Weight Loss

Here's a secret: slaving away inside your body – right this minute – is your very own personal trainer working tirelessly to help you burn kilojoules and shed fat. It’s called your metabolism, and it’s the sum of everything your body does.

Each time you eat, enzymes in your body’s cells break down the food and turn it into energy that keeps your heart beating, your mind thinking and your legs churning during a gruelling workout. The faster your metabolism runs, the more kilojoules you burn. The more you burn, the easier it is to drop kilos. And get this – you can make your metabolism work harder, a lot harder, 24 hours a day.

We enlisted the help of leading experts and came up with a round-the-clock, turn-up-the-burn plan that will throw your metabolism into overdrive.

When You Roll Out of Bed

Eat (a good) Breakfast. Every. Single. Day. If you don’t, your body goes into starvation mode, so your metabolism slows to a crawl to conserve energy. And the heartier your first meal is, the better.

What should you be having? Morning munchies that are slow to digest and leave you feeling fuller longer. Try a mix of lean protein with complex carbohydrates and healthy fats, like this power breakfast: an omelette made from one egg and two egg whites and half a cup of mixed peppers and onions, plus half a cup of cooked oats mixed with a quarter cup of frozen berries and a teaspoon of omega-3-loaded fish oil.

Sip Java. Sisterhood of the travelling spill-proof mugs, rejoice! A study published in the journal, Physiology and Behaviour, found that the average metabolic rate of people who drank caffeinated coffee increased 16 percent over that of those who drank decaf. Caffeine stimulates your central nervous system by increasing your heart rate and breathing.

Guzzle Your Water Cold. Chase your morning coffee with an ice-cold glass of H2O. Your body may burn a few kilojoules heating the cold water to your core temperature. Though the extra kilojoules you burn drinking a single glass doesn’t amount to much, making it a habit can add up to kilos lost with essentially zero additional effort.