If you're trying to lose unwanted body fat, it's very important to raise your metabolic rate, or the rate at which your body burns calories for energy. If you have a faster metabolism you'll put your body in the perfect state to burn fat faster. One way to raise your metabolism is to eat more often. Yes, eating itself will actually raise your metabolic rate. That's why it's better to eat 5 or 6 small meals throughout the day instead of 2 or 3 big ones. Eating 2 or 3 larger meals with a long time in between meals will force your body to store more calories as fat because it feels that it might not get fed again for a while. It's like what happens to animals that hibernate for the winter. Constant meals through the day will prevent your body from entering this state and give you more energy and a boost in metabolism. Of course, you must make sure that your portion sizes are very small if you eat 5 or 6 times a day and that you eat every 2 or 3 hours. This can be tough, so prepare meals ahead of time so you're not forced to eat the wrong kinds of food, especially fast food. Basically, you eat half as many calories per meal but eat twice as often.The meals you eat also need to be nutritious and high in protein. Make sure you get most of your carbohydrates in your earlier meals and less in your later meals so you're less likely to store them as fat. You'll be surprised how much eating more often will positively affect your metabolic rate and fat burning success.
Doing cardiovascular workouts will also help increase your metabolism. While longer, less intense cardio workouts may burn more calories during your actual workout, shorter, more intense sessions will keep your metabolic rate higher after you're done working out. You may want to perform your cardio workouts for a moderate period of time, doing bursts of more intense training during your workouts. Start with a few minutes of low intensity exercise, then do a minute or 2 of higher intensity work before taking the intensity back down to the normal level. Every few minutes go back to the intense training for 1 or 2 minutes. This will allow you to burn more calories during your cardio session and keep your metabolism higher after your workout.
Another great way to raise metabolism is to weight train. Weight training will help you add some muscle size. This added muscle mass will give you a higher resting metabolism, so you'll be burning more fat and calories even when you're at rest. Follow a weight training routine where you split the body 3 ways - either chest and back one day, arms the next, and legs on the last day: or chest, shoulders, and triceps one day, back and biceps the next, and legs on the last day with a day off between each workout. Doing this will allow you hit every hard when you work them out and get plenty of rest between workouts. Weight training too much will cause overtraining. Chronic overtraining will eventually cause you to lose muscle mass which will have the opposite effect on your metabolic rate than building muscle will.
Most women are afraid that weight training will make them too muscular. You ladies needn't worry though, just keep your reps per set higher and focus more on lower body weight training exercises with a little upper body thrown. Adding more muscle to your butt and thighs will give you a more pleasing shape when you get rid of the extra body fat.
In closing, a combination of eating smaller portioned meals more often, cardiovascular workouts, and weight training workouts will give your body a faster metabolism and put you well on your way losing the extra body fat and improving the shape of your body.
