Burning Calories for Weight Loss Weight loss can be really made to be quicker and easier if you help your body to burn more calories by increasing your own metabolic rate. Basically the metabolic rate (or MR) is the rate at which your body is able to burn the calories you’ve eaten. If you eat 2500 calories each day and burn 2500 calories each day your weight will remain the same. If, however, you eat 2500 calories each day and burn only 2000 calories each day your weight will increase by about 1 pound each week.
The speed of your metabolic rate is not set in stone – there are ways and means of speeding it up to help reach your weight loss targets faster.
How to Burn Calories Faster
Speeding up the metabolic rate will help your body to burn calories faster and you to lose weight. One of the ways in which this can be achieved is by building muscle. Every extra pound of muscle you have will increase the rate that your body uses up calories by 50 per day – regular exercise like weight training can help to increase the metabolic rate by up to 15%. Metabolically active muscle burns up more calories than other types of body tissue even when you’re not doing anything. Burning calories whilst you’re sitting down – that sounds good to me!
Three twenty minute weight training sessions per week will not only help you to build muscle and burn calories faster, but it will also help you to tone up and look better.
Another way to speed up the metabolic rate is to simply move more. Moving at each and every opportunity to help to increase the metabolic rate and burn those calories faster even after you have stopped moving. Increasing your movement throughout the day doesn’t only mean walking to work or taking up running. There are plenty of ways in which you can simply move more when taking part in your daily activities and help to boost your calorie-burning power;
• Swinging your legs instead of sitting still can help
• Tapping your feet can help too
• Drumming your fingers can even help to increase your metabolic rate
• Standing up and having a good stretch every now and then can help
• Changing position
• Moving your head back and forth, side to side
• Making the effort to use the toilet up the stairs
• Taking the stairs instead of the elevator
• Walking around whilst talking on the telephone
• Getting into the habit of clenching and releasing your muscles periodically throughout the day
• Parking further away from work – may be just in the furthest corner of the parking lot instead of the closed space
Other ways in which your metabolic rate can be increased to help with weight loss include eating more spicy food, particularly chili – your metabolic rate may increase by as much as 50% for a couple of hours following a spicy chili, and if you do take part in a more strenuous exercise like running or cycling you’ll be happy to know that your metabolic rate will increase and continue to burn calories long after your exercise session has finished.
