How to Burn More Calories While Sleeping

Don't you wish you could burn calories at a faster rate even in your sleep? The good news is you can, if you follow a few simple tips. Burning more calories while sleeping can help you maintain a healthy weight. The trick is to increase your body's metabolism throughout the day; then at night when you're resting your body will continue to burn calories at a faster rate. Below are some tips to help you burn more calories during sleep and keep your body's metabolism elevated.

1. Eat Small Frequent Meals

An easy way to increase your metabolism and burn more calories at night is to eat small frequent meals throughout the day. Believe it or not your body burns calories while digesting food, but your metabolism slows down when you're hungry and don't eat. Eating small meals or snacks every few hours will not only increase your metabolism but will keep your appetite up as well. A good rule of thumb is to try to eat a meal or snack every 3 to 4 hours. Remember to keep your meals small, don't overeat, and only eat when you're hungry. Try to keep your fat intake less than 30% of your total calories, limit sugar and saturated fat, and eat plenty of high-fiber foods such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

2. Don't Go to Bed Hungry

When you're hungry and don't eat, your body automatically goes into starvation mode by lowering your metabolism to conserve calories. Eating a snack before bed if you're hungry is fine, but make sure you're making healthy food choices. A high-fat snack before bed isn't the best choice, while a piece of fruit or high-fiber cereal with skim milk won't add extra calories. Of course if you don't feel hungry, skip the bed time snack.

3. Don't Skip Meals

Every time you skip a meal, your metabolism will start to slow down to conserve calories. To prevent that from happening, don't skip meals and when you start to feel hungry eat at least a snack to keep your metabolism going strong. A high metabolism during the day means you'll also burn more calories while sleeping.

4. Get Regular Exercise

Regular exercise will not only help you burn more calories during your workouts, but will keep your metabolism high throughout the day and at night as well. It's important to include both cardiovascular and resistance exercises in your workout program. Cardiovascular exercise will help you burn more calories during your workout while resistance training will help you burn extra calories throughout the day (and at night).

5. Increase Muscle; Decrease Fat

Muscle burns more calories than fat, even when you're at rest. People who have a high percentage of lean body mass will burn more calories while sleeping. The easiest way to increase lean muscle tissue and decrease body fat is to perform resistance training exercises a few days per week. Examples of resistance exercises include: squats, lunges, push-ups, sit-ups, bicep curls, triceps extensions, dead lifts, and lateral shoulder raises. Pilates exercises are also great for resistance training, keeping your body toned, and increasing your metabolism.

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