How to Make Your Body Burn More Calories

 How to Make Your Body Burn More Calories

You can make weight loss quicker and easier by increasing your metabolic rate and burning more calories. Metabolic Rate is the rate at which the body burns up calories. A body that consumes 2500 calories a day, and burns 2500 calories a day will stay at the same weight. A body consuming 2500 calories daily but burning only 2000 will gain weight at the rate of about 1lb a week. This explains why that ‘lucky’ person across the table from you doesn’t get fat from all that junk food. You can do quite a lot to speed up your metabolism – the secret of burning calories lies in knowing what determines your metabolic rate and what you can do to influence it.

You burn calories to provide energy for three main functions: Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) -- This is the amount of calories you burn just by being alive – even when you are lying down, doing nothing. BMR accounts for approximately 60% of the calories burned for an average person.

Burning Calories for Activity

This is the energy used during movement – from lifting your arm to operate the remote control to cleaning the windows. This accounts for approximately 30% of the calories burned by an average person.

Dietary Thermogenesis

The ‘thermogenic effect’ described as meal-induced heat production – the calories burned in the process of eating, digesting, absorbing and using food.

How to Speed Up Your Rate of Burning Calories

You can influence all these factors, and speed up your rate of burning calories using some, or all, of the following tactics: Build Muscle Increase the amount of muscle in your body. For every extra pound of muscle you put on, your body uses around 50 extra calories a day. In a recent study, researchers found that regular weight training boosts basal metabolic rate by about 15%. This is because muscle is ‘metabolically active’ and burns more calories than other body tissue even when you’re not moving. Training with weights just 3 times a week for around 20 minutes is enough to build muscle. Not only will you be burning more calories, you’ll look better – whatever your weight.

Move More

Although the average person burns around 30% of calories through daily activity, many sedentary people only use around 15%. Simply being aware of this fact – and taking every opportunity to move can make quite a dramatic difference to the amount of calories you burn. The trick is to keep the ‘keep moving’ message in mind. Write the word ‘move’ on post-it notes and put them in places you’ll notice them when you’re sitting still. Then, take every opportunity to move – here’s some ideas for burning calories:

•Tap your feet

•Swing your legs

•Drum your fingers

•Stand up and stretch

•Move your head from side to side

•Change position

•Wriggle and fidget

•Pace up and down

•Don’t use the internal phone – go in person

•Use the upstairs bathroom

•Park in the furthest corner of the car park

•Stand up when you’re on the phone

•Clench and release your muscles

You’ll find lots of opportunities for burning more calories if you remember that you’re looking for them! Keep thinking ‘keep moving’.

Eat Spicy Food

There is evidence to show that spices, especially chilli, can raise the metabolic rate by up to 50% for up to 3 hours after you’ve eaten a spicy meal. Drinks containing caffeine also stimulate the metabolism, as does green tea.

Aerobic Exercise

As well as the actual amount of calories burned during exercise – studies have shown that sustained, high-intensity exercise makes you burn more calories for several hours afterwards. Try 30 minute sessions of heart rate raising exercise, such as vigorous walking, step aerobics, jogging, cycling or swimming, 3-4 times a week.

Eat Little and Often

There is some evidence to suggest that eating small, regular meals will keep your metabolism going faster than larger, less frequent meals. There are two reasons why meal frequency may affect your metabolism. Firstly, levels of thyroid hormones begin to drop within hours of eating a meal, and metabolism slows. Secondly, it may be that the thermogenic effect of eating several small meals is slightly higher than eating the same amount of calories all at once. Provided your small meals don’t degenerate into quick-fix, high fat, high sugar snacks, eating little and often can also help to control hunger and make you less likely binge.

Article Credit: http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk/calories/burning_calories/burn_more_calories.htm

D Vitamin

 A Guide to the D Vitamin

The D vitamin is the only vitamin that is not obtained from foods that are consumed. Instead, the D vitamin is actually obtained by sunlight on the skin. There has been a lot of media coverage about the dangers of getting too much sun but it is essential that the skin is exposed to sunlight to obtain the recommended daily allowance of the D vitamin. In reality, the amount of time that a person has to spend in the sun to receive a sufficient dose of the D vitamin is extremely small and just a few minutes a day will be sufficient and not have any adverse effects from the amount of ultra-violet light received.

The most important function of the D vitamin is to help control how much calcium is absorbed from food. The majority of the calcium is used to build strong teeth and bones but it is also needed to send messages along the nerves and to help muscles, such as the heart muscles, to contract. It is the D vitamin that ensures that there is always sufficient calcium in the blood to perform these tasks. Other functions that require the D vitamin relate to the immune system and it is believed that it is also a contributing factor in reducing the risk of contracting cancer and, in particular, colon cancer.

The variant of the D vitamin that is formed under the skin is known as vitamin D3 or cholecalciferol. This D vitamin is created when the ultraviolet in the sunlight reacts with a type of cholesterol that is found under the skin naturally. The D3 is converted into a more active form of the d vitamin in the liver and is then diverted to where it is needed the most. Some of the D vitamins remain in the liver and kidneys to help reabsorb the calcium from the blood. The rest of the D vitamin is dispersed to the bones to help them retain their calcium and the intestines to aid absorption of calcium from food.

Even though the majority of the D vitamin is formed through the exposure of the skin to sunlight there are some foods that do contain some of the vitamins naturally. This form of the D vitamin is known as vitamin D2 or ergocalciferol. This is used in the same way as the other D vitamins and is the type used to create the majority of D vitamin supplements.