Healthy Tip of the Week:   

 Increase Your Metabolism by Knowing What Is Slowing It Down

By Elizabeth Narins 

 Every cell in your body plays a role in energy metabolism - the process of turning the food you eat into energy that keeps your heart beating, lungs pumping, and muscles moving. The faster your metabolism, the more calories you burn. And just like there are ways to speed it up - by workout out, for instance - certain habits can hit the brakes on your natural calorie-churning engine.  

1. A Weird Eating Schedule: Researchers suspect that eating at the same times every day trains the body to burn more calories between meals.  

The Fix: Learn the best times to eat and stick with them.  

2. Pesticides in Produce: Organochlorides (chemicals in pesticides) can interfere with your body's energy-burning process and make it harder to lose weight. Researchers found that dieters who ate the most toxins experienced a greater-than-normal dip in metabolism and had a harder time losing weight.  

The Fix: Splurge for the organic versions of fruits and veggies.  

3. Skimping on Sleep: People who sleep less move less the next day, which means they burn fewer calories. But it gets worse: sleep deprivation actually reduces the amount of energy your body uses at rest.  

The Fix: Make getting a good nights sleep a major priority.  

4. Eating too Little: When you skimp on calories, your body switches into starvation mode, slowing your metabolic rate to conserve the fuel it's got.  

The Fix: Find out how many calories you actually need every day - and make sure you get them.  

5. Sitting too Long: It takes only 20 minutes in any fixed position to inhibit your metabolism.  

The Fix: Get up and move around once an hour.  

6. Jet Lag: Your internal clock directly controls the part of your cells that keeps your metabolism chugging along. But when you disrupt your so-called circadian rhythm - by crossing time zones, for instance - your cells don't function by the way they should and your metabolism suffers.  

The Fix: Try to keep to your internal clock, even when traveling. Or if you are going to making a large jump in a time zone, start preparing for it before you go.  

7. Not Getting Enough Calcium: Another reason to drink you milk! Calcium plays a key role in regulating your fat metabolism, which determines whether you burn calories or store them as fat. A diet that's high in calcium could help you burn more fat.  

The Fix: Load up on calcium rich foods.  

8. Dehydration: All of your body's cellular processes, including metabolism, depend on water. If you're dehydrated, you could burn up to 2 percent fewer calories.  

The Fix: Drink 8 - 8 ounce glasses of water a day.  

9. Skipping Breakfast: When you miss breakfast, you don't just set yourself up to overeat at lunch. You actually tell your body to conserve energy - which means it burns calories more slowly.  

The Fix: Become a daily breakfast person. 

Source: http://www.womenshealthmag.com/weight-loss/increase-metabolism?cm_sp=Hotlist-_-WeightLoss-_-10ThingsThatSlowYourMetabolism