Burn Baby Burn!

A post from our personal trainer Lesleh:

Rome wasn't built in a day and neither is the perfect body. If you make sure your exercise nutrition programs are formulated properly, you will be on the road to acheiving your objectives and start seeing imporvements in your figure. Patience is the order of the day.
Fat is accessed rather slowly, so a good strategy is to attempt to lose no more than 1-2 pounds per week. Of course, no one wants to hear that because everyone these days wants a quick fix. I am here to tell you there are none. None that last at any rate. It is time to take a different look at your body. I like to think of mine as an engine. An engine requires fuel and it needs to be used regularly in order for it to run at it's maximum capacity. This all comes down to metabolism.
Supercharge your metabolism. Take a good multivitamin (which has already been suggested...bravo) Pump up your protein intake. Making sure that you are getting enough protein is the next best way to raise your metabolism. It takes more energy to digest protein because you burn more calories during its digestion than you do after eating other types of foods. It also stimulates the production of glucogon, a hormone that tells bodyfat cells to give up their stanglehold on fat. This is a key reason why studies have shown that higher protein intake leads to faster wieght loss, even when calories are the same among study groups. Good protein options include eggs, fish and poultry along with vegetable sources such as nuts and whole grains.
The six meal a day rule....it isn't a secret that eating smaller more frequent meals leads to a more efficient metabolism. Herein lies my body as an engine theory...digestion takes energy; you use calories to digest, absorb and assimilate food. So, the more often you eat the more calories you burn through digestion. That doesn't mean however that you are allowed to eat more calories throughout the day, you should split your proper planned food intake into smaller more frequent meals. Munching on snacks like baby carrots or a protein bar is a good way to avoid overeating at breakfast, lunch and dinner and incorporate more low complex carbohydrate meals into your diet.
By the same token the fastest way to slow down your metabolism is to follow extreme unbalanced diets.Starvation diets (500 calories or less) can slow down your metabolism by up to 50 percent. Even the most physiologically sound diets will gradually lead to a slow decline. That is why I encourage a spurge meal once a week to prevent that metabolic decline from happening.
Of course the number one way to supercharge your metabolism is to exercise. Not only do you burn 300 to 500 calories per hour during intense workouts, but you also build much needed calorie burning muscle and increase cardiovascular health and efficiency which leads to even easier bodyfat loss. Consistent, daily exercise is a key variable in long term metabolic management.
So there you have it. The foundation to metabolic health will be laid solidly by your committment to living out these four habits. Be patient, move your body, eat lean and healthy, and enjoy life... you will keep your engine running effeciently for a good long time.
(Refererence Fit for Life for a simple 6 meal a day guide.)

***Please remember, if you have any exercise/training questions for Lesleh, please post them and/or email directly to the Pool email and she will answer as soon as she can. No question is dumb, it's better to ask than do something unhealthy or get an injury.***