So the other day my godmother, Jennifer had the BEST analogy.

First off, she’s super savvy when it comes to diet/health in general so I really respect her opinion.

Ok, so she said “your metabolism is like a fire, if you don’t add wood it dies down.”

Uhhhhhhhh wowowow.

So simple but so good, right?

Here’s the deal: I’m constantly running around like a bat-shit psycho so in the past I’d sometimes completely forget to eat for hours.

But ew, not anymore.

Lately I’ve been eating every couple hours ( mostly small snacks ) to keep my metabolism at its prime.

First I did my research by Googling her simple saying & shocker (!!!!) this lil gem popped up: “imagine you live in a home that is heated by a wood stove. Now imagine there is a pile of newspapers, a pile of twigs and a pile of logs near the stove. You wake up early in the morning and it is very cold. You look over at the heavy logs and think to yourself “too much work”, so you build a fire out of newspapers and twigs. The fire roars, the heat spreads and fills the room and you sit back basking in the heat. However, the fire is very short-lived, it burns out within a few minutes and you find yourself “feeding” it again. Still too lazy to put a log on the fire, you again burn twigs and newspapers. You repeat this process over and over until all the newspapers and twigs are gone. Now you have no choice, you go over to the pile of logs, select one and place it in the stove. However, it is very hard to ignite since you no longer have any kindling to start it. The log just sits in the stove. You sit in the cold, thinking that maybe you should have burned the log sooner. Therefore, it is very important to “put a log on the metabolic fire” at every meal. What is the “metabolic log”? Protein and fat are the metabolic logs of your diet. They are slow burning fuels. They will smooth out the roller coaster ride of rising and crashing blood sugars that a person eating a high carbohydrate diet experiences.” 

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

In my case I like starting the day with a sunny side up egg or two with a side of avocado & a low carb piece of sprouted grain toast ( lately I die over this brand’s bread ). I also like to add a little Ghee or real butter to the toast & drink a cup of tropical green tea. ( Side: instead of ketchup on eggs I use Himalayan pink salt & tons of chili flakes for spice ). 

This sets the tone of my day.

Then every couple hours I’ll add a metabolic log to my metabolic fire.

Make sense?

Some smart “logs” to add to your “fire?”

Whelp, my preferences include: berries, super green-y green juice, tuna fish, sashimi, eggs, smoked salmon, a smoothie, organic turkey cold cuts with country mustard, real ( like, real, real ) hummus, a tangerine, apple, banana, almonds, raw almond butter, &/or spaghetti squash.

The point is that not eating all day & then having a huge-ass dinner doesn’t cut it…like, at all. Actually it’s hurting your metabolism. Not eating enough slows the metabolism & screws with hormones. So pretty much you can’t change your metabolism ( boo ) but you can improve it ( yay ).

Don’t believe me?

According to this source ( & many others ) “when the body feels like it is being starved, it will go into ‘ration mode’ and conserve its excess fat for as long as possible. This is helpful if you are, in fact, starving, but not if you are trying to lose weight. The body’s metabolic rate is decreasing to conserve energy. If you really hope to burn off excess fat, you want your metabolism running in high gear!”

So basically…eat more frequently ; ).

Other ways to fire up your metabolism: eat whole/clean foods, exercise regularly ( duh ), & drink a lot ( a lot, a lot ) of water.

Burn, baby, burn…x Lauryn

{ Coconut milk mango candle here }