First off, I hope everyone participating in the 25 day a2achallenge has been enjoying these first few days!  We have had such a great response from so many of you who have stepped up to the challenge! Stay motivated and keep sending those “a2a approved” healthy meals and recipes our way!

I know this challenge came at a great time for me and I’m excited to see how I feel and look after 25 days.  If you are looking for the “challenge approved” egg muffins that I made earlier this week, they are at the very bottoms of the post and have really come in handy so far!

Since one of the objectives of this challenge is to restore a healthy metabolism, I thought I would take this opportunity to dive into what metabolism really is.  It can be a huge player in fat loss…either working for or against you.  This has actually been a hot topic in my daily life lately, as I have been working with a client on how to repair a damaged metabolism. While repairing metabolism is a little more involved then we’re going to get today, I’ll be sure to post more about that in the future and share my own story.  Today I’ll just run through a general overview about metabolism and how you can boost yours!

So what is Metabolism? 

Metabolism is a function of the body that processes food into energy.  This process establishes the rate that we burn energy (calories) and determines how quickly we gain or lose weight.  Essentially, our body is constantly burning energy…metabolism drives the amount of energy that the body burns in order to maintain everyday activities like eating, sleeping, sitting etc.  There are many different factors that affect metabolism,  which include:

• Body Composition – More muscle generally leads to higher metabolism
• Age – Metabolism slows as we get older
• Sex – Men generally have a higher metabolism than women
• Foods – The kind of food and timing of meals can impact metabolism
• Activity (exercise) levels – Exercise can help boost metabolism

If you are starting to fear that your levels may be a little low, don’t panic!  There are a number of things that you can do to increase your metabolism. I came across a great article, listing 23 ways to boost your metabolism and I have highlighted some of my top picks below:

1.) Build muscle – Simply put, having muscle burns more calories than fat…yet another reason to pick up those weights!  (If you haven’t yet, check out Julia’s posts about lifting heavy and Strong is the new Skinny.)

OK, maybe not THAT much muscle!!

2.) Do interval training – Among other great benefits, this increases metabolism and resting metabolic rate.

3.) Eat smaller meals more frequently  – This helps keep your engine revved and your metabolism high!

4.) Incorporate certain metabolism boosting foods into your diet:

5.) Drink more water!

6.) Sleep more

7.) Avoid fad, or severe low-calorie diets – These can actually end up slowing your metabolism down by tricking your body into thinking its starving!  The result is starvation mode!

While I know that this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to metabolism, I hope that it helped to give a general idea of what metabolism is all about and what you can do to help give it a boost!  If you still want a little information about metabolism, check out this article.

Now for the Egg Muffin recipe!  Feel free to incorporate some of the metabolism boosting foods into these eggs.

Egg Muffins

Egg Muffins

Ingredients:

• 6-8 Eggs
• 1-1.5 cups whites  (Feel free to try a different ratio depending on how many yokes vs. whites you want…this can also be made with just 12 whole eggs!  I did 8 eggs & 1 cup whites this time.)
• Veggies of choice (I used broccoli & onion)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Combine eggs into a bowl & mix
• Pour eggs into greased muffin tin
• Place COOKED veggies into each muffin cup
• Bake for 25 minutes & allow them to cool for 5
• Tip: Use a knife to loosen the sides of eggs from the pan.

Enjoy!

-Kayte