By: Barb Dearing

If your weight loss goals are stuck in neutral, it’s time to give your body’s metabolism a swift kick in the pants to jumpstart your fat-burning engine. You are probably already eating a calorie-controlled diet — good for you! You may also be increasing your activity level to try and burn more calories the old fashioned way — through increased exercise. But if you are doing these things and not seeing the results you want, it’s possible that your body has become used to the lower-calorie diet and your metabolism has adjusted to the new routines. Now what? Here are a few things you can consider to kick that metabolism into high gear and get the fat-burning process back on track:

1. Trade in your walking shoes for aerobic shoes. If you have been thinking that an evening stroll around the neighborhood constitutes cardio activity, I’m afraid you are in for a disappointment. While walking has many health benefits, and overall, you are better off walking than sitting in front of the computer, a leisurely stroll does not increase your heart rate enough to burn fat deposits.

Instead, you need to find an exercise activity that will get your heart rate into the target zone for at least twenty-five minutes. Go to your computer and type “target heart rate calculator” into your favorite search engine. Then use one of those calculators to determine the target heart rate for your age and weight. If you enjoy exercising at home, you may need to buy a heart rate monitor at your local sports store to track your heart rate as your exercise. One of the benefits of exercising at a local gym is that most of the cardio machines feature built-in heart rate monitors, making it easy to track your target heart rate.

By elevating your heart rate to it target zone during twenty-five minutes of exercise, you will enjoy an increased metabolism throughout the day. If you are just starting an exercise program, it’s best to workout three times a week to let your body rest between workouts. However, for optimal fat burning results, you’ll need to increase your workouts to four or five times a week as soon as your body is ready.

2. Trade in 3-Squares for 6-Squarelets. If you grew up eating the All-American diet, you are probably mentally conditioned to eat three square meals a day. Now that you’re trying to lose weight, it’s time to trade in that out-dated folklore and start eating five or six mini-meals each day. The reason? The longer you go between meals, the more likely your metabolism will slow down in order to conserve calories. Your metabolism is simply a physical process that has no way of knowing that you’re planning to eat again in an hour. If it has been more than three hours since you last ate, your body tends to assume you are never planning to eat again and it begins to conserve calories. This is exactly the opposite effect that you want! So feed the engine little bits of fuel all day long and the fire never goes out. Of course, it’s important to make sure you reduce the size of each meal so you can keep your overall calorie intake where it needs to be for the day. Just take your daily calorie budget and divide it by six rather than three and you can’t help but jumpstart that metabolism. It may be the only thing you need to change in order to reach your weight loss goal.

3. Buy a 1-Gallon Bucket. You don’t need to actually drink from it, but use it as a visual reminder of how much water you need to drink every day. According to Wikipedia, your metabolism is likely to go into hoarding mode if your body is deprived of water. The recommended daily water intake is ten 8-ounce glasses. If you do the math, you’ll quickly see that eighty ounces of water is equivalent to 1.25 gallons. So fill up that bucket and start drinking.

If you are taking these steps and still not seeing the results you want, you may want o consider a dietary supplement such as Hydroxycut or Caralluma Burn to increase your metabolism. You can read actual user comments on these and other weight loss products by visiting the website recommended below.

Barb Dearing is a writer specializing in the topics of health, beauty and weight loss. She recommends the following website to read actual user comments on the products and programs discussed in this article: www.consumer-health-report.com

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