I heard that when you diet your metabolism goes down because your body is slightly starving. How do you make it go back up after dieting? And how do you not exercise as often or as hardcore and eat normal and not gain weight without being on a permanent diet?

Unless you drastically restrict calories for a very long period of time, no permanent damage is done to your metabolism. I challenge anyone to dig up a study to prove otherwise.

That said, get a post-diet sluggish metabolism back on track while increasing calories, you should slowly add calories into your diet over the course of a few weeks, while INCREASING your exercise levels. Keep an eye on the scale and on your measurements.

The idea is to keep increasing calories while staying at the same weight. You will be increasing the rate of tissue turnover (read:metabolism) through all the exercise, while getting your body accustomed to a much higher food intake. After you have maxed out your exercise (6-8 hours a week), cut back on the exercise and your food intake just a bit, and then just monitor your progress to make sure you are not gaining or losing weight.

This is also a good strategy to use for a couple of weeks BEFORE going on a fat loss diet to get your metabolism really revved up before you reduce calories.

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