by Justin Mullin

Created on: October 07, 2008   Last Updated: October 15, 2008

Eat clean. Eat often. Stay active. Following these three principles can have drastic effects on weight loss. Stoke up your metabolism and learn the secrets thin people use to stay that way. The good news is that anyone can raise their metabolic rate by following a few simple rules.

Rule number one: eat clean. Clean eating can be summarized as eating whole natural foods, which encompass proteins, complex carbohydrates, healthy fats, fruits and vegetables. All junk-food has to be avoided. . These include man-made sugar, bad fats (hydrogenated, trans-fat), white bread, preservatives and any other ingredients that are needless.

Those that eat clean generally cook and pack their own meals. Clean eating also requires: eliminating refined sugar, always eating breakfast, making healthy choices when dining out and drinking alcohol minimally.

If you cannot or wish not to follow the clean eating way completely, do not be discouraged. Adopting even some of these tips will work extremely well for melting fat pounds. Of course following all of the components will yield the greatest results- but if you can only eliminate refined sugar, always eat breakfast and reduce processed foods- the results will still be significant.

Rule number two: Eat often. Eat four to 6 meals a day or every 2 to 3 hours. Thin people have fast metabolisms and a proven way to raise yours is to eat the right foods often. That sounds crazy, right? Cutting calories make more sense for losing weight? The answer is NO.

Here is why cutting calories does not work. From an evolutionary perspective, your brain is hard-wired to keep you alive. If you reduce the amount of calories that you are eating from 2,800 to 2,000 a day, you would die eventually because your body has to burn itself for energy to make up the difference. Our bodies have a system in place to stop this from happening; it will self-limit or lower its metabolism and change from burning 2,800 calories a day to 2,000 a day.

Start your day by eating breakfast. Your metabolism is at its slowest while asleep and will continue at that rate until you eat. To further exacerbate the situation, not eating breakfast sends a "famine" signal to the body causing your metabolism to remain slow in order to conserve calories- making everything else you eat that day more likely to be stored as fat.

Why do thin people always seem to be eating and not gaining weight? Every time that you eat something your metabolism "revs" up to digest the food converting it into usable energy. More meals equal more spikes in metabolism, which will burn food more quickly.

The trick is to eat 4 to 6 smaller meals, not 3 or more huge ones. If you cannot, try eating healthy snacks in between the "3 squares." Just a word to the wise, of the three macro-nutrients (proteins, fats and carbohydrates), protein takes the most energy to digest preventing its likelihood of being stored as fat.

Rule number three: Stay active. This translates into some type of exercise. You may see how much thin people eat, but sometimes what you do not see is the exercise they partake in to further elevate their metabolisms. Your metabolism is directly related to the intensity of the exercise you perform. The one form of exercise that has the ability to burn calories at a higher rate for 24 hours is weight training. It is the clear winner for boosting metabolism over the longest period of time.

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