Wouldn't You Like to Speed Up Your Metabolism?
Anyone who has dieted knows the feeling: you start eating well to lose weight, you weigh yourself regularly, and when the kilos come off slowly you panic, convinced you'll never reach your goal. But depending on your plan, there are many factors that can make your metabolism — and therefore your weight loss — easier and faster. Choose the points below that suit your plan, and you can reach your goal weight far more easily.
Drink more water: Many of us find it hard to drink enough water, but it's worth the effort. Drinking enough supports your organ function and helps your muscles work better. It also helps flush toxins from the body, keeps your skin hydrated and simply helps you feel better overall. Staying well hydrated is one of the easiest ways to speed up weight loss.
Eat more vegetables: Leaning on low-calorie, high-fibre foods like cabbage, lettuce, spinach and broccoli gives your body the vitamins it needs while their fibre keeps your digestive system running smoothly. Another advantage of these low-calorie foods is that they send signals to your metabolism to burn stored fat.
Cut back on refined foods: Overeating refined foods is strongly linked to serious weight gain. Refined foods are best described as those that neither came from a natural product nor resemble their original form. To keep weight loss going, we should reduce refined foods to a minimum. Bread, potatoes, crisps, fried foods, overcooked meats and processed foods are examples — in fact, you can think of any food that hasn't kept its natural form as refined.
Foods that speed up fat burning: Many foods help speed up fat burning in the metabolism by raising body temperature and energy expenditure. Eating small portions of these through the day increases the extra calories you burn and speeds up weight loss. Chilli pepper, garlic, ginger, cinnamon and green tea lead the way as foods with high fat-burning potential.
Cardiovascular exercise: We all know physical activity speeds up fat burning. Long cardio sessions can be tough to fit into a busy work life, so choose shorter cardio sessions you can do through the day. Dancing, swimming, cycling, jogging and brisk walking are all easy examples.
What Should We Do to Speed Up Weight Loss?
We all try to follow the steps that speed up weight loss — but just as important is knowing what NOT to do so we don't slow the metabolism down. Here's a quick summary:
While losing weight quickly by following your plan, we should never go hungry. Going hungry may take off a few kilos at first, but before long the body shifts into protection mode and starts storing fat and fluid, which restricts movement and leads to weight gain.
Never use supplements that promise fast weight loss. They may confuse us with claims of helping us lose weight quickly, but they carry serious side effects — liver and kidney damage, hyperactivity, palpitations and worse. They aren't reliable, they carry real risks, and because they don't change our eating habits or lifestyle, they don't produce lasting weight loss. To safeguard our health, we need to be more careful.
Over-exercising — another factor people lean on to speed up weight loss — is also to be avoided. It's good to train harder to perform better in longer workouts and to build intensity, but we should be cautious and watch for signs that we're pushing our bodies too far. If we feel pain, difficulty breathing or our muscles weaken, that's a sign we've overdone it. Even when training to improve performance, we shouldn't push to the point of injury or beyond our control. Getting support from experts on this matters a great deal. When we decide to lose weight and start a tailored plan, we want quick results — but the most important thing to remember is that rapid weight loss can seriously harm our health and quality of life. There's no reason to feel ashamed of your weight or belly fat; what matters is deciding to move forward and following a plan made just for you.
A Sample Metabolism-Boosting Meal Plan
Day 1
Breakfast: 2 spoons of oatmeal; 3–4 spoons of low-fat yogurt (thinned with 2–3 spoons of water) or milk; pieces of fruit; 5–8 hazelnuts or 4–5 pieces of walnut.
Lunch: Tuna salad; 1 slice of whole-grain bread or 2 slices of crispbread.
Dinner: 1 portion of a low-fat vegetable dish or steamed vegetables (with 1 teaspoon of olive oil on top); 1 portion of whole-grain pasta.
Snacks: 2 portions of fruit; a handful of hazelnuts or walnuts.
Day 2
Breakfast: 1 portion of fruit; 4–5 spoons of low-fat yogurt or milk.
Lunch: A sandwich made with 1 slice of cheese, tomato and greens (on 2 slices of whole-grain or rye bread).
Dinner: 1 portion of fish, chicken or turkey (grilled, boiled or steamed); salad (with olive oil and lemon).
Snacks: 2 portions of fruit; a handful of hazelnuts or walnuts.
Day 3
Breakfast: 1 portion of fruit; 1 glass of low-fat yogurt or milk; a handful of hazelnuts or walnuts.
Lunch: 1 large bowl of soup — preferably vegetable; 1 slice of cheese; 1–2 slices of brown bread.
Dinner: Whole-grain pasta with vegetables; 1 bowl of light yogurt.
Snack: 2 portions of fruit.
Day 4
Breakfast: 2 spoons of oatmeal; 3–4 spoons of low-fat or fat-free yogurt or milk; pieces of fruit.
Lunch: Cheese salad (3 tablespoons of curd cheese, as much salad as you like); 1 slice of brown bread.
Dinner: 1 portion of fish, chicken or turkey; boiled potato (1 medium or 2 small); 1 portion of boiled vegetables.
Snack: 2 portions of fruit; a handful of hazelnuts or walnuts.
Day 5
Breakfast: 1 portion of fruit; 4–5 spoons of fat-free yogurt or milk.
Lunch: 1 portion of piyaz [a Turkish white-bean salad with olive oil and lemon]; salad; 1 glass of ayran [a traditional Turkish yogurt drink].
Dinner: 1 medium boiled potato; 1 portion of fish, chicken or turkey (grilled, boiled or steamed).
Snack: 1 kiwi + 1 apple.