The bedrock of any effective toning program is the ability to raise BMR (basal metabolic rate). The largest percentage of calories burned comes from your BMR.
You might be a little confused, however. After all, every single new product that hits the market claims to be the next best thing for raising BMR.
So here are some real factors that influence how many calories you can burn:
1. How old you are. One of the first things that happens as you age is muscle loss. And this translates into less calories burned. The best way to prevent this is with resistance training. Now keep in mind that resistance training doesn’t necessarily have to be done in a gym.
2. Lean to fat mass ratio. More muscle translates into more calories burned even while you sleep. Add to this some proper nutrition, and the mitochondria in your cells will burn even more calories.
3. Getting sick. Interestingly, if you get a fever your rate of caloric burn will go up. Having said that, please don’t try to get sick just to burn some extra calories!
4. Lots of stress. Stress will create a cascade of events which release certain hormones into your blood stream. And these hormones will raise your caloric burn rate. So should you go get stressed out? No, because in the long run too much stress will ruin your immune system and burn through lean tissue.
5. Temperature. If you have to adjust to cold temperatures your BMR goes up. If you have to adjust to hot temperatures your caloric burn also goes up.
6. Caloric drops. If you fast or starve, your level of caloric burn will drop very fast. Probably a lot faster than you think. In order to reduce the damage from dieting, you should only slightly restrict calories and never skip meals.
Knowing what effects your rate of caloric burn will bring you many steps closer to the lean and sexy body of your dreams. The key here is to ignore all the hype and to seek out reliable sources of information. After all, it’s the facts that will help you reach your goal.
Writer Katherine Crawford, an exercise expert and recent flabby arms sufferer, instructs on how to reduce arm fat. Figure out how to get sexy and sculpted arms by visiting her website with arm exercises for women right now!