One you first start watching what you eat, the weight starts coming off easily. Then after a few weeks, the scale stops moving downward and you hit a plateau. Whats happening? Your metabolism is slowing down.

As you eat less to lose weight, your body goes into survival mode and your metabolism slows down. A slowed down metabolism means you are burning less calories. Yikes! Not exactly what you were trying to accomplish, right. After all the idea behing losing weight is to burn more calories to get rid of all that unwanted body fat.

Lets talk a bout some simple things you can start doing every day to speed your metabolism up. One of the first things you should do is to get some exercise. Any type of exercise that gets your heart rate up will also speeds up your metabolism not only while you exercise, but for hours afterwards. Find something you enjoy and can stick with for the long run. Go for a walk, chase your kids around the yard, get an exercise DVD, or join a local gym. Aim for 30 minutes of exercise 5 days a week.

The other strategy that seems to work really well for me in combination with walking every day is to eat several small meals throughout the day. My body doesn't feel starved so my metabolism doesn't slow down. This works best if you include some sort of protein with each meal. Lean meats, hardboiled eggs, protein shakes and lowfat cottage cheese are all great sources of protein. Combine them with some whole grain products or a piece of fruit for a small meal or snack.

Give these strategies a try and speed up your metabolism. Youll lose weight faster and youll feel better with all this extra energy. Once you get in the habit of exercising and eating smaller, more frequent meals, it will become easy to stick with and the benefit is obvious. You feel better and have a smaller waistline.