Supercharge your Metabolism for Quick Weight Loss with Hypnotherapy

We have all heard it or even said it one time or another: "I'm not able to lose weight because of my metabolism." It's easy to blame our extra fat on an abstract idea like metabolism, but let's learn about the real importance of metabolism and better yet, how to get the most "burn" for your buck by recharging your metabolism. In the most basic sense, metabolism means all of the chemical and physical changes that occur within the body's cells. Most often, however, metabolism refers to the manner in which the body gets and uses energy from food, so it really does play an important part in weight loss and gain.

Not everyone has the same metabolism, and our rates actually fluctuate during our lives, so someone who blames their metabolism is not necessarily making excuses. Age affects metabolism, which will slow about 5% every 10 years after age 40, and by gender, as males usually burn more calories at rest than females, and by the amount of muscle mass you possess (more muscle generally means a higher rate of metabolism). Our genes also impacts metabolism, not to mention having children, as well as whether a woman chooses to breast-feed. In spite of all of the wild cards, the simple fact is that when your calorie intake surpasses your metabolism, excess energy will get housed in the body as fat. Though many of the aspects affecting metabolic rate cannot be altered, fortunately, there are methods to rev up the metabolism you are born with. The first guideline is to take in the right foods in the correct amounts. When you omit a meal, your body turns on starvation mode, which slows metabolism to save calories, because it does not know when it will get food again. And when the metabolism slows down, so does the rate at which you lose weight.

When you finally do eat food after having skipped a meal, instead of using the calories in the food you've just taken in, your body transfers them to body fat to store for the next "fast." To keep your metabolism efficient, eat 4 - 6 smaller meals over the course of the day and aim to eat close to the same times each day. Most importantly, never skip a meal. You can also step up your metabolic rate with exercise, including both aerobic routines and weight lifting. Aerobic activities, such as dancing, biking and running, use more calories in the short term, while weight lifting will create more muscle, which improves metabolism and burns more calories in the long term - even when you are resting, muscle needs more calories to function than fat.

In fact, each pound of muscle requires 35 calories per day, while each pound of fat requires just 2 calories per day. Despite this, you may be surprised that the more weight you posses, the faster your metabolism is likely to run. Simply put, the extra weight makes your body work more to maintain its processes. This is partly why it's nearly always easiest to, and is challenging as you go along because, if you are significantly overweight, your metabolism is already at a high rate, so that even a minor cutback in calories will bring about an immediate weight loss. But what happens after that immediate loss, when a plateau occurs and motivation seems to go by the "weigh" side? Persistent cravings and compulsions can swiftly come back, and when they do, don't neglect a valuable resource. Hypnotherapy can actually retrain your unconscious mind so that, in essence, you can get rid of food cravings. When we examine why we snack, recognizing why weight loss hypnosis works so successfully becomes evident. For a lot of us, snacking has become a habit - perhaps you do it automatically when you are driving or watching TV or when you're under stress. Hypnosis can actually reprogram your thoughts to break those associations, leaving you to watch TV or drive without having the need to eat.

One of the most successful weight loss hypnosis methods for ending the snacking cycle is Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP, which relies on negotiating with the unconscious and making it use the same thought processes that are creating your appetite, to eliminate your appetite. NLP entails many years of study and practical experience for a hypnotherapist to learn and master, but positive results can come very rapidly and seem almost magical to a person who has always fought against cravings. NLP can be just as vital as exercise and motivation because, as you learned above, it can help ensure that you eat the proper kinds of foods at the right times, and this is an important part of turbo-charging your metabolism. If you wish to keep your metabolism at full speed and ensure that all of your exercise and hard work aren't going to waste by yielding to your food temptations, weight loss hypnosis and NLP can be a secret weapon to eliminate your cravings altogether.

About The Author:

Alan B. Densky, CH has worked with clients for weight loss and appetite suppression since 1978. Visit his hypnotherapy website to enjoy his Free self-hypnosis videos, or learn about his effective hypnotherapy weight loss CDs or his powerful video hypnotherapy losing weight DVDs.