapely musclesGo here:
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