BMR And Fat Loss
Posted on October 12, 2009
Filed Under Lose Weight | Leave a Comment
Increasing your BMR is the most sustainable way to ensure continual fat loss. Why? Because your BMR dictates how many calories you burn around the clock, even while sleeping.
The main problem here, though, is that you may be lost amongst all the marketing claims. Doesn’t it seem like every new product comes with a novel way to increase calories burned?
So here are some real factors that influence your BMR:
1. Age. As you age, BMR goes down. Why? Because you lose muscle mass. What’s the best way to prevent this? With resistance training. A solid resistance training program will do wonders for your BMR in additional to your hormonal profile.
2. Muscle mass proportion. Having a solid base of lean muscle tissue will ensure a powerful basal metabolic rate. And if you eat enough vitamins and minerals, the mitochondria (energy producers) within your cells will work full force.
3. Coming down with a fever. Strangely, getting sick also raises your BMR, although temporarily. Having said that, please do not try to get a fever just to burn some extra calories.
4. Catabolic hormones. In the short run, stress hormones will cause your BMR to go up. But caution is warranted here because over the long run, said hormones will actually lower your BMR. Why? Because of lean tissue loss.
5. Temperature. If you have to adjust to cold temperatures your BMR goes up. If you have to adjust to hot temperatures your BMR also goes up.
6. Caloric drops. If you fast or starve, your BMR will drop very fast. Probably a lot faster than you think. In order to reduce the damage from dieting, you should only slightly restrict calories and never skip meals.
Learning how to master your metabolism is one of the most important things you can do to ensure long term fat loss success. Most women can see initial fat loss with minor changes, but if you want long term changes, you have to increase your BMR.
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