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If a lean body is your goal then you should be excited to hear that just by eating a good breakfast you can increase your metabolism by as much as 10% throughout the entire day!

The mere act of eating breakfast can actually increase your metabolism and basically have your body burning more calories throughout the day then it normally would.

One of the best things you can eat at breakfast time is oatmeal because of the long chain carbohydrates that oatmeal contains. The long chain carbohydrates go into your system and because of their complexion they stay in your system for up to 8 hours!

That means your body has 8 hours to burn/utilize the oatmeal, long-chain carbohydrates as energy before converting them to fat. Compare that to the 30 minute life span simple sugars have in your stomach to be burned or utilized as energy prior to being converted to fat.

It should be pretty evident that long-chain or complex carbohydrates are superior to simple sugars because they give your body a long-term sustained form of energy that it can utilize throughout the day.

A typical breakfast for me is a bowl of oatmeal and a glass of orange juice.

The orange juice is a great addition to the oatmeal because it contains some simple sugars which can be quickly utilized by the body to replenish it’s glycogen stores after a long night without food.

Again, if a lean body is your goal then I strongly consider you begin every day with a healthy breakfast that includes some form of complex carbohydrates and some form of simple sugar and just watch your metabolism skyrocket!

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You should see some of the looks I get when I tell people that their best shot at increasing their metabolism naturally is by eating more meals throughout the day.

On average I would say most people eat about 1-3 meals per day and there really isn’t anything much worse you can do to your metabolism.

By only eating 1-3 meals per day you are essentially starving your body. Your body (the medical marvel that it is) reacts by storing a good portion of the food you ingest as fat.

That’s right your body is more apt to store the food you eat as fat if you’re only eating 1-3 times per day.

Your body does this because it doesn’t know when it’s going to get fed again. Being that your body’s only objective is survival, it naturally stores the food you eat as fat so that it can be burned as fuel when your body needs it. Think of a squirrel storing its’ food for the winter…same concept really.

BUT when you feed your body every 2-3 hours and consequently eat 4-6 times a day, you turn up the heat on your bodys’ metabolism.

Since your body knows (You’ll have to do this consistently for a few weeks to reap full benefits) it’s going to get fed in the next 2-3 hours, it’ll utilize all the nutrients you feed it and get rid of the rest.

Your body will be less inclined to store the food you eat as fat if you’re eating 4-6 times per day.

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Fish oil, such as omega-3 fatty acids may prevent heart attack and strokes for those at risk of heart disease and also provide benefits for those with a healthy cardiovascular system.

According to American Heart:

We recommend eating fish (particularly fatty fish) at least two
times a week.  Fish is a good source of protein and doesn’t have the high saturated fat that fatty meat products do.  Fatty fish like mackerel, lake trout, herring, sardines, albacore tuna and salmon are high in two kinds of omega-3 fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA).

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OK, I have to admit that title was meant to get your attention since most of us since we were small children have been told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Maybe the title should have read:

The Most Important Meal of the Day if your goal is to look and feel better. 

That meal would be the post-workout meal and if you ain’t having it; a lot of the hard work you put in to exercising is being wasted!

After you workout, your body is starving for the nutrients it needs to replenish itself. During your workout, you break down muscle tissue and after your workout, you need to feed your muscles sugar to fuel them and protein to rebuild them.

A protein shake is the perfect supplement/ “meal” post-workout because it instantly feeds your muscles whereas a regular solid meal would take about 30 minutes for your body to digest.

The perfect strategy, if you’re looking to add some lean pounds of muscle, is to have a protein shake immediately after your workout and a solid meal about an hour after. That’s usually how I try to do it anyway…

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1. Blood pressure lowers
2. Cholesterol levels drop
3. Body temeperature drops

One of the easiest things you can do to cut some calories is replace one of your meals with a MRP (meal replacement powder - basically a protein shake with a full spectrum of vitamins, minerals and macro-nutrients) or a meal replacement bar (think Met-Rx).

I prefer meal replacement products because they’re easy, they pack a punch (like I said most on the market provide a full spectrum of vitamins, minerals, micro and macro nutrients as well as other supplements if you desire), and most keep your  caloric intake somwhere in the 200-400 range.

Personally, I like to have a bar and a 20 oz. bottle of water. The bars today taste a lot better then the chalk and cardboard supplement manufacturers used to peddle back in the day.

I’ve heard some people complain that  they don’t feel “full” after having a meal replacement bar or shake and that’s usually because they’re accustomed to only having 2-3 meals a day when they should be having 4-6 to further enhance their metabolism.

Popularity: 30% [?]