What is the key factor that we need to decrease to get rid of excess fat? Yes, you guessed it, CALORIES! With a caloric deficit, either with a change in your eating or exercising more, best to do both, you will lose weight. That is why we focus on calories at Organic Liaison. A common question that I get from a lot of Organic Liaison members, "How do I change my metabolism?" After approximately age 30, our metabolism starts to slow down due to sarcopenia, the loss of skeletal muscle mass. The rate of decrease becomes much faster at age 50. Research shows an estimated 35% to 40% decrease of skeletal muscle mass in both men and women in the five decades of life up to 80 years of age (Tzankoff and Norris J Appl Physiol.1977; 43: 1001-1006).

Thankfully, we can take action to help prevent our metabolism from slowing down by following 5 steps.

First: Eat smaller meals more often. Eat within a hour to 1 ½ hours after waking and every 3 to 4 hours throughout the day. If you wait longer than 5 hours to eat, your metabolism slows down. Your body gets into a hibernation mode and thinks that you are living during a famine, therefore you store more fat. If you are already a member, follow the Organic Liaison menu plans, eating 6 times per day. Just the action of eating (digesting, absorbing and transporting food) helps you burn more calories. Utilize the thermic effect of food fully by eating approximately 150 calories, for example 1 cup of blueberries and 12 raw almonds, a perfectly balanced metabolic burner snack. Eating smaller meals more often will not only increase your metabolism, but will also help you be energized all day, keep your sugar levels stabilized and help prevent fat storage.

Second: Increase your caloric expenditure with exercise. Aim for moving an hour a day, preferably something you enjoy doing, so that you stay inspired, e.g., walking, jogging, or dancing daily. Feel comforted, knowing that any moving you do during the day counts towards your 60 minutes. If you have never exercised before, gradually increase your exercise, start with putting more physical activity in your day, e.g., take the stairs instead of the elevator, park further from your destination, walk around while you are on the phone, dance or march around the house or office. Just MOVE whenever you can. An hour of exercise helps significantly with speeding up your weight loss. For example, if you walk a 15 minute mile , 4.0 miles/hour for an hour and weigh 160 pounds, you will burn 403 calories (.042 calories/pound/minute). Just with that change and another 100 calorie deficit, such as removing a banana or a Tablespoon of mayonnaise from your day, you will lose a pound per week.

Third: Increase your muscle mass by doing resistance training 2 to 3 times per week, e.g., weight lifting or resistance tubing for at least 15 minutes to help your physical body be more of a calorie burner. The more muscle you have on your body, the more calories you burn even while you are sleeping. One pound of muscle burns 3 times more calories than a pound of fat, that adds up! Doing weight training 2 to 3 times per week boosts basal metabolic rate by about 15 percent (A Quarterly Publication of the American College of Sports Medicine, 1/26/2006).

Fourth: Include thermogenic foods and green tea into your day. Members, drink your Rescue Me and have 2 capsules of Pagoda daily to get your green tea. The antioxidants, specifically catechins in green tea helps suppress appetite and increases thermogenesis (calorie burning). Add some EPA and DHA into your diet, found in fish oil, ground flaxseeds, shelled hemp seeds and chia seeds. Having foods with 300 milligrams of EPA and DHA per serving may speed up metabolism so much, that your body could burn up to 400 extra calories per day.

Other metabolic booster foods include hot sauce, chili peppers or hot pepper flakes. Capsaicin, the antioxidant that makes peppers hot, boosts heart rate and speeds metabolism by 23 percent for an hour and a half after a meal. Studies also show a 32 percent reduction in insulin levels after a spicy meal. Keeping your insulin levels low after meals contributes to a high metabolism, preventing excess fat storage. Boost your metabolism further by including a protein at your meals and snacks. The body uses up to twice as many calories digesting protein, compared to the other macronutrients, carbohydrate and fat (Journal of the American Dietetic Association;109 (9): 1582-1586).

Fifth: Keep sipping water throughout the day. Drinking 500 ml of water increased metabolic rate by 30% (The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism;88 (12):6015-6019). The best test to tell whether you are well hydrated is to look at your urine, keep it clear. Aim for drinking about 10 cups of water per day. Everyone has different water needs, depending on how efficient your cooling system is and how often you exercise.

Seize the areas you can change to help your body burn calories faster! Enjoy being on the path to leanness!

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Deborah is the Health Director for Organic Liaison, has been a Registered Dietitian for over 16 years, counseling clients on nutrition and fitness, and is the author of 200 Superfoods That Will Save Your Life published by McGraw-Hill, Inc. Her mission is to educate Organic Liaison members to achieve optimal wellness through balanced eating and exercise. For more on Deborah - click here.

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