Your ability to burn fat ultimately depends on your metabolism, but how to increase a slow metabolism? Some people won the genetic lottery the minute they were born and naturally have fast metabolism. These folks can get away with a sloppier diet and still stay lean.
For everyone else – and that likely includes you – they have to get their metabolism to speed up through the right diet and exercise.
Those who want to know how to boost metabolism almost always have the wrong idea about how it’s done. Contrary to mainstream belief, it doesn’t involve crash diets or completely eliminating carbs. We’ll show you the Kinobody way for ramping up your metabolism without starving yourself or centering your life around dieting.
1.) Avoid Super Low-Calorie Days
There has to be a calorie deficit (with proper macro split) in order for your body to start burning fat. However, this does not mean you can become lean and shredded by going on a crazy and extreme 500-calories-a-day diet (read: do NOT do crash diets or extremely low calorie diets).
When you’re cutting, there is no need to drastically reduce calories below your maintenance level. For a refresher, maintenance level is your body weight in pounds multiplied by 15. That is the number of calories needed to maintain your current weight. If you’re leaning up, you can multiply your weight by about 14 or 13. If you weigh 170 lbs, then even on the lower end, you would be consuming 2,210 calories a day. That is well within the daily recommended calorie intake for men.
Gauge Your Hunger Level
To know if you’re eating enough calories, simply monitor how hungry you feel. Outside of intermittent fasting, you should not feel uncomfortably hungry. If you’re daydreaming about food or visualizing about biting into a juicy chicken leg, then you’re probably cutting too much calories.
This is important because constantly being hungry isn’t maintainable. Most people on a prolonged calorie restriction eventually just give up and default to their old eating habits. Within a few weeks, they have nullified whatever gains they made. A slightly growling tummy is fine, but you shouldn’t feel like you’re fighting an energy-draining physical and mental battle to stay lean.
2.) Don’t Be in the Dieting Phase Indefinitely
Cycling is the other key to a fast metabolism. As just mentioned, restricting calories isn’t something that can be done continually without pause. Some people attempt to diet for months and even years on end.
If you want to know how to boost your metabolism, here is a trick: your dieting or fat loss phase should not exceed the length of your maintenance or muscle building phase.
When you’re in a constant calorie-deficit state, your metabolism eventually slows down in response to the lower food intake. It slows down to save the stored calories for a rainy day.
Prolonged dieting is also mentally draining. Your body never receives satisfaction from an occasional feast or slice of apple pie. The cravings never relent, and you become irritable and lose morale. Eating, after all, is one of man’s greatest pleasures since the beginning of time. In fact, there’s even times when you should stop dieting altogether.
Lose Weight by Eating More
People adamant about weight loss are terrified at the prospect of eating more. They fear the extra calories will immediately transfer to their waistline. It won’t as long as you do the process correctly. Cycle every few months by eating at maintenance level. The goal is to maintain a calorie level that keeps you within five pounds of your current weight. Eat as much as you can during the off cycle while staying within that weight range. Doing so greatly eases the mental game since you won’t feel deprived.
3.) Stop Fretting Over Your Diet Every Single Moment
Fat loss is just as mental as it is physical. To keep the mental aspect in check, do yourself a huge favor and STOP thinking about food and your diet all the time. Plan your meals and eat when it’s time to eat. Outside of that, there are a thousand other more productive things to focus your mind on. Even contemplating on why the sky is blue is more productive than incessantly thinking about your body and the food you put in it.
This is an advantageous aspect about Kinobody. The strength training and eating program doesn’t require you to exercise six to seven hours a week and eat every two hours. You can easily implement it into your current lifestyle without making drastic changes. With Kinobody, your life doesn’t revolve around your diet or strength training, so you aren’t thinking about your next meal every other hour.
4.) Be Present When You Eat
Too many people eat while on the go. Eating should be an enjoyable and even enlightening process. The next time you eat, focus on savoring the moment. We don’t mean to get all Zen in a fat loss blog, but we believe it’s helpful to be fully present and aware when sitting down for a meal. Turn off the TV and just really be in the moment as you swallow each mouthful of food and take in the taste and texture.
When you do this, you get in touch with your body and get a sense of what your body needs vs what it wants. It also prevents over-indulging on food you should be consuming in moderation.
On that note, presence is something I encourage in everyday life – even outside of eating. I wrote a post on this that gives you some of the strategies I use to practice daily presence as well, which you can read here.
5.) Ditch the Low-Carb Mindset
It has been ingrained in the western world that carbs are bad. Do not excessively limit carbs. This applies whether you are on a fat loss or muscle building phase. A 2012 study showed that excessive carb restriction has been linked to increased cortisol levels.
We are not advocates of the keto or other low carb diets. In fact, we believe about 40-50% of your calorie intake should be from carbs, as we talk about in this post on the Truth About Carbohydrates.
Carbs and protein ratio aside, give yourself permission to eat whatever you want every now and then. If eating turns into a chore, then give yourself an occasional treat. Just stick to common sense and you’ll be alright.
Boost Your Metabolism Without Traditional Diets
Of course, the key to a fast metabolism isn’t just tied to your eating habits. Your workouts are the other half of the equation. The Kinobody Greek God Program is the perfect companion material for putting on muscle while staying within five pounds of your current weight. If you follow the program’s guidelines, you can achieve extraordinary results without saying no to the occasional cheesecake. In other words, you can have your cake and eat it too.
