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" If only it were an urban legend instead of a proven fact: &amp;quot;Women burn about 300 fewer calories per day at age 35 than at age 25,&amp;quot; says Pamela Peeke, M.D., author of Body for Life for Women.  &amp;quot;And our metabolisms continue to slow about 5 percent every 10 years.&amp;quot; The good news: You can increase your metabolism by a couple of percentage points, Peeke says. These commandments, all from leading calorie researchers, will give you the jump start you need.   1. Eat when you wake up. It&amp;#039;s the most important thing you can do to burn calories faster. When experts from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center surveyed about 3,000 men and women who had lost 30 pounds or more and had kept the weight off for at least a year, they found that breakfast was the one common denominator all the successful dieters shared. &amp;quot;Your metabolism slows while you sleep, and the process of digesting food in the morning revs it up again,&amp;quot; says Christine Gerbstadt, M.D., a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association in Altoona, Pennsylvania. The sooner you eat after waking up, the better. So if you exercise in the a.m., have a banana preworkout and then eat the rest of your breakfast afterward. Coffee alone won&amp;#039;t do it; try oatmeal with fruit or a hard-boiled egg and half a bagel. 2. Build your muscles. Eight -- yes, eight -- studies have found that overweight women who followed the Curves 30-minute exercise program burned up to 400 more calories a day than overweight women who exercised but didn&amp;#039;t use the regimen. The reason: Besides cardio, the women were lifting weights, which builds muscle and boosts metabolism. Try this similar program, from Wayne Westcott, Ph.D., fitness director of the South Shore YMCA in Quincy, Massachusetts, at home.   Jog in place (30 seconds).   Lunges (1 minute). Stand with feet hip-width apart, hands on hips. Take a large step forward with your right foot. Bend both knees until your right thigh is parallel to the floor (keep your right knee even with your ankle) and your left thigh is perpendicular to the floor. Hold for one count, return to standing. Switch sides. Aim for 15 reps.   Hit your stairs or jog in place (30 seconds).    Push-ups (1 minute). Try to complete 10.    Jump rope or jog in place (30 seconds).    Squats (1 minute). Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, arms at your sides. Slowly bend your knees, keeping them directly above your ankles, and push your butt out, until your thighs are parallel to the ground. Hold for three seconds, return to standing. Aim for 15 to 20 reps.    Jumping jacks (30 seconds).    Biceps curls (1 minute). Holding light weights, rest your hands on your thighs, palms facing forward. Keeping elbows stable, raise dumbbells toward shoulders. Lower slowly. Try to do 15 to 20 reps.    Jog in place (30 seconds).    Step-ups (1 minute). Place one foot on the bottom step of a staircase. Lift your back leg so that your knee is in front of your belly button. Return to starting position and quickly repeat for 30 seconds. Switch legs.    Jumping jacks (30 seconds).    Crunches (1 minute). Try to do 20.    Repeat routine twice. 3. Keep on moving. When you slice your daily exercise into two sessions -- for instance, lift weights for 15 minutes in the morning and then take your 20-minute power-walk after dinner -- you&amp;#039;ll elevate your metabolism twice, which means you&amp;#039;ll burn more calories than if you&amp;#039;d exercised all at once, Peeke says. Too busy to schedule two sessions? For five minutes of every hour, get up and do something, even if it&amp;#039;s just taking a walk around your office, jogging up and down your stairs or jumping rope with your kids. You&amp;#039;ll get the same benefits. The key: Don&amp;#039;t let your metabolism think it can rest for one second!  4. Have your sandwich on whole-grain bread. A new Harvard study reveals it&amp;#039;s not how many carbs you eat, but what type you eat that most affects your metabolism-burning prowess. Dieters who followed a weight-loss plan based on the glycemic index -- meaning they filled up on healthy, unprocessed carbs like fruits, veggies and whole grains instead of starchy, processed carbs (think packaged baked goods, white rice) -- burned about 80 more calories a day than those who didn&amp;#039;t. The reason: Less-processed foods tend to have less sugar, so levels of insulin, a fat storage hormone, remain steady. Sugary processed foods, on the other hand, trigger a spike in insulin, which cues your body to hold onto fat.  5. Drink water at lunch. And drink it before and after lunch, too. Being dehydrated decreases your body&amp;#039;s ability to burn calories by two percent each day, according to research from the University of Utah. &amp;quot;I see a lot of women who don&amp;#039;t get enough water without even realizing it -- your thirst mechanism often doesn&amp;#039;t kick in until you&amp;#039;re already dehydrated,&amp;quot; says Gerbstadt. Check your urine: If it&amp;#039;s dark yellow instead of light yellow or clear, that&amp;#039;s a sign you&amp;#039;re not drinking enough. To stay at maximum calorie-burning potential, drink at least eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day, and limit caffeinated drinks like soda, coffee or tea. Your body only absorbs about half of the liquid in them, as opposed to two-thirds of water. 6. Try five minutes of nothing.  When researchers from Oregon Health Sciences University checked in 18 months later on overweight women who had taken up relaxation techniques, they found that the women had each lost about 10 pounds -- without trying. One theory: Since these women were less stressed, they weren&amp;#039;t flooding their body with stress hormones, which are known to increase appetite. To tap into your own weight-loss Zen, sit on the floor with your eyes shut and breathe deeply for five minutes each day. Ahhhh.  7. Drink milk with your kids. In a University of Tennessee study, women who ate three cups of low-fat yogurt a day lost 60 percent more body fat than women who didn&amp;#039;t down dairy. The magic ingredient? Calcium, which appears to act as a switch, telling your body to burn fat faster, says study author Michael Zemel, Ph.D. The calcium in dairy is the best fat-burner, Zemel adds, but the calcium in fortified OJ and cereal, greens and tofu helps, too. Your goal: Eat at least 1,200 milligrams (mg) of calcium a day. Smart picks: a cup of low-fat yogurt (400 mg), a cup of skim milk (300 mg), a slice of cheese (200 mg), a cup of calcium-fortified OJ (300 mg) and a cup of broccoli (90 mg).  8. Just go to bed. The next time you&amp;#039;re tempted to stay up late to watch TV or pay one more bill online, be forewarned: Sleep loss may lead to weight gain. A recent study from Stanford University found that people who routinely slept only five or six hours a night were six to eight pounds heavier than those who got seven to eight hours of shut-eye. &amp;quot;When you&amp;#039;re sleep deprived, your body produces more stress hormones, which slows your metabolism and increases production of hormones that affect your appetite,&amp;quot; says Christiane Northrup, M.D., an ob/gyn in Yarmouth, Maine, and author of Women&amp;#039;s Bodies, Women&amp;#039;s Wisdom. Don&amp;#039;t beat yourself up if you can&amp;#039;t get a full eight hours of slumber every night. But if you have to be up at 7am, try to crawl into bed as close to 11pm as possible. And give yourself 30 minutes before bed to wind down. No TV allowed; read or take a warm bath instead.  Aim to eat about 40 percent carbs, 30 percent protein and 30 percent fat each day, says New York City-based nutritionist Carol Helderstein, Ph.D. This 1,600-calorie plan has more carbs than a high-protein diet, but it still has plenty of protein, which elevates metabolism by maintaining muscle mass. It&amp;#039;s okay if you can&amp;#039;t eat this healthy all the time. Just striving for it can motivate you to make smart food choices.  Breakfast Omelet made with one yolk and four whites, with unlimited vegetables such as spinach, tomatoes and onions.  Mid-Morning Snack Apple and two individually wrapped wedges of Laughing Cow cheese.  Lunch Four ounces sliced chicken breast tossed with salad greens and unlimited veggies, drizzled lightly with olive oil and vinegar.  Midafternoon snack An orange, a handful of almonds and a cup of low-fat yogurt.  Dinner Five ounces grilled salmon with a side of saut\u00E9ed vegetables and a baked sweet potato.  Dessert  A cup of berries with whipped cream.   Skip This Scam You&amp;#039;ve seen them advertised on the Internet and TV: super-multivitamins that claim to increase your metabolism because they&amp;#039;re chock-full of B vitamins. But these supplements aren&amp;#039;t worth it, says Gerbstadt. &amp;quot;Sure, if you&amp;#039;re vitamin B deficient, your metabolism will slow down, but you can get plenty from a standard multi and foods like chicken and yogurt. &amp;quot; And getting more than your body needs won&amp;#039;t speed up your metabolism. In fact, downing too much vitamin B2 can cause liver damage and rashes. From RealAge.com: How many calories should you eat? Find out here. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/body/health-fitness/advice/a133/burn-calories-yl/>