Your metabolism is simply the amount of calories that your body burns to maintain life. So if you have a slow metabolism, unless you have a low calorie intake, your calories intake will exceed the amount of calories that you burn and your body ends up storing the additional calories as fat.
Traditional weight loss diets teach us that in order to lose weight we must feed our body with fewer calories, so that the body burns more calories than what is being fed into the body. This forces the body to use up some of its reserves of energy (fat) and thus weight loss is achieved. At the beginning of a diet this works fine, but it is not sustainable for a number of reasons:
* At the beginning of a diet people are more diligent in abiding by the ‘rules’. But people’s enthusiasm wanes after a period, when day after day they are left feeling hungry and lethargic because they are required to lower their calorie intake. Also it is easier to diet at the start because everything is new and different to what they have done previously. Initially people see some positive results and are happy to put up with feeling hungry and lethargic because they are losing weight. Eventually the weight loss results slow down and people give up because they are unwilling to continue to make the necessary sacrifices when they are not seeing the results that they wish to see.
* After a short period of time of reducing your calorie intake, your body goes into survival mode. It slows down your metabolism to compensate for the reduced calorie intake. This is why you start to feel lethargic and weak because your body is conserving energy. If your calorie intake is reduced to 1500 calories per day, your metabolism will slow down so that you burn approximately 1500 calories per day. You end up with no further weight loss unless you further reduce your calorie intake, which is called starving yourself and is not healthy. Any program that is based on reducing calorie intake is doomed to ‘fail’ because your body has the ability to adjust itself to its daily calorie intake.
What hope is there of losing weight with a slow metabolism
It is not all doom and gloom. The easiest and best way to enjoy sustained weight loss is to increase your metabolism. This means that your body is burning calories at a greater rate than your calorie intake. Does that mean that you have to run a marathon to increase your metabolism? Not at all, exercise is important to general health, but increased metabolism is not dependent on exercise. Increased metabolism is dependent on eating the ‘correct’ calories and also eating at the correct intervals.
For the latest exciting developments in weight loss programs that concentrate on increasing metabolism rather than reducing calorie intake Visit Speed Up Metabolism to learn about these exciting new developments that detail how you do not have to calorie count but rather calorie shift. You will not be left hungry and lethargic with this weight loss program
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
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