1 Eat your Breakie When you wake up in the morning your body is on a go slow, and your metabolism will be in its slowest gear. This basically means conserving energy and holding on to calories, crank it up a gear and get things started by eating a healthy nutritious breakfast – notice the word nutritious – coco flakes and pop tarts are not going to help out here ( and they won’t help your kids either) You are looking for something that will keep your body fuelled for the morning.
Porridge with soya milk and Almonds
Fruit and a few nuts with natural bio yoghurt
Omelette with tomatoes, onions and spinach
Scrambled eggs with smoked salmon – great for breakfast in bed!
Mixed fresh fruit with protein shake – for busy mornings
Make the time, to chuck some fruit, nuts and live yoghurt in a bowl it’ll take 2 minutes and your soon be feeling the benefits.
2 Pump Iron If you are serious about getting lean then listen up, the more muscle you have the
higher your metabolism FACT. Now for the ladies reading this don’t panic, I promise you that unless you have male levels of testosterone in your body you’re not going to end up looking like Arnie!
To be lean you have to train to be strong – lifting those Barbie weights for 16 reps isn’t going to get your metabolism stoked! You want exercises that are going to use more than one muscle, meaning you’ll get better results in less time. These are Squats, lunges, press ups, and pull ups. There are thousands of variations of these four exercises, but these are your basics, and a great place to start. Don’t worry if you can’t do the full rep to start with, you’ll get there.
3 Eat lean protein with every meal It takes the body longer to break protein down as an energy source than any other macronutrient (carbs & fats) so this keeps your metabolism higher and keeps you fuller longer. A general rule with protein is the less legs it once had the leaner the protein, ie, fish is very lean and never had legs, Turkey and Chicken, nearly as lean and has two legs (remove skin and eat the whiter meat), then our four legged friends we need to be a bit more careful with, and choose our cuts wisely.
Other good sources are nuts and seeds, which are great for snacking on and great sources of good fats as well – BONUS!
4 Forget yo
ur hour long cardio session I see it all the time, people on the treadmill, or jogging along the roads with a look of “can I stop yet – is it over?” on their faces. Well the good news is yes you defiantly can stop!
Your cardio session should be about 20 minutes long and if your wondering what to make for tea or reading the paper whilst doing it, believe me its not gonna work!
After exercise there is a period where the body burns extra calories (called Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) to give it is proper name) however, the length of time this occurs depends on the exercise. Circuit, weight training and interval workouts will give you the longest EPOC.
Do shorter sessions with short bursts of high intensity exercise followed by short active rest periods. An example for a beginner would be 1 minute skipping followed by 30 secs rest, or if you’re at a more advanced stage 15 burpees, followed by 30 secs easy jogging on the spot followed by burpees repeated until you can’t do any more.
The point is, you should be working hard, quick bursts of hard focused exercise.
5 Eat between meals (but don’t tell your mum!) I grew up being told, not to snack in between meals, but in fact if you’re looking to get your metabolism fired up then the opposite is true.
Eat a clean healthy snack between meals and your body has to keep working to breakdown food, which takes energy, which burns calories! Cool huh? This is known as the thermic effect.
The trick is to eat every 3 hours, but choose wisely, ideal snacks are
A few nuts & seeds
Salad rolled in turkey slices
Fresh fruit, preferably with a little bit of protein like bio yoghurt
A scoop of good quality whey protein, if on the run
Few olives and some feta cheese
Smoked salmon slice with cucumber
So that’s, three normal size meals a day and two or three small snacks.
Good luck, let me know how you get on!
Bye for now
Kim
