Other than exercise, the best way to raise your metabolism and become a fat burning machine is to eat small meals and snacks throughout the day. Eat something every 3 hours to keep the fire stoked.
If your body is used to having a large meal and then going for hours without food, you become efficient at storing fat. Your body thinks, “This seems to be a pattern. Who knows when the next meal is coming? I’d better get good at storing fat when I do get fed in case there’s a famine.” So, you produce more fat storing enzymes and less fat releasing enzymes.
Conversely, by eating small frequent amounts, you become efficient at releasing fat. Your body knows food keeps coming so there’s no need to try to store it. You produce more fat releasing enzymes and less fat storing enzymes. And, you keep your metabolism up.
Our first line of energy is from blood glucose. As we begin to use that we overlap with using glycogen, glucose stored in the liver and in the muscle for use during exercise. As we start to use glycogen, we overlap with using fat (if we eat small frequent meals) or, we use muscle (if we go for hours without eating).
Muscle is metabolically active and uses up calories even at rest. When we skip meals, the body wants to sacrifice its muscle so it will require less calories.
Eat enough to keep yourself satisfied for about 3 hours at a time. This way, you eat and use it up, eat and use, eat and use and have no chance to store fat. When food keeps coming steadily, you don’t have to be good at storing fat. You get good at releasing fat to use as your energy source as you go about your day. Yay!