Yes, You Can Trick Your Body and Speed Up Your Metabolism

Your body is an incredibly efficient machine that adapts quickly to perform in its best, means supply all your energy needs with the less effort and the minimum energy expenditure. And when you are trying to boost metabolism you actually want to reprogram your body to start using more energy than it should for a needed energy output.

Therefore, when you start exercising, at the beginning while you are not in your best shape and you have a lower muscle mass, your body has to burn much more fat to supply your energy needs.

Building a muscle, feeding it and even teaching itself to adapt to the new pattern all that requires energy and your body will start developing a kind of expectation of energy output. And this isn’t done because it’s lazy; it’s doing this because, quite sincerely, it wants to help and save energy!

Now, at this point you have to force your body to starts predicting the amount of energy needed to complete a certain task — then it will start to achieve that energy output more efficiently.

For example, when you first start jogging for, say, 2 minutes a time followed by 5 minutes of walking, your body may require a great deal of energy to help you achieve this.

And as a result, naturally, of course, catabolism is involved, and your body metabolism will increase as you may find yourself very out of breath or tired and your body strives to meet this increased demand.

How to break weight loss “plateau”
However, over time, say a few weeks or so, you’ll see how your body will simply become more efficient. It built stronger muscle system and will be able to supply your energy needs much more efficiently with less energy expenditure.

Although your health has improved and your body has to work less hard to provide you with your energy needs this can actually obscure your metabolism-boosting efforts.

There is a controversy here: you want force your body to start the catabolism process but since your body is working more efficiently, it will not really dig into its reserves e.g. fat cells — it’ll not start burning fat in order to provide you with the energy that you need, therefore no fat loss or weight loss will seen.

So what can you do to trick your body once again? Simply put, you have to start doing variety in your workouts. Many people choose to cross-train for this very reason.

What is Cross-training
Exercise can strengthen the cardiovascular system, bones, muscles, joints, reduce body fat and improve flexibility, balance and coordination. But if you really want to see all of these benefits, you’ll need to start cross training.

Cross-training not only targets different muscle groups, but it keeps your body from adapting and slowing down metabolism.

Cross training is a great way to condition different muscle groups, develop a new set of skills, and reduce boredom that creeps in after months of the same exercise routines. This is a great way to vary the stress placed on specific muscles or even your cardiovascular system.

After months of the training your body becomes extremely efficient performing the same movements, and this reduces the amount of overall fitness you possess and reduces the actual weight loss you can get while training. Cross training is also necessary to reduce the risk of injury from repetitive strain or overuse.

Benefits of Cross Training

• Reduces exercise boredom
• Allows you to be flexible about you training needs and plans (if the pool is closed, you can go for a run instead).
• Produces a higher level of all around conditioning
• Conditions the entire body, not just specific muscle groups
• Reduces the risk of injury
• Work some muscles while others rest and recover
• Can continue to train while injured
• Improves your skill, agility and balance

What exercises should make up a good cross training routine?

• Cardiovascular Exercise (Think about adding three different exercises from the list below):
  • Running
  • Swimming
  • Cycling
  • Rowing
  • Stair Climbing
  • Rope jumping
  • Skating (inline or ice)
  • Skiing
  • Racquetball / basketball / other court sports

• Strength Training
  • Calisthenics (push ups and crunches and pull ups)
  • Free Weights
  • Machines
  • Tubing and Bands

1. Flexibility (stretching, yoga)
2. Speed, agility, and balance drills
3. Circuit training, sprinting, plyometrics and other forms of skill conditioning.

With cross training, you can:

• Do one form of exercise each day, or more than one in a day
• If you do both on the same day, you can change the order in which you do them
• You can easily tailor cross-training to your needs and interests
• Mix and match you sports and change your routine on a regular basis

Remember, your body doesn’t care that you are looking to speed up your metabolism to lose excessive weight and burn as much fat as you can. It has no clue that a faster metabolism is good for you.

Therefore it won’t turn on its metabolism jets because you want it to. What you have to do is force your body to speed up metabolism because this system, your body, needs more energy!

And there is no better way for you to force your body to speed up energy expenditure than adding variety to your workout routine.