If you've lost weight too rapidly or if you've followed a very low calorie "starvation diet" in the past, then you may have damaged your metabolism. Once this occurs, it can become extremely difficult to achieve any further loss of body fat at all. If you've ever experienced a "weight loss plateau" where the scale won't budge, even when it seems like you're working hard and doing everything right, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. The good news is, metabolic damage can be "repaired." All it takes is the right combination of metabolism-stimulating exercise and metabolism-stimulating nutrition (NOT just a "diet"), all done consistently over time

The big irony is that most of the diet programs that claim to help you get rid of excess weight, only end up making it harder for you in the long run because they use harsh metabolism-decreasing diets and not enough exercise (almost never any weight training).

It may take a little longer if you've been a "diet dummy" and you've really messed things up with severe starvation dieting, (especially if you've lost a lot of lean body mass), but it's never hopeless. Anyone can increase their metabolism.

Most people get an almost immediate boost in metabolic rate when they make a few important changes to their eating and exercise routines. However, the results are not going to be "overnight." Give it a little time...

Within 3 weeks your metabolism will already be more efficient. Within 6-8 weeks, it's burning hot. Give me 12 weeks of consistent diligent effort, sticking with all the metabolism boosting strategies I teach, and your metabolism will become like a turbo charged engine, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that.

What's most important for upping your metabolism is CONSISTENCY in applying the nutrition and training principles every single day.

That includes:

• Meal frequency: eat 5-6 small meals per day

• Meal timing: eat approximately every 3 hours, with a substantial breakfast and a substantial post workout meal.

• Sufficient Caloric Intake: maintain a small calorie deficit and avoid starvation-level diets (suggested safe levels for fat loss: 2100-2500 calories per day for men, 1400-1800 calories per day for women; adjust as needed)

• Food choices: Select natural, unprocessed foods with high thermic effect (lean proteins like chicken, turkey, egg whites and fish are highly thermic, as are all green vegetables, salad vegetables and other fibrous carbs)

• Cardio training: Push up the intensity a bit if you really want to get a metabolic boost. Walking and low intensity cardio is fine, but higher intensity is more metabolism-stimulating

• Weight training: The basic exercises that include the largest muscle groups or even call into play the entire body as a unit (squats, split squats, deadlifts, stiff legged deadlifts, overhead presses, rows and full body core exercises) will have a much greater metabolism-stimulating effect than isolation exercises (concentration curls, crunches, calf raises, etc)