We've all heard it or even said it one time or another: "I can't lose weight because of my metabolism." It's convenient to blame our extra pounds on an abstract idea like metabolism, but let's learn about the real importance of metabolism - and better yet, how you can get the most "burn" for your buck by recharging your metabolism.

In the most fundamental sense, metabolism encompasses each of the physical and chemical changes that happen inside the body's cells. Most often, though, metabolism refers to the manner in which the body gets and uses energy from food, so it really does have an important role in weight gain and loss.

Not everyone is given the same metabolism, and our rates actually fluctuate during our lives, so someone who blames their metabolism isn't necessarily making excuses. Age affects metabolism, which will slow about 5% every 10 years after we turn 40, and by sex, as males have a tendency to burn more calories at rest than females, and by the amount of muscle mass you have (more muscle generally means a higher rate of metabolism). Family history also influences metabolism, not to mention pregnancy, as well as whether a woman chooses to breast-feed.

Regardless of all of the wild cards, the simple fact is that if your calorie intake exceeds your metabolism, surplus energy will get housed in the body as fat. Though some of the aspects affecting metabolic rate can't be altered, thankfully, there are ways to rev up the metabolism you're born with.

The first rule is to take in the correct foods in the correct amounts. When you miss a meal, your body turns on starvation mode, which slows metabolism to preserve calories, because it does not know when it will get food again. And when the metabolism slows, so does your weight loss.

When you finally do get food after skipping a meal, instead of burning the calories in the food you have just had, your body converts them to body fat to hold for the next "fast." To keep your metabolism efficient, eat 4 - 6 smaller meals over the course of the day and aim to eat close to the same times every day. Most importantly, never skip a meal.

You can also step up your metabolic rate with exercise, including both aerobic workouts and weight lifting. Aerobic activities, such as biking, dancing and running, burn more calories in the short term, while weight lifting will build more muscle, which boosts metabolism and burns more calories in the long term - even when you're resting, muscle uses more calories to function than fat.

In fact, every pound of muscle requires 35 calories per day, while every pound of fat requires just 2 calories per day. Despite this, you might be surprised that the more weight you posses, the faster your metabolism is likely to run. Simply put, the extra weight forces your body work harder to maintain its processes.

This is partially why it is almost always easiest to drop weight when you begin dieting, and gets harder as you continue because, when you are significantly overweight, your metabolism is already at a high rate, so that even a slight decrease in calories will bring about an immediate weight loss.

But what happens after that immediate loss, when a plateau occurs and motivation seems to go by the "weigh" side? Persistent cravings and compulsions can quickly come back, and when they do, don't ignore a valuable resource - lose weight hypnosis. Hypnotherapy can actually retrain your unconscious so that, in essence, you can eliminate food cravings. When we look at why we snack, understanding why weight loss hypnosis works so successfully becomes evident.

For many of people, snacking has become a habit - maybe you do it unconsciously when you're driving or watching TV or when you are under stress. Hypnosis can actually reprogram your thoughts to break those associations, leaving you to watch TV or drive without feeling the need to eat.

One of the most successful lose weight hypnosis techniques for curbing the snacking cycle is Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP, which relies on negotiating with the unconscious mind and making it use the same thought processes that are creating your appetite, to eliminate your appetite. NLP requires many years of study and practical experience for a hypnotherapist to learn and master, but positive results can come very rapidly and seem almost magical to a person who has always struggled with cravings.

NLP can be just as imperative as motivation and exercise because, as you learned above, it can help ensure that you eat the proper kinds of foods at the right times, and this is a chief aspect of turbo-charging your metabolism. If you wish to keep your metabolism at full speed and ensure that all of hard work and exercise are not being wasted by surrendering to your food temptations, weight loss hypnosis and NLP can be a secret weapon to eliminate your cravings once and for all.