Could Your Metabolic Engine Need A Tune Up?

If you have previously followed harmful dieting practices it is likely that it will be extremely difficult to achieve any further fat loss at all. The good news is however metabolic damage can be repaired and your fat burning machinery can be kick started back into life.

It seems shameful that most diet programs available that claim to help you get rid of excess body fat only end up making it harder to achieve that in the long run. This is because they use severe metabolism decreasing diets and not enough proper exercise to hold on to your precious muscle tissue. Losing muscle tissue is the biggest reason why 95% of all diets fail. Yet we keep on trying them hoping for a different result.

With the right eating and the right exercise program you can turn this situation around and within just a few short weeks your metabolic machinery will already be more efficient. With a month or two it will be burning hot. And in just 3 months it will be like a turbo charged sports car.

The most important factor in achieving this is consistency with both your eating and with your exercise program.

And this must include:

? Strength training - use exercises that use the largest muscle groups and call the entire body into play as a unit. These include squats of all types, dead lifts, overhead presses and all kinds or rowing movements that will give you the most 'bang for your buck' in the way of metabolism stimulation. Forget the long slow cardio type activity and switch to interval training for even more metabolic boosting exercise.

? Eating every 2-3 hours throughout the day for a total of 5-6 small meals.

? Enough calories to avoid triggering 'diet shock' (suggested safe levels for losing body fat: 2400-2600 for men, 1800-2000 for women.) Adjust as needed but only a small calorie deficit should be applied. This amount of food will give you lots of strength and energy to do justice to your exercise program so you can make the necessary changes to your body chemistry for fat burning.

? Food choices - use natural, whole, unprocessed, unrefined foods. Try and eat lots of raw and cooked vegetables.

? Have at least 20 grams of protein at each meal.

? Ditch the sugar and flour.

If you feel you may have done some damage to your metabolism strength training exercise is of utmost importance. Your muscle tissue is where body fat is burned and is what governs the speed of your 'motor'. Strength training is the stimulus that tells your body that it not only keep the muscle tissue you have but to begin rebuilding new muscle tissue to increase your metabolic motor.

Your goal now is to get your fires burning hot again and to keep them burning. This cannot be achieved by eating refined foods, not eating enough food, missing meals or not eating enough protein. It also will not be achieved by missing workouts, sporadic or infrequent training or doing the wrong type of activity. For example not doing strength training in favor of low intensity fluff (like walking, jogging or cycling) that will never ever give you a strong, lean, energetic body and that is what is needed to get your slim body back.