Repair Your Metabolism

SHORT DESCRIPTION: If you've caused metabolic damage as a result of following
starvation diets or losing weight too rapidly in the past, it can be extremely
difficult to achieve any further fat loss at all. The good news is, metabolic
damage can be repaired. All it takes is the right combination of metabolism
stimulating exercise and metabolism stimulating nutrition...

BODY OF ARTICLE: If you've lost weight too rapidly or if you've followed a very
low calorie "starvation diet" in the past, then you may have damaged your
metabolism. Once this occurs, it can become extremely difficult to achieve any
further loss of body fat at all. If you've ever experienced a "weight loss
plateau" where the scale won't budge, even when it seems like you're working
hard and doing everything right, then you know exactly what I'm talking about.
The good news is, metabolic damage can be "repaired." All it takes is the right
combination of metabolism-stimulating exercise and metabolism-stimulating
nutrition (NOT just a "diet"), all done consistently over time

The big irony is that most of the diet programs that claim to help you get rid
of excess weight, only end up making it harder for you in the long run because
they use harsh metabolism-decreasing diets and not enough exercise (almost
never any weight training).

It may take a little longer if you've been a "diet dummy" and you've really
messed things up with severe starvation dieting, (especially if you've lost a
lot of lean body mass), but it's never hopeless. Anyone can increase their
metabolism.

Most people get an almost immediate boost in metabolic rate when they make a few
important changes to their eating and exercise routines. However, the results
are not going to be "overnight." Give it a little time...

Within 3 weeks your metabolism will already be more efficient. Within 6-8 weeks,
it's burning hot. Give me 12 weeks of consistent diligent effort, sticking with
all the metabolism boosting strategies I teach, and your metabolism will become
like a turbo charged engine, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that.

What's most important for upping your metabolism is CONSISTENCY in applying the
nutrition and training principles every single day.

That includes:

• Meal frequency: eat 5-6 small meals per day

• Meal timing: eat approximately every 3 hours, with a substantial breakfast
and a substantial post workout meal.

• Sufficient Caloric Intake: maintain a small calorie deficit and avoid
starvation-level diets (suggested safe levels for fat loss: 2100-2500 calories
per day for men, 1400-1800 calories per day for women; adjust as needed)

• Food choices: Select natural, unprocessed foods with high thermic effect
(lean proteins like chicken, turkey, egg whites and fish are highly thermic, as
are all green vegetables, salad vegetables and other fibrous carbs)

• Cardio training: Push up the intensity a bit if you really want to get a
metabolic boost. Walking and low intensity cardio is fine, but higher intensity
is more metabolism-stimulating

• Weight training: The basic exercises that include the largest muscle groups
or even call into play the entire body as a unit (squats, split squats,
deadlifts, stiff legged deadlifts, overhead presses, rows and full body core
exercises) will have a much greater metabolism-stimulating effect than
isolation exercises (concentration curls, crunches, calf raises, etc)

The weight training is extremely important in cases of "metabolic damage"
because this is the stimulus to keep the muscle you have and begin rebuilding
new muscle tissue, which is the engine that drives your metabolic rate.

The men don't usually have a problem with the weight training, but I still hear
women say they don't want to lift weights as part of their fat loss programs.
Well, people who wont lift weights can expect a very, very long metabolism
"repair process" if they achieve it at all.

Consistency is the key.

Nothing will undermine the "re-building" of your metabolism like inconsistency.
If you stop and start, or skip meals and workouts often, you will not even get
off the ground.

After your metabolism is back up where it should be, it takes continued
"stoking" of the metabolic furnace to keep it there. Once you get your
metabolic engine running, you've got to keep feeding it fuel or the fire will
die down.

Picture an old fashioned wood burning stove...

Imagine you're in a cabin up in the mountains in the winter. It's cold in there
and you want to keep the cabin warm. Can you achieve this by feeding the fire
once or twice per day? Nope. Not enough fuel to burn, so not much heat is
generated.

What if you just toss an entire pile of wood in the stove all at once? Will that
work? Nope. Lots of fuel, but can't all be used at once... it just smothers the
fire and the excess just sits there.

How about if you throw some tissue paper or crumpled newspaper in the stove,
will that work? Nope - too quickly burning.

You have to keep putting small amounts of wood (the right type of fuel) on the
fire at regular intervals or the fire burns out.

It's also difficult to get the fire lit again. In the case of metabolism, it's
like going through those initial few weeks of overcoming inertia all over
again.

Your goal is to get your metabolism burning hot and keep it burning and this
cannot be achieved by missing meals, missing workouts or with sporadic,
infrequent training.

I have only seen a handful of cases where all these things were done properly
and there was still a longer "repair" process.

For example, one case was former ballet dancer. At 5' 5", she was previously 110
lbs and had increased to about 145 or so. She didn't want to reach her previous
110, but find a happy medium of about 125 lbs.

I figured with 20 lbs to cut, this would be a simple and predictable process,
but she had a challenging time (and I didn't know why at first).

I later found out that she had been anorexic and bulimic for many years. This
had caused a lot of damage, and although she did reach her goal, it took about
twice as long as we had anticipated.

The good news is, even in this extreme case, the same nutrition and training
principles worked! It just took a little longer. And by the way, her program
included some serious training with free weights and she ate a lot more (clean)
food than she had ever eaten before. No "starvation!"

Trying to starve the fat with crash diets is what causes metabolic damage in the
first place! You have to Burn The Fat And Feed Your Muscles!

RESOURCE BOX: Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder, certified strength coach
(CSCS) and author of "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to
get lean without drugs or supplements using secrets of the world's best
bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and
turbo-charge your metabolism by visiting: http://www.burnthefat.com . Visit
Tom's fat loss support community at http://www.burnthefatinnercircle.com