Burning Calories

Calories - Facts

One can make losing weight easier and quicker by increasing the metabolic rate in order to burn more calories, and the secret lies in being aware of what determines the metabolic rate and what you are able to do to influence it.

A person who eats 2500 calories per day and in turn uses up 2500 calories per day will retain the same weight. A person who eats 2500 calories in a day and burns only 2000 calories gains weight at the speed of about one pound every week because the amount of calories being used is lower than the amount of calories consumed.

Normally, a person can burn calories to supply energy for three key reasons and these are:-

Basal Metabolic Rate - calories burned by staying alive even when one is not doing anything.
Activity - energy utilized when one engages the body in any type of movement and dietary.
Thermogenesis - energy used when one eats, digests, absorbs or uses food.
Calories - How to burn faster

The following guidelines provide different ways on how you can increase the speed of burning calories.

The first one is by building muscles, since for any extra pound of muscle added the body uses about 50% more calories per day. A recent study proved that the basal metabolic rate is increased by about 15% by regular weight training, and this is because the muscle is active metabolically and therefore burns more calories even when one is not moving. Therefore, training using weights just three times per week for about 20 minutes is sufficient to build muscles.
Even though an average individual burns about 30% of calories by carrying out daily activities, many sedentary persons utilize only about 15%. Therefore, by moving more one is able to make a big difference to the quantity of calories they burn. The trick is to always keep moving by for example: tapping your feet, drumming your fingers, changing positions, swinging your legs, moving the head from side to side, clenching and then releasing muscles among other moving activities.

Evidence is available that proves that eating spicy foods especially chilli may raise your metabolic rate by about 50% for an extended period of time of up to three hours. Drinking green tea and caffeine also stimulates your metabolism.

On top of the actual calorie amounts burned during exercise, research has demonstrated that persistent, high intensity workout enables one to burn higher amounts of calories for numerous hours afterwards. You can engage in a 30 minute period of heart rate increasing workout like swimming, walking, jogging, step aerobics or cycling for around 3-4 times every week.
Calories - Other considerations

Some studies have suggested that consuming tiny, frequent meals might help to keep the metabolic rate going quicker than bigger and less frequent meals. There are two explanations why meal frequency can affect the metabolism. The first reason is that the thyroid hormone levels start to drop some hours following eating a meal and the metabolism slows. The second reason can be that the effect of thermogenesis of consuming several small meals may be a little higher than when consuming the same quantity of calories right away.