WLC Week 3

Welcome to Week 3! This week, we will tackle the often misunderstood topic of Metabolism. Watch the short video below and read on to discover how to turn your body into a fat-burning furnace.

Rev Up Your Metabolism

Put your metabolism to work for you. Now's the perfect time to incorporate some metabolic-revving tips into your daily regimen to help avoid gaining weight. We eat food for fuel. When we burn it for energy to run our bodies, the process creates heat. Nutritional supplements and lifestyle changes can assist the body's engine to burn fuel efficiently, helping our metabolism stay revved and functioning well.

Daily Regimen Tips:

Engage in 30 minutes of activity every day to help minimise weight gain and to raise metabolic rate.
Tone your muscles by weight training three days a week. Start small – try walking with one- to two-pound weights.
Do not eat fewer than 1,200 calories for women and 1800 calories for men a day. Eating too little may actually slow your metabolism.
Never skip breakfast. It may slow down your metabolism.
Have a supply of protein-powered healthy snacks on hand as an alternative to carbohydrate-loaded junk food.

Metabolism: Truths and Myths

We hear a lot about metabolism and often blame our "slow metabolism" for our inability to keep our weight under control. But what is metabolism, exactly? Metabolism basically refers to all the chemical processes that take place in the body in order to sustain life – allowing you to breathe, pump blood, keep your brain functioning, and extract energy from your food.

Myth vs. Truth:

MYTH: Aging slows your metabolism.
Truth: People do tend to put on weight as they get older, but it isn't inevitable. People have a tendency to exercise less, or less vigorously, as they age, which shrinks the body's fat-free compartment and leads to a lower metabolic rate. Cardiovascular exercise and resistance training are great defenses!
MYTH: You're stuck with the metabolism you have.
Truth: Lifestyle plays a big part in determining the calories you burn per day. While it may appear that there are people who eat all the time and never seem to gain, chances are they naturally make healthy, low-calorie selections and move around more (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis).
MYTH: Eating a grapefruit with my meal will speed up my metabolism.
Truth: There's nothing special about grapefruit that will speed up your metabolism. It's simply a watery, low-calorie food that takes up space in the stomach.

Power Your Metabolism With Protein

Since the fat-free compartment contains muscle tissue, one of the best things you can do to boost your metabolic rate is to strength-train to increase your muscle mass. If you build up 10 pounds of lean body mass, that's another 140 extra calories that you burn per day–not to mention the calories that you burn through exercise.

Your muscle mass works like a furnace, burning calories and stored fat for energy. The more muscle you have, the higher your metabolism, the faster you burn calories. Eating plenty of protein daily is essential to maintaining your muscle mass for good health, energy, and effective weight management.