Your metabolism's dirty little secret

Boosting your metabolism is big business.

From supplements and foods to exercise and even meditation, everybody is pushing the idea that they can help you boost your metabolism.

You will see claims like Boosts Metabolism by 78% or 115%, and while this sounds promising, have you ever stopped to think about what this would actually look like?

An elevated metabolic rate is a physiological phenomenon. It does happen, but it also has clear and definite symptoms.

Take exercise as an example.

Whether you are running or performing an intense weight training workout, your metabolic rate is elevated during the time you are exercising. Because of this, you display all the CLASSIC SYMPTOMS of an elevated metabolic rate:

You are tired and sweating. Your heart rate is elevated as is your breathing rate. You are experiencing an increased level of thirst.

These are the classic symptoms of an elevated metabolic rate.

The drug Clenbuterol is often used by bodybuilders and fitness models because of its ability to increase metabolic rate.

The symptoms of Clebuterol use include:

Fatigue, increased sweating, elevated heart rate and breathing rate, increased thirst and even palpitations and arrhythmias.

Hyperthyroidism is a medical condition that is associated with an elevated metabolic rate. Some of the symptoms of hyperthyroidism include:

Fatigue, weakness, irritability, sweating, increased sweating and an increased heart rate.

All of these things share an elevated metabolic rate, and its associated symptoms.

Since most of us have not taken Clenbuterol or suffer from hyperthyroidism, the best example of an increased metabolic rate is exercise.

The next time you are in the gym, set the treadmill at a speed of 5 miles per hour and walk on it for 10-20 minutes.

Once you are done, stop and take note of how you feel.

To increase your metabolic rate by a LARGE amount all day long, this is how you would have to feel ALL DAY LONG.

Obviously a teaspoon of cinnamon or a cup of green tea is simply not going to have this effect.

The bottom line is that a truly elevated metabolism leaves you sweaty, fatigued and thirsty for the entire day. And as evidenced by medical conditions with elevated metabolisms can lead to some serious health problems.

Very small but prolonged increases in metabolism are beneficial, such as the effect of increasing your muscle mass, but this is nowhere near the 50%-100% increase in metabolism you read about in fitness magazines.

To lose weight, concentrate on eating less, not necessarily burning more. Use your diet to lose body fat and your workouts to maintain or even increase the size of your muscles. Things like green tea and cinnamon may have health benefits, but they are probably not going to help you lose weight by boosting your metabolism.

BP

Metabolism and Obesity

As a response to this post, a reader (Darren) asked a really good question:

I am curious about a comment you made...

"The truth is, our love affair with our metabolisms is a main cause of obsessive compulsive eating."

I Would love you to elaborate on that, as on the face of it, I am skeptical that it is the MAIN cause of obsessive compulsive eating.

This was my response:

Hi Darren,

My point was that it was 'A' main cause, not 'THE' main cause.

However I beleive this point to still be very valid...if we are afraid to eat less because we are worried about our metabolism slowing down, we are doomed to continue to overeat.

If we eat extra foods because we think they will speed up our metabolism, we are doomed to continue to overeat (There are NO negative calorie foods).

And if we rely on eating styles that don't cut our calories, but simply rely on metabolism boosting foods, then we are doomed to continue to overeat.

So it may not be THE main cause, but I beleive it is A main cause.

BP

While the word 'Metabolism' is amazing for selling magazines and supplements, the fact that it is over-hyped as being an easily manipulated part of our lives does (in my opinion) contribute to the obesity epidemic.

If we continue to look for answers in the wrong places, we are never going to help anyone.

Eat less and enjoy the foods you eat.

BP

Metabolism = Overrated

I’ve got some bad news from you.

Despite what all the OCE Diets tell you, at a given weight and muscle mass, your metabolism isn’t going to go up, (or down) a whole bunch.

If you are 170 pounds with 150 pounds of lean mass…your resting metabolism is not going to fluctuate more than the equivalent of 100 or 200 calories worth of calorie burning over a 24 hour period.

I’ll admit that it fluctuates throughout the day, depending on your workouts and eating habits and sleeping habits...but when added up over 24 hours the total effect of these fluctuations is VERY SMALL, and it is MINISCULE compared to the fluctuations in the amount of food you eat.
Consider this-

It is very easy to overeat by 2,000 calories during a given day.

It is virtually IMPOSSIBLE to raise your resting metabolic rate by even 1,000 calories above normal…Not with a high protein diet, not with ephedrine, not by adding ten pounds of muscle, not even by experimenting with drugs like Clenbuterol.

This begs the question -if the fluctuations that are possible with metabolic rate are minuscule compared to the fluctuations that occur with calorie intake, then why does ‘metabolism’ get all sorts of attention?

It’s because it sounds mystical, magical, and to a certain extend…down right sexy.

It is great media fodder.

It is a great buzz word.

Put “boost metabolism” in the headline of an article…and it will get read guaranteed.

What do you think would sell more copies of Cosmo -

“3 secrets to losing weight by boosting your metabolism”

or

“3 secrets to losing weight by eating less”

The truth is, our love affair with our metabolisms is a main cause of obsessive compulsive eating.

The belief that what you eat can DRASTICALLY change your metabolism is not only wrong, but it can derail your weight loss efforts.

The bottom line is if you are counting on the foods you eat to burn your body fat for you, you are going to be very disappointed with the results.

The most important thing you should learn about eating is not how foods affect your metabolism, it’s learning to appreciate the value of simply eating less.

BP

How to Burn More Fat

Adam Campbell over at the Men's Health Blog does a great job of explaining why lifting weights is such a vital part of any weight loss routine.

Weight lifting (or any form of resistance training) helps you burn more fat while on a diet then you would with just the diet alone.

You can read Adam's post HERE, and be sure to check out the great graph!

BP

PS- Even my program EAT STOP EAT isn't just about meal timing and short periods of fasting for weight loss - it is the combination of short periods of fasting combined with resistance exercise. I truly believe that this combination is the key to long term weight loss success!

Craig Ballantyne Workouts

There are a lot of things that my friend Craig Ballantyne and I don't agree on (We share some very different philosophies when it comes to some aspects of nutrition), but one thing is for sure, when it comes to advice on working out, Craig is one of the only people I will ever trust.

So the other day, when I received an email from Craig that was about "fat burners" I felt I had to share it here.

When ever I am questioned about 'metabolism' and 'metabolism boosters' I'm quick to point out that nutrition plays a very, very small role in increasing your metabolism. Typically, I then go on to explain that the only real way you can increase your metabolism is through exercise.

However, Craig does an amazing job in the following email explaining exactly what type of exercise you need to be doing to increase you metabolism.

I hate to give you the bad news, because I wish there was an effective fat loss supplement as much as the next person. A real "fat burner" just doesn't exist. BUT, there are ways to boost your metabolism without supplements...

1) Strength training - aiming for 8 reps per set.

2) Interval training - rather than long, slow boring cardio.

3) Extra bodyweight circuits - done either in the AM or PM.

4) A whole, natural foods diet, rich in high-fiber fruits and vegetables, healthy fats, and high-protein foods.

Craig's rules are simple and easy to follow. All you have to do is commit to them, and follow them consistently, and you will boost your metabolism.

Straight up, if you want the very best workout information on the net today then visit Craig's site TurbulenceTraining.com

BP

Fasting Diet, Circuit Training

3 "Magic" Fat Loss Ingredients

Every morning I go through the exact same routine.

I get up. I make some oatmeal. Clean the kitchen. Go up stairs. Brush my teeth. Turn on my computer. Check my email. Then I laugh (or sometimes cry) while reading all of the new stories about the latest and greatest "fat loss" ingredients.

It is an absolute mystery to me why, after over 20 years of failed promises, we still turn to magic ingredients and magic foods for fat loss.

What shocks me even more is that we are still hoping to find something we can eat that will cause us to lose fat. It is almost becoming an oxymoron.

We are looking for something to consume that will make us consume less!

Here are just some examples of magic foods and ingredients in the new today:

Recent research (performed in a test tube) suggests that extract from Chilli peppers may stop fat growth. According to this research Chilli extract may hold the key to preventing immature fat cells from developing into mature fat cells.

In a different study, it was suggested that spearmint tea can not only lower a man's sex drive but can also decrease the amount of hair on a women's body. (Admittedly, this isn't fat loss research but if you think the body builders in your gym smell bad now, wait till they read this research and stop brushing their teeth for fear that they may be lowering their T levels!)

Finally, more research shows that dairy calcium (but not calcium supplements) can cause a decrease in the amount of fat in your blood after a meal.

I can't really tell you too much about this study because I stopped reading after the first page that mentioned that the study was funded by the Danish Dairy Research Foundation and the Dutch Dairy Association!

A Dairy Foundation and a Dairy Association funded the study, and the study found that dairy calcium, but not calcium supplements had weight loss benefits? Please.

Now honestly, there is some merit to this research. Eating more spices on your food is definitely a good idea. Eating foods that contain calcium is also a good idea.

However, thinking that taking chilli extract pills or consuming 3 bowls of ice-cream per day will make you lose weight IS NOT what you should be taking away from this research. (Nor is skipping your morning tooth brushing!)

If you want to lose weight there are only three things you need to do, and you don't need to read any research to do them.

Firstly, find a nutrition plan that works for you.

Secondly, get active. And I don't mean walk on the elliptical for half an hour every other day, I mean get a real work-out program and challenge yourself.

The third and last thing you need to do is to stop (or don't start) falling for the media's version of the latest and greatest fat loss research. It will only lead to disappointment and is usually a very poor and hyped up version of what the research was really telling us.

These are the real 3 "magic" fat loss ingredients!

BP

Eat Stop Eat

The Newest Diet Study - What does it really tell us?

By now, you have probably heard about the latest study – You know the one that “proves” that the Atkins diet is superior for weight loss?

So let me just clear this up right now. The results of this study prove one thing and one thing only – diets work.

In fact, after reviewing this study, and all of the commentary, posturing, crying and bickering that it has caused, I have come to the conclusion that this study proves that the very best thing you can do for weight loss is:

Eat less, but enjoy the foods you eat. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables, and lots of herbs and spices. And maybe most importantly, spend less time stressing over the types of food you are eating

In other words - Cut your calories in a way that works for you. ( It might take a bit of trial and error, but it will be worth it.)

Now here are the facts from the study…

311 overweight, pre-menopausal women were divided into four groups and were asked to follow one of the following dietary programs: The Atkins diet, the Zone diet, the LEARN diet or the Ornish diet.

Each woman was put in one of these groups and received a copy of one of the popular weight loss books. Each woman then met with a registered dietitian once per week for 8 weeks learning “the ins and outs” of their assigned diet.

After these classes the subjects were “set free” to follow the diet for 12 months, with the exception of a couple of visits to the lab and some unannounced phone calls where the researchers asked the subjects to recall what they had eaten in the last 24 hours.

What happened?

As expected, all 4 groups ate fewer calories during the study than they were eating before the study – so all diets “worked” to help cut calories.

And each group lost weight with most weight loss happening in the first 2 months. (After this point for all diets, the weight loss tended to slow or even creep back up).

The Atkins style diet had the best weight loss during the first 2 months and over the 6-month study. That’s why you see Atkins being crowned the king of weight loss diets.

However, by end of the 12-month study, the results tended to “even out”. And by the end of the study, the Atkins diet was really only better than the Zone Diet (which isn’t a bad diet on it’s own).

And you know what? The total weight loss wasn’t that impressive – with the Atkins dieters losing 12.5 lbs in 6 months. That’s 0.5 lbs per week. Good, but not eye-popping results.

But here’s the kicker. It’s hard for me to understand how overweight woman (averaging 180 pounds and over 40% bodyfat) can eat less than 1400 calories per day for 6-months and lose only lose 12 and a half pounds. There is something very wrong here.

Looking at the data, I noticed that all of the diets saw a small slow increase in their calorie intake over the year. And honestly, this was probably due to huge errors in dietary recall. Most people can’t accurately describe what they had for lunch, so this measure isn’t worth the paper it was written on.

Dietary recall is a scientific method for measuring caloric intake that has been under a large amount of scrutiny in the past years.

Imagine having someone call you on the phone and ask you to describe all of the foods you had eaten over the day. Imagine the types of mistakes in sizes and types of food that could be made in this type of interpretation and then imagine the kind of effects that this could have in a scientific study.

Now also imagine that you SIGNED UP for a weight loss study, so you are already motivated to eat less and you are also insecure about the amounts and types of food you eat.

For true research, diet recalls are a horrible tool. Plain and simple.

I also noticed that none of the diets were true to their form.

Take a look at the “high protein Atkins style diet”. After 2 months the subjects reported a protein intake of 95 grams. But at 12 months it was down to 82 grams. How is this high protein? It’s not even 0.5 grams per pound of bodyweight!

And check out the “Ornish Low fat diet”. At 2 months fat made up 21% of their caloric intake, at 12 months it made up 29.8% of their calories. This is a far cry from the 10% that Dr. Ornish advocates.

Because the subjects had such a hard time sticking to the diet plans, I don’t think that this trial proved that any one diet was better than the other. It did prove that the diet with the lowest carbohydrates had the quickest weight loss. And it did show that diets high in fat can still have health benefits. Most likely, the health benefits are the result of the reduced calories and the associated weight loss as all the diets were associated with health improvements.

Of course, proponents of each diet are all crying foul. They’re complaining about the study design, the subjects, the poor compliance to the diet plans…but most importantly they’re complaining because they make money by selling you their programs!

Its funny…Dr. Ornish said that the study was flawed because most participants couldn’t follow the Ornish diet. That doesn’t make the study flawed - its makes the diet flawed.

And that’s exactly what this study proves…it is very difficult to follow these prescribed diets. These people don’t know you. They don’t know what you like to eat or what you do for a living. They simply design a diet that makes a lot of sense on paper, and prescribe it as a cure all.

The bottom line is…this study still not help end the debate over which diet works best because there IS NO DEBATE. Eating less works! End of story. The rest of it is just people making simple diet advice into confusing pseudo-science so they can sell you their programs.

Eat less, but enjoy the foods you eat. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables, and lots of herbs and spices. And maybe most importantly, spend less time stressing over the types of food you are eating.

BP

How to Shed Body Fat

This time last year I was almost half way through dieting for a bodybuilding contest.

That's right. As embarrassing as it is, I have been on stage, in a pair of glorified speedos, posing for a table full of judges.

You can call it a freak show, you can call it a bikini contest or you can call it pure vanity. I admit, I make fun of these competitions too.

I decided to compete last year to make sure that I could transform my body. After all, I'd be a hypocrite if I wrote in this blog about nutrition and weight loss if I've never actually taken my own body to the extremes of dieting.

And to be honest, it was one of the single best things I have ever done, because I recorded a journal of every single day of my diet.

And now whenever I feel like I need a little motivation and direction, I can simply look back at what worked for me.

I know I say this all the time, but it is worth repeating - A journal is your single best tool for getting in shape. It doesn't have to be super detailed, just a quick outline of how each day is going.

Here is an example of one of my pages...it's mostly chicken scratch that only I can understand..but it tells me exactly what I need to know.





Basically, the yellow highlighted stuff is my workout...and the rest is notes. From this one page I know that I didn't want to go any heavier on dead lifts, that my diet was going well, and that I tried step-ups, but preferred split squats for this particular workout.


It took me about two minutes every day to fill this out. I never did it in the gym..often I filled it in during a break at work, or when I got home that night. But it's proved to be extremely valuable for me.



A couple of months after the contest, I summarized some key notes about the whole experience.

• I had great results using intervals.
• I had great results using a whole body split.
• I had poor results using a bodybuilder type routine.
• I was able to maintain my strength during the whole diet.
• I was able to maintain my activity level during the whole diet.
• Cheat days are a waste. I found no benefit from them at all.
• 1,200 Calories was a little too low for me, but 1,500 to 1,800 worked perfectly.
• I lost almost no muscle during the entire diet.
• Avoiding simple sugars seemed to make a very big difference towards the end of my diet.

Great reminders for whenever I felt I needed to look back at what worked for me. This is why I view keeping a journal as your number one tool for weight loss.

Another great bonus was that during this time I had regular access to a BodPod..a great device for tracking body fat and lean mass changes that is very easy to use and very accurate.

Every Thursday I would take my measurements with the BodPod, and then chart my changes in a spread sheet.

This is the second most important tool for weight loss - measurements.

Now, you don't need a BodPod to track changes - a scale, measuring tape and a digital camera will do just fine. In fact, I used the pictures I took with my digital camera more than I used my Bodpod readings to track my changes.

If you photograph, weigh and measure yourself at the same time every week, this will give you a great way to look back and track any changes that were made.

Once you get in the habit of monitoring your progress by recording a journal and measuring your body, losing weight becomes much easier, because you are no longer guessing at what works and what doesn't work. You can simply look at your records.

BP

PS- for those of you who have been asking about the next installement of the Deconstructing Nutrition Series (Dr. F), it's still coming - I just have a few more articles to read through before it's completed.

Eat Stop Eat

Deconstructing Nutrition – The Thermic Effect of Food

Before I get started let me just say that this was by far the most difficult research project I have done to date.

The amount of misinformation, conflicting results, and misinterpreted data out there on this topic is amazing.

For this reason, I have had to break this topic up into three different parts

PART I

The thermic effect of food is the energy your body requires to digest, absorb and dispose of the nutrients that you eat. It is often abbreviated as TEF and is usually sited by diet gurus and fitness experts as the reasons why you should or shouldn’t eat a certain way.

Through a quick scan of the internet, I found the following claims:

• The more often you eat, the higher your metabolic rate
• Protein increases your metabolism by 40%

So it would make sense that eating multiple small high-protein meals would be the best way to increase your metabolism.

While this theory sounds great, let’s look at what the research has found…

Firstly, the one thing that all the papers I read agreed upon was that the number one factor that affects your TEF is the total amount of calories you eat.

Researchers have calculated TEF to be roughly 10% of your caloric intake.

Therefore, if you eat 1,000 Calories, you raise your metabolism by about 100 Calories and if you eat 10,000 Calories, you will raise your metabolism by about 1,000 Calories.

The majority of the thermic effect occurs in the first hour after eating, but depending on the size of the meal the effect can last from anywhere between 5 and 24 hours. It seems that the thermic effect will last until all the calories from your meals have been metabolized.

This leads us to the theory of eating frequent small meals.

From what I can tell, the idea that food frequency affects the amount of calories you burn is very debatable.

A few papers have found that eating one large meal has a higher thermic effect then many small meals. And a few papers have found that eating several small meals has a larger effect then one large meal. The rest have found no difference.

And to me, this makes the most sense.

If you eat 2,000 Calories, you will have to burn about 200 calories just digesting, absorbing and disposing of the nutrients you have eaten.

It does not matter whether you ate all 2,000 Calories at once, or spread them out through multiple small 500 Calorie meals. The total volume of calories remains the same and therefore so does their effect on your metabolism.

So far, the Thermic effect of food can be best summed up as –

“Eating increases your metabolism”

For the average person, eating around 2,500 Calories a day, the Thermic Effect of Food will increase your metabolism by between 200-300 Calories.

Here’s the kicker - If total calorie content is the best predictor of your TEF, it’s not as if you are going to eat an extra 5000 calories so you can burn an extra 500!

Luckily, there still may be ways to affect your metabolism through the foods you eat. In Part II I will break down the effect the different macronutrients have on your metabolism.

BP

Sweet Misery

Here is a link to a very interesting movie on the history and politics behind Aspartame.

I will warn you ahead of time that the movie is very one-sided, and many of the claims that are made about the dangers of aspartame seem to be greatly exaggerated. However, it is also very eye opening.

Even if the claims are greatly exaggerated, they still describe a very scary political battle that was behind the legalization of what is probably the world's most famous artificial sweetener.

Sweet Misery -1 hour 30 min

PS- By posting this movie I am not verifying or agreeing with its views or opinions. I am condoning it as an educational piece of work for you to assess and to use as a tool to build your opinions on what you choose to eat and what you choose not to eat.

BP

Deconstructing Nutrition - When you don’t eat, your metabolism slows down

When you don’t eat, your metabolism slows down.

This "nutrition fact" says that when your caloric intake is too low, your metabolism actually slows down. It has been referred to as “starvation mode” and is the basis for the current trend of advising people that they should eat every couple of hours, never skip meals, and never cut your calories too low while dieting.

But is it true?

To examine this truth, I decided to look into what happens to a person’s metabolism when they fast for a short period of time (between one and three days).

The first study I reviewed had six healthy male volunteers fast for 3 days. During this fast, the researchers measured the changes in the subject’s metabolism at 12, 18, 24, 20, 42, 54, and 72 hours of fasting. What they found was that there was no significant change in energy expenditure during any of the 7 time points. So from this study we can say that a 3 day fast in men does not cause a decrease in metabolism.

Already this evidence goes against the idea that if we don't eat every couple hours our metabolism will slow down.

The second study I reviewed had 8 men and 8 women fast every other day for 22 days straight. There was no significant change in the subject’s metabolism from the start to the end of the study. From this study, we can say that fasting every other day for a period of 22 days results in no significant changes to a person’s metabolism.

So we now know that even if we eat sporadically for 22 days, most likely our metabolism won't be affected.

The third study I reviewed had 8 men fast for either 12 hours or 72 hours and then eat a meal. After the meal their metabolisms were measured for 12 hours. This study found that regardless of whether or not the men fasted for 12 hours or 72 hours, their metabolism for 12 hours after eating a meal was not significantly different. So this study shows us that a short term fast doesn’t affect your metabolism after you eat.

So even if we don't eat for 3 days, there is absolutely no change in the way eating effects our metabolism.

So from the research I was able to review, it doesn’t seem like short periods of fasting cause any negative effects on our metabolism. Nor does it affect our metabolism once we start eating again.

Since having absolutely no calories for a short period of time does not effect our metabolism, I feel safe in saying that the idea that you need to eat every couple hours in order to keep your metabolism “revving” is actually a nutrition myth and not a fact at all. Also, the phenomena of a “starvation mode” does not happen until after at least 3 days of fasting, if it actually even exists.

BP

PS- For those of you who are interested, I will post my references in the comments section.

Eat Stop Eat

Forget about Cheat Days

Back in July and August, I spent a fair amount of my time up in Northern Ontario Cottage country.

The cottage is a great place to hide out and get some reading and writing done, but sometimes it can be a horrible place to try and 'eat clean'. It's very easy to rationalize a couple bad days at the cottage as "cheat days".

For some reason, body building magazines and fitness "gurus" love to promote the idea of cheat days.

It is more than common for a dieting bodybuilder to spend 6 days out of a week eating as little as 1200 Calories per day, and then on the seventh day eat close to 10,000 Calories!

People rationalize being a complete glutton for one day with excuses like "reloading" and "refueling".

These types of excuses are based on what I like to call fitness magazine science.

Fitness magazine science is all of the theories that appear in fitness magazines that have no scientific backing. Take for instance the idea that you can't store the excess calories from cheat days. This is rationalized by stating that your metabolism increases because of the massive amount of foods that you just consumed, and therefore you burn off all the extra energy.

A perfect example of a theory with no scientific backing.

But here is the real deal, and its plain and simple math. If your target calorie intake is a 500 Calorie deficit, and you lower your intake from 2,500 calories to 2,000 calories, then you have created a 3,000 Calorie deficit over six days.

Now on the seventh day, if you gorge yourself and eat yourself into the 6,000 Calorie range (which is hard, but definitely not impossible to do), you have just undone almost all the dieting you did during the week. There is no magic that makes those calories disappear.

Your body is amazing at storing energy. Sure, you lose a little to heat production and some ramped up metabolic processes, but at the end of the day the practice of cheat days is destructive. Like I said in my previous post on metabolism, the effect that food has on your metabolism is actually very small.

The idea that your body can't store all of these calories, or that somehow these extra calories don't turn into fat is a myth and a lie that will never die. It’s OK to reward yourself with ice cream every now and then, but full out cheat days with the soul purpose of gorging yourself should be avoided, plain and simple.

BP

Metabolism Myths

For the longest time I believed that if you dieted to strictly your metabolism would slow to a crawl. This was Bodybuilding dieting gospel.

Skip breakfast? Now you've slowed your metabolism down for the entire day. No way you’re burning any fat now!

Turns out, your metabolism is not that complicated. The idea that you have to keep your metabolic furnace stoked with food is a complete myth. Just another example of "experts" trying to make nutrition more complicated then it needs to be.

The portion of your metabolism that is affected by what you eat is very small. The largest part of your metabolic rate is set by your body weight. If you weigh more your metabolism is higher (especially if it's muscle), if you lose weight, your metabolism will go down.

The foods you eat effect your metabolism by something called "the thermic effect of food", which is the energy it takes your body to process the food you eat for storage or use, but again this is very small compared to the amount of energy it takes just to "run" your body.

It makes no difference metabolically whether you eat many small meals or one large meal. What does make a difference is the make up of these meals. Protein, carbs, fats and different ratios of each all have very small effects on the "thermic effect of food" which then has a very small effect on your metabolism.

Bottom line- It's still very important to eat "lean and green" and there are definite benefits to eating smaller meals throughout the day. But if you are looking to your diet as a way to control your metabolism, you're missing the boat.

The best way to increase your metabolism is with exercise. Other than drastic changes in bodyweight, this is the one way you can control your metabolism. Effective weight loss programs like Craig Ballantyne's Turbulence Training program or the ShapeShift program over at grrlAthlete.com are examples of good workout programs that can increase your metabolism.

Remember, if you miss a meal or cut your calories a little too low it doesn't mean you've shut down your metabolism. Your diet is still incredibly important in the fat loss process - (In my opinion it's even more important than your workouts), It’s just not the main regulator of your metabolic rate.

BP

Fasting for Weight Loss , Circuit Training for Women