Laura's Hardbody Fitness

Tidbits

A pound of body fat is equivallent to about 3500 calories.  So if you have a calorie deficit of 500 calories (meaning you burn 500 calories more than you eat each day) you would lose about one pouond per week.  If you had a calorie deficit of 1000 calories that would mean that you'd lose about 2 pounds per week, which is commonly accepted as the maximum rate of weight loss that is healthy.

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Studies have estimated that for each pound of muscle that you add to your body, you burn an additional 35 to 50 calories per day.  So an extra 10 pounds of muscle will burn approximately 350 to 500 clories a day, or an extra pound of fat every 7 to 10 days without making any other changes.

In fact, it has been found that regular weight training boosts basal metabolic rate by about 15%.  This is because muscle is 'metabolically active' and burns more calories than other body tissue even when you are not moving.

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Three spices known to help boost your metabolism are ginger, dark mustard, and cayenne peppet.  By adding these spicy ingredients to your diet, you can help to boost your metabolism.  Try incorporating all three into your afternoon meal by adding mustard or cayenne (hot sauce) to your protein, followed by a cup of ginge tea made from fresh ginger.