Diet Advice – How To Eat To Increase Your Metabolism

By Jack Richards

HOW OFTEN SHOULD YOU EAT?

For years the average American diet has been based upon eating three times a day, the standard breakfast, lunch and dinner. However, our bodies don’t like to eat large meals three times a day. If our bodies used food the way camels use water, then this method of eating three large meals a day would be great, because our bodies would just use the nutrients we eat as we need them. Unfortunately, every time we eat our bodies can only use a small portion of what we have eaten and then they have to do something with the rest of it. It has nowhere else to go except into fat.

The best way to eat is to eat only what we need at the time and continually feed our bodies very small portions. In this way we give our bodies the nutrients we need proportioned out over several small meals a day.

So how many meals a day should you eat? Believe it or not, you should be eating six to eight small meals a day. Now, that sounds like a lot of food! However, think about the amount of food you’d normally eat during breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Then divide that same amount of food into six or eight portions, depending on how many meals you want to eat. It’s the same amount of food you’d normally eat, just proportioned into smaller sizes over a longer period of time.

The body is very good at adapting to starvation and changes in calories. Whenever it senses that there is a depravation in the amount of nutrients its receiving, its going to change your hormonal and metabolic systems to start conserving fat for what it feels is an impending famine.

However, if you are constantly eating small, well-balanced meals throughout the day, your body will never sense that it is hungry or about to lose energy. In fact, you can drop your calories significantly, but if you are constantly eating a small portion of protein, carbohydrate, and healthy fat every 2-3 hours, then your body is going to respond by increasing your metabolism.

Every time you eat, you actually raise your metabolic level. The act of eating and digesting foods causes your body to engage the digestive tract, and that requires an increase in your metabolism.

So the more times you eat in a day, the faster your metabolism is going to be, and the more times you will be increasing your natural resting metabolic rate.

WHAT ABOUT CHEAT MEALS?

You’ll hear many fitness gurus talk about having one “cheat meal” a week. This may actually be fine if you are already super fit and have the body you want. However, if you really want to make progress, you should avoid cheat meals.

Cheat meals actually are counterproductive to your initial goals. For every cheat meal you have, you have erased 2-3 days of dieting and hard work in the gym. That’s a big setback!

The one benefit that these fitness gurus claim in having a cheat meal is that it keeps your body guessing and increases your metabolism. However, you can actually do this without cheating and eating a nasty fat-laden meal. The best way to keep your body guessing and your metabolism going is to periodically increase the amount of regular diet food you eat. Every couple of weeks, choose one day and eat the same food your normally would eat on the diet, but just increase the portion slightly. The next day go back to your normal diet. This will help to keep your body guessing, while at the same time still fitting within your nutritional guidelines to maintain your fat loss.

My name is Jack Richards, I’m a self taught fitness guru. Growing up I was a fat kid, and I HATED IT! I’ve spent the past 10 years of my life learning, working out, dieting, and doing everything I could to find the complete answer to fat loss. Today I stand at 5’11 165lbs with only 5% body fat. I’ve found the answer to weight-loss that so many people are struggling to find. You too can learn my secrets at www.mycustombodyplan.com

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