How many times have you heard this one? “she’s so skinny! lucky she has such a fast metabolism”, or “I can’t lose weight because my metabolism is too slow.”

the word metabolism is abused in the health and fitness industry. the idea that slow metabolism, and genes are the only reasons you can’t lose weight is being manipulated for the profit of company’s selling pills, and powders that promise to speed up your metabolism and melt all your fat away with no work, or change in your diet or life style.

This idea of metabolically “gifted” people is also devaluing all the hard work people put in to keep their body healthy and in shape, and those who need to get healthier and lose weight throw in the towel before they ever start.

The truth is that someone who is “skinny” has a slower metabolism than someone who is heavy because the heavy person is literally carrying around more weight all the time.

For example, a 135 pound, 32 year-old woman who is 5’6″ tall has a basal metabolic rate (calories burned if you did nothing) of 1387. The same woman at 250 pounds has a BMR of 1850. And the 250 pound woman burns more calories  while exercising as well.

You don’t have to play victims to the “slow” metabolisms excuse. Here are a few ways to increase your metabolism!

1. High intensity interval training:
   high intensity interval training is performed by working at higher than 85% of your max effort for short burst of time while then taking a slow recovery of a minute or two then doing it all again.
   Basically your body keeps burning calories hours after because it needs more time to recover compared to the immediate end in calories being burned when you stop your regular cardio
2. Lift weights:
   lifting weight also raises your metabolism even after you’ve finished. Experts say that your metabolism can stay elevated for up to 40 hours after your done because your body is working hard to rebuild itself.
3. Build muscle:
   listen, if you’re scared to build muscle because of bulkiness, or you’ve heard that muscle turns into fat if you stop working out you need to know these are both incorrect. Muscle and fat are two different tissues and can never convert into one or the other, and women do not produce enough testosterone to “look like a man”.
   What building muscle will do for you is “build a bigger engine” in regards to fat burning. Your body burns a lot of calories in order to maintain muscle mass. Some experts say that that 5 pounds of muscle can burn up to 1700 extra calories a week!
4. Eat real food:
   There is no substitute for real food. Almost all foods in grocery stores are over processed mixtures of 50 ingredients some of which have negative effects on the body. Most of these are either extremely easy for your body to digest, or don’t get digested at all.
   The organs used to digest your food require a lot of energy (calories) in order to digest your food. So if you are feeding your body easy to digest or undigestable foods you are robbing yourself of calorie burning potential!
   On the other hand if you feed your body real whole foods, it is working hard to breakdown and extract nutrients from these healthy foods. This process of breaking down real foods expends a lot more energy(calories), while reaping the benefits of all the nutrients of whole foods.
5. Drink water: Studies have shown that 17 ounces of water, increases your metabolic rate by 30% for both men and women. The increases occurred within 10 minutes of water consumption and reached a maximum after about 30 or 40 minutes.
   This is too easy to ignore. Simply carry a water bottle with you!

Conclusion:
You have more control over your metabolism than you think. So, don’t play victim, use these tips to boost your metabolism and reach your goals!

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