Metabolic No-No's: 7 Bad Habits to Avoid

Synopsis: While there are many articles out there talking about how to boost your metabolism, this one tells you what habits to avoid at all costs.

You've probably heard over and over about how important it is to boost your metabolism or even raise your metabolism in order to lose weight and get healthy…but how do you know what habits to avoid?  While this is hardly a comprehensive list, the following article is designed to help you avoid 7 of the worst killer habits that will bust your metabolism and wreck your weight loss plans.

#1: Eat big fatty meals.  No matter how you cut it, food is always an important factor.  The body is like a machine.  It can only handle so much fuel at once.  When you sit down and eat a giant fatty meal with over a thousand calories, you're going to shut down your metabolism as your body tries to figure out how to handle everything coming in.  Just don't do it!

#2: Eat only a couple meals. How many people do you know who skip breakfast?  The fewer meals you eat, the more likely your metabolism is to crash during the day.  Breakfast comes from the words "break, fast," as in breaking a fast.  If you want your metabolism going in the morning, breakfast is critical, and better 4 snack like meals after that than two big ones.

#3: Skip breakfast.  We already talked about this one, but it's that important.  If you don't like breakfast food, then grill a chicken breast with some steamed vegetables.  Just do not skip the morning meal.

#4: Drink sugary drinks.  Your body, and your metabolism, is at its best when all the organs and systems are functioning normally.  Really sugary drinks are not only packed with calories and bad for the teeth, but they put a ton of pressure on the kidneys and liver, which then deals with the sugar instead of helping the metabolism burn calories at full capacity.

#5: Drink a lot of alcohol.  Studies have shown that one drink a day can actually give a major boost to metabolism and fat burning (although scientists still have no idea why). While wine is the best, one serving of beer of liquor can also work.  But any more than that, and you flood your body with bad carbs, sugars, and calories which do an absolute number on your metabolism, among many other things.

#6: Be a couch potato.  You know the term "couch potato?"  Turns out that term couldn't be more accurate.  Not only is sitting down for long periods of time unhealthy and a killer on the metabolism, but recent university studies have actually shown that sitting down and watching TV for a long uninterrupted amount of time can knock your metabolism up to even 30% lower than sitting down and reading a book.  So stay away from the TV if you're a couch potato type.

#7: Long low moderate effort exercises.  Okay, these aren't necessarily a bad thing.  In fact, if you are morbidly obese or out of shape to the point where you can't run or do any strenuous exercises, then just start out with walking and improve from there.  Long low moderate exercises are better than nothing, but if you can do even 10 minutes of high intensity workouts, these are far better than the long low intensity exercises, because your body can adjust to those exercises to make them less effective.

Those are 7 of the habits you will want to break in order to kick your metabolism up into high gear, or at the very least, keep from killing it.