I know the first part of the title sounds exciting. But what I meant was to eat more often in smaller portions rather than having 3 large meals a day. Many people try the opposite – sticking to strict diets and doing lots of cardio trying to shed that extra pound of fat. The problem with starving diets is that you are losing your body’s perfect composition and lose your muscles in the process. This also affects your metabolism and your body tend to conserve as much fat as possible.  A carb-low diet is also proven to be damaging to the proper functioning of brain. 

The focus, instead, should be on increasing your metabolism – the rate at which your body burns those calories. And the best way to improve your metabolism is to split your meals into 6 small meals in day instead of 3 large meals.  One should also be careful about what you eat.  Any food is a mixture of three types of caloric sources – fat, carbohydrates and proteins.  One gram of fat provides 9 calories, and 1 gram of protein or carb gives you 4 calories each.  So it is important to look at the composition of these 3 sources in the food that you take in.  An average active person need 1 gram of protein per 1 pound of body mass per day, based on a 2000 calorie diet.  So if your lean body mass is 150 pounds, you need 150 grams of proteins per day which gives you 600 calories out of your 2000 calorie daily need.  Similarly you need 1-2 grams of carbs per day 1 pound of body mass.  The key is to have the right mix of protein, carbs and fat in your 6 meal per day plan.  Having small and healthy meals every 3 hours keeps the glycogen levels in your cells at a constant rate.  The body will burn any additional intakes instead of converting and storing glycogens as fat, as your body knows that it is getting another feed within next 3 hours.  This is the same reason why it is said that  you should never skip your breakfast.  When you skip the breakfast everyday, your body will tend to store everything that you eat the previous night, as its own intelligence thinks that the next feed is only at lunch the next day.  Hence the body will try to conserve as much energy as possible, thereby reducing your metabolic rate.

The second best method for increasing your metabolic rate is by increasing your lean muscle mass using moderate levels of weight lifting or resistence training.  Building muscles is proven to be much more effective in burning fat compared to hours of cardio training (Note: muscle building should not be confused with body building).  Muscles need energy to maintain; so the more lean muscle mass you have in your body composition, the more energy it requires to maitain itself.  This increases your metabolism and burns your fat storage.  Your muscles are burning calories even when you are sitting idle.  When compared to this, a cardio training burns energy only during your period of training.  You would need hours of cardio to burn fat compared to the time you spend on resistence training.  Moreover, your body becomes more efficient over a period of cardio training.  If you burn 200 calories during a 30 minute jogging today, your body would probably burn only 175 calories the next month if you continue your cardio on a daily basis.  Your body becomesefficient in utilizing energy stores, thereby reducing your metabolic rates.  I’m not saying you should quit cardio.  Cardio is the only way to train the most important muscle group of your body – your heart.  But instead of just cardio, your training program should include more resistence training along with low intensity cardio.

Another suggestion for burning those excess calories is to drink enough quantities of cold water during the day (note:  this method has mixed reactions; so don’t take my words for it).  Water helps to hydrate your body and also helps to avoid cravings for those junk snacks.  When your stomach is full, your body stops sending signals to your brain that triggers those cravings.  Also, when you drink the water cold, the body has to increase the temparature of that water to your body’s internal temperature level, thereby spending those unused glycogens lurking around in your cells waiting to be pushed to those deadly fat stores!!!