Metabolism Boost

BecBe4

Does anyone know of anything, either specific foods or a vitamin/supplement, that can help boost metabolism? I hear a lot of things but I'm worried they are mostly garbage or worse. I know there is no magic pill but I figure any little bit can help. Thanks in advance!

parvati

Drinking lots of water, eating clean foods & exercise is the best way to rev up your metabolism.

Angela4Health

Drinking lots of water, eating clean foods & exercise is the best way to rev up your metabolism.

^^^ this!

FairyMiss

I have read b vitamins are good.

TheKitsune6

Drinking lots of water, eating clean foods & exercise is the best way to rev up your metabolism.

^^^ this!

^^^^ again!

joliejolie123456

someone told me cinnamon is good too. but yeah lots of water, good food and exercise and you cant go wrong

peytjalmom

Green tea.

rileysowner

Hot peppers.

AnnaPixie

water, green tea, cinnamon, chromium, cayenne pepper, B6.............

I actually saw a met booster supplement in Costco today with most of the above.

but really, none of them make that much difference.........the main one's are EXERCISE and FOOD!

good luck :flowerforyou:

_Bro

Anna is right -- to follow that up a bit more, burn the fat with exercise and eat good, clean food frequently.
Starving yourself or getting amp up on some energy pill is not the key!

Increasing your meals per day really worked for me..
I eat 6 times per day with a balance of good carbs, fats, and protein.

Every meal should include a lean protein as it blunts the insulin response from carbs, feeds the muscle with amino's that can't be produced by your body, and is thermogenic -- your body has to work more to break down proteins.

As far as timing, eating every three hours is great if you can do it -- b/c protein only stays in your blood stream for 3 hours or so and then it's gone. Spreading out your meals and eating more frequently keeps me feeling full!

If your working out and eating clean you will build lean muscle which increases your base metabolic rate.
Make sure you're not just doing cardio -- add in some weights!

rileysowner

Anna is right -- to follow that up a bit more, burn the fat with exercise and eat good, clean food frequently.
Starving yourself or getting amp up on some energy pill is not the key!

Increasing your meals per day really worked for me..
I eat 6 times per day with a balance of good carbs, fats, and protein.

Every meal should include a lean protein as it blunts the insulin response from carbs, feeds the muscle with amino's that can't be produced by your body, and is thermogenic -- your body has to work more to break down proteins.

As far as timing, eating every three hours is great if you can do it -- b/c protein only stays in your blood stream for 3 hours or so and then it's gone. Spreading out your meals and eating more frequently keeps me feeling full!

If your working out and eating clean you will build lean muscle which increases your base metabolic rate.
Make sure you're not just doing cardio -- add in some weights!

While I agree none of these things will make a huge difference (you are talking at most another 50 calories a day and they effect probably diminishes over time) The response above it incorrect that eating a bunch of small meals will boost your metabolism, it makes no difference. Not to mention that protein takes much longer than 3 hours to digest. In fact the studies I have seen abstracts of have amino acids from a protein meal still entering the blood stream 8 hours after the meal. That is when they stopped measuring, so we don't know exactly how long some proteins take to digest but other than fast digesting proteins like whey it is longer than 3 hours.

_Bro

So, we totally disagree!
I won't go down the path of linking to articles, or making snide remarks about the benefit of peppers. There's no point!
Best of luck to you!

I will say, however, by using this method I was able to shred down to 4-5% body fat and lose very little weight during the process.

psuLemon

Rileysowner,


I have to agree with grunt. At least in the research I have seen and the nutrisionist, I have spoken to... it's point on. Now, I will say, you don't necessarily need protein every few hours, but rather calories. Injesting calories will release enzymes into your intestinal track which forces your metabolism to work. Due to this process if you continue the flow of calories throughout the day you will lose more weight than only eating three meals. Following this method, i have lost 6% body fat so far (i remeasure in two weeks so I am hoping for more). I would be interested in seeing articles that state otherwise, even if you send them to me privately.


To answer the original question here is a list of foods that can increase weightloss: Almonds, avacoda, peppers/curry, green tea, whole grains, etc... The biggest thing is make sure you eat enough calories and eat often.

_Bro

Hmm, "The biggest thing is make sure you eat enough calories and eat often."
I really wish that someone had told me this along time ago..

In the end exercise is really the way to burn fat / create deficits. Not diets, magical pills, or some secret food.

Have you tried Zig Zagging your calories? This seemed to be a very effective tool for me..

rileysowner

The thing is, the thermic effect of food is directly proportional in both intensity and duration to the size of the meal. Thus a large meal will have a larger thermic effect which lasts longer while a smaller meal will have a smaller thermic effect which will last a shorter period of time. When the total calculations for the day are made for the same food between the two ways of eating the net effect is exactly the same. If small meals help you keep on track, good for you, if I eat a bunch of small meals I tend to want to overeat because these small meals just don't satisfy me. I would much rather have a big meal. When I actually say the articles on the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition among others it was a comfort to know I could eat the way that works best for me and not be giving up on the supposed metabolism boost of 6 small meals.

I will have to look it up again, but there are several studied done recently on meal timing and all of them point to the same thing, when you eat does not matter. They did everything from one meal a day to several meals a day. In 2007 Stote et al in the A Journal of Clinical Nutrition did a study of people half the group eating one meal a day (dinner in early eveing). The other half did three meals a day. After the test time they let the whole group eat as they normally would for 11 weeks to normalize their eating pattern, then the switch the groups around. The study time was 8 weeks, and they were eating enough to maintain their body weight. The results, 3 meals a day no change in weight. 1 meal a day lost 3 pounds and an average of 4.6 pounds of fat (probably because it is difficult to eat all your calories in one meal). That is not old science, it is recent. When you eat makes no difference. See also Smeets et al British Journal of Nutrition 2008 finding no metabolic rate change between 2 or 3 meals a day; and Farshchi et al Am Jrnl of Clinical Nutrition 2005 using 3, 6 or 9 meals a day again finding no change in metabolic rate.

The multiple meals a day may help you feel more satisfied, it may, but it will do nothing to significantly increase your calorie burning. I believe the numbers for calories burned for 100 calories of protein is like 10. You would be better off not eating that rather than thinking eating something will help you lose weight.

As Parks et al say in their article in the Am Jrnl of Clinical Nutrition, "Simply put, the question of whether there is a health benefit from the consumption of multiple small meals will ultimately depend on how much energy is consumed, as opposed to how often or how regularly one eats."

In short, whatever works for you. For me 3 big meals helps me keep my calories in check better than 5-6 small meals. I am seriously considering the leangain.com approach along with Eat Stop Eat for cutting up once I get to my goal because that style of eating work for me. I know full well it doesn't work for others, but I don't want someone thinking it makes any difference in total daily metabolism unless it can be shown in actual clinical studies.

Just to clarify on the peppers, the boost from the capsasin is not huge, none of them are, I think is was something like 50 calories a day which may not even continue as your body adapts to it effect. Metabolism is not really meant to change a whole lot, when it does it is usually a sign of disease.

_Bro

Understand where you are coming from...

The study that you've listed below is interesting but I could care less about weight loss!

Weight loss is absolutely the worst metric and no one really cares about it when you get right down to it.
It's about how you look, feel and if that old pair of jeans still fit you, right?

What's the best method for evaluating this -- body composition / body fat!
Only bf will tell you the ratio of fat loss to muscle gained.

So, here's another study..
The Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports and Exercise (6:5, pgs. 265-272, 1996) examined the effects of two versus six meals. Both groups lost the same amount of weight, but the two meal group lost mostly lean body mass while the six meal per day group did not!

Why?

Multiple meals are anabolic as a steady stream of insulin is necessary for muscle growth and glycogen storage.
One of insulins major roles is to push glucose & aminos in to the cells for growth and recovery. This steady stream of insulin and protein availability will maximize the investments that I've made via exercise.

This process is also anti-catabolic! The multiple meals (right composition) keep you in a positive nitrogen balance.
Workout at the gym, skip some meals/calories and your more likely to enter a state where your body will burn your own muscles to get the nutrients that are needed.

I've also lost weight using the three meal approach.
However, using the approach above I lost very little weight and really changed my body composition.

As a side note:
The balance of the calorie intake is almost as important as the quantity.
My meals are balanced with Protein, Starch Fiberous Carbs, and moderate fat.
This is done to enhance the thermogenic effect as protein and fibrous carbs require "energy" to process.

rileysowner

Interesting study, I will have to have a look at it to see more. Having said that with things like leangains and others not doing the 5-6 meals and allowing people who follow it to not only lose fat but gain muscle through intermittent 18 hour fasts with calibrated caloric intake varying from day to day and only eating 3 meals there is more too it. As I said, I want to look at the study to see more of what exactly they were doing.

Edit:

I just tried to find even an abstract online, but nothing. I guess the only way I am going to find this is to go to the local University's science library. Just a note, I find it interesting that this is from back in 1996, but in the mid to late 2000's there was continued studies on this. It makes me wonder what problems or limitations there were in this study.

rileysowner

I found this examination of that study, at least I think it is that study here http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/research-review/meal-frequency-and-energy-balance-research-review.html#more-1389

I have quoted the appropriate section below:

Now, all of the above is only looking at the quantity of weight loss, not the quality. For athletes and dieters, of course, sparing lean body mass and losing fat is a bigger goal than how much weight is actually lost. Which brings me to the boxer study that everybody loves to cite and nobody seems to have read (except me as I spent years tracking down the full text of the paper).

In this study, boxers were given either 2 or 6 meals per day with identical protein and calories and examined for lean body mass lost; the 2 meal per day group lost more lean body mass (note: both groups lost lean body mass, the 2 meal per day group simply lost more). Aha, higher meal frequency spares lean body mass. Well, not exactly.

In that study, boxers were put on low calories and then an inadequate amount of liquid protein was given to both groups and the meals were divided up into 2 or 6 meals. But the study design was pretty crappy and I want to look at a few reasons why I think that.

First and foremost, a 2 vs. 6 meal per day comparison isn’t realistic. As discussed in The Protein Book, a typical whole food meal will only maintain an anabolic state for 5-6 hours, with only 2 meals per day, that’s simply too long between meals and three vs. six meals would have been far more realistic (I would note that the IF’ing folks are doing just fine not eating for 18 hours per day).

Additionally is the use of a liquid protein that confounds things even more. Liquids digest that much more quickly than solid foods so the study was basically set up to fail for the low meal frequency group. They were given an inadequate amount of rapidly digesting liquid protein too infrequently to spare muscle loss. But what if they had been given sufficient amounts of solid protein (e.g. 1.5 g/lb lean body mass) at those same intervals? The results would have been completely different.

As discussed in The Protein Book in some detail, meal frequency only really matters when protein intake is inadequate in the first place. Under those conditions, a higher meal frequency spares lean body mass. But when protein intake is adequate in the first place (and again that usually means 1.5 g/lb lean body mass for lean dieters), meal frequency makes no difference. And that’s why the boxer study is meaningless so far as I’m concerned. An inadequate amount of liquid protein given twice per day is nothing like how folks should be dieting in the first place.

I still want to find the actual text of the study, but it seems there are some rather troubling flaws in it.

looney9708

L-carnitine and green tea extract can aid as a tool but not without proper nutrition and calories in and out. Dr. Os did a show on fat burners/metabolism boosters. Just google his website and there are some others there

Azdak

The thing is, the thermic effect of food is directly proportional in both intensity and duration to the size of the meal. Thus a large meal will have a larger thermic effect which lasts longer while a smaller meal will have a smaller thermic effect which will last a shorter period of time. When the total calculations for the day are made for the same food between the two ways of eating the net effect is exactly the same. If small meals help you keep on track, good for you, if I eat a bunch of small meals I tend to want to overeat because these small meals just don't satisfy me. I would much rather have a big meal. When I actually say the articles on the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition among others it was a comfort to know I could eat the way that works best for me and not be giving up on the supposed metabolism boost of 6 small meals.

I will have to look it up again, but there are several studied done recently on meal timing and all of them point to the same thing, when you eat does not matter. They did everything from one meal a day to several meals a day. In 2007 Stote et al in the A Journal of Clinical Nutrition did a study of people half the group eating one meal a day (dinner in early eveing). The other half did three meals a day. After the test time they let the whole group eat as they normally would for 11 weeks to normalize their eating pattern, then the switch the groups around. The study time was 8 weeks, and they were eating enough to maintain their body weight. The results, 3 meals a day no change in weight. 1 meal a day lost 3 pounds and an average of 4.6 pounds of fat (probably because it is difficult to eat all your calories in one meal). That is not old science, it is recent. When you eat makes no difference. See also Smeets et al British Journal of Nutrition 2008 finding no metabolic rate change between 2 or 3 meals a day; and Farshchi et al Am Jrnl of Clinical Nutrition 2005 using 3, 6 or 9 meals a day again finding no change in metabolic rate.

The multiple meals a day may help you feel more satisfied, it may, but it will do nothing to significantly increase your calorie burning. I believe the numbers for calories burned for 100 calories of protein is like 10. You would be better off not eating that rather than thinking eating something will help you lose weight.

As Parks et al say in their article in the Am Jrnl of Clinical Nutrition, "Simply put, the question of whether there is a health benefit from the consumption of multiple small meals will ultimately depend on how much energy is consumed, as opposed to how often or how regularly one eats."

In short, whatever works for you. For me 3 big meals helps me keep my calories in check better than 5-6 small meals. I am seriously considering the leangain.com approach along with Eat Stop Eat for cutting up once I get to my goal because that style of eating work for me. I know full well it doesn't work for others, but I don't want someone thinking it makes any difference in total daily metabolism unless it can be shown in actual clinical studies.

Just to clarify on the peppers, the boost from the capsasin is not huge, none of them are, I think is was something like 50 calories a day which may not even continue as your body adapts to it effect. Metabolism is not really meant to change a whole lot, when it does it is usually a sign of disease.

This is pretty spot on. The "many small meals" idea has become somewhat of a cliche. There is nothing wrong with doing it, and it may have some psychological boost to maintain adherence, but there is little or no thermic benefit.