By repeatedly going on draconian and unbalanced diets, your metabolism (i.e. the amount of energy your body needs to function) has gone into free fall… Now even the smallest dietary changes are instantly reflected on your scales! Here are our tips to boost your metabolism and burn more calories every day:
1. Are you eating enough?
This may seem like a strange question, but many people aren’t. Indeed, they are so obsessed with their weight and what is “good to eat or not to eat“, that in the end, their daily consumption is quite meagre and boring (e.g. the famous ham, salad and cottage cheese diet).
The problem is that when we do not eat enough, our body goes into “energy-saving” mode. In other words, it learns to expend fewer calories to do everyday tasks (breathing, digesting, walking, etc). But that’s not all, it also learns to store all the food it receives, in preparation for future periods of restriction.
So depriving yourself of food or eating too little, is not a good strategy for losing weight! The body needs at least 1500 kcal in order to get all the nutrients it needs to function optimally.
2. Choose a balanced diet
In a balanced diet, and especially as part of a slimming programme, the proportion of protein should not be overlooked. In fact, proteins have a satiating effect because they take a long time to digest. Another advantage is that the body uses a lot of energy to absorb them.
To lose weight, you must be sure to have a portion of protein (lean meat, fish or eggs) in each meal.
However, for your health and to lose weight sustainably, it is important to maintain a good balance between proteins, fats and carbohydrates. It is therefore not an option to eat only proteins, as this would lead to general fatigue, a strain on your kidneys in particular, a feeling of hunger and instability in your weight. Thus, lunch and dinner must include:
– A portion of vegetables and fruit
– A portion of meat, fish or eggs
– A portion of starch, legumes or bread
– A dairy product (cheese, yoghurt, petit-suisse, etc.)
3. Structure your diet
To burn more calories, it is important to eat at least 3 times a day. In fact, simply digesting and absorbing the nutrients from our food causes us to burn calories. It has been shown that a calorie intake spread over 4 meals during the day results in a higher calorie expenditure than the same calorie intake consumed in 1 or 2 meals.
It is therefore important to divide your diet into a minimum of breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Ideally, snacks should be added at 10 am and 4 pm to increase the number of meals and thus the energy expenditure. However, these snacks should not add to the calorie count! For example, you might eat your usual breakfast fruit at 10am and your lunchtime yoghurt at 4pm.
4. Engage in physical activity
We all know that physical activity is essential to burn more calories! In fact, exercising regularly helps to increase muscle mass. In addition, this muscle mass uses up a lot of energy, even when sleeping!
Thus, not only do we burn calories during physical activity, but we also burn more calories at rest!
And that’s not all, the more muscle you build, the slimmer your figure becomes. Physical activity therefore plays a major role in weight loss and body shaping. This is especially true for people who have dieted a lot and have a very low basal metabolic rate. In order to increase it again, it is essential to be physically active on a daily basis, in parallel with a slimming programme. Without this extra expenditure of calories due to exercise, there will be no weight loss.
5. Fighting the cold
When the body fights against cold… it expends energy! Here are some simple tips to apply on a daily basis: don’t overheat your living space, reduce the temperature of your house by one or two degrees in winter, sleep with the window open in summer and don’t cover up excessively.
6. Accept help!
If, despite all this advice, your weight loss is still stagnating, don’t hesitate to contact a Beautysané consultant! Your consultant will be able to give you some useful tips to trigger your weight loss, such as taking Fat Burner, a food supplement that promotes fat burning and boosts the metabolism.
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