Food 101: Boost Your Metabolism, Improve Your Life

If ever there has been a cure-all for your body problems (weight, lack of energy, bloating, etc.) it would be a higher metabolism. The benefits are practically endless:

• better, longer, more satisfying sleep
• increased energy and enthusiasm for energetic activities
• healthy weight-loss that sticks
• building better lean muscle mass
• a body trained for extended, routine calorie burning, even while at rest
• decreased stress
• decreased risk for disease, Type 2 Diabetes

And oh, so much more. The following foods and behaviors can be gradually or immediately incorporated into your current diet to boost the metabolic rate at which your body burns calories and fat to create energy, and drastically change your day-to-day life.

No, really- dairy-based foods give your body calcium, which stimulates fat cells to break down fat. The key to convincing your body to up its' metabolism is eat LESS, but not A LOT less. Cut back on a lot of food, starvation mode kicks in and your body starts conserving fat for what it sees as a lean time ahead, which is exactly what you don't want. So eat that ice cream, but only eat two-thirds of the serving you would normally give yourself.

Just having fish twice a week will boost your protein levels as well as your omega-3 fatty acids, which will increase the number of enzymes in your body (read: tiny fat-eating machines). And not just fish, but almost any previously-swimming non-mammal creature will give you these benefits.

Whether it's an uber-healthy bowl of bran mash or an uber-processed Fruit Loops bar, eat within an hour of waking up. This provides your body with the materials it needs to start the day, making sure you have energy early and staving off the morning blues. A glass of water will also make you more alert, as well as flush your system of gunk and leftover nastiness from anything not-so-healhy you ate the day before (milk works just as well, and gives you bonus calcium).

Again, you think I'm kidding, but I'm not. Most of us keep to the old-school three squares a day, but periods of feast and periods of famine are counter-productive if you're trying to regulate how your body's processing your food. Snack twice a day between breakfast and lunch and lunch and dinner in order to balance out your intake. DO NOT eat after eight, as that is the approximate time your body is trained to believe the sun has gone down and the transition from day to night has been achieved. The body will naturally stop production of energy for the day at this time and begin winding down, no matter what your plans are, so continuing to eat will leave your body with all this new food and no place to put it.

Iced coffees, teas, and even plain water can help you burn fat, as your body will have to warm itself up without a change in environmental temperature and will burn fat to do it. One of the many, many reasons people who spend time outdoors are thinner and more healthy than people who don't is this temperature regulation and all the fat-burning results it can produce.