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

In the most basic sense, metabolism means all of the physical and chemical changes that take place within the body's cells. Most often, however, metabolism refers to the process in which the body gets and uses energy from what we eat, so it really does play an important function in weight loss and gain.

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

In spit of all of the wild cards, the fact is that if your calorie intake surpasses your metabolism, excess energy will get stored in the body as fat. Though many of the aspects affecting metabolic rate can't be altered, thankfully, there are ways to rev up the metabolism you are born with.

The first rule is to take in the correct foods in the right amounts. When you miss a meal, your body switches to starvation mode, which slows metabolism to keep calories, because it doesn't know when it will get to eat again. And when the metabolism slows, so does your weight loss.

When you finally do eat food after skipping a meal, instead of burning the calories in the food you have just taken in, your body transfers them to body fat to store for the next "fast." To keep your metabolism efficient, eat 4 - 6 small 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 routines 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 improves metabolism and burns more calories in the long term - even when you are resting, muscle requires more calories to function than fat.

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

This is partially why it's nearly always easiest to drop weight when you start dieting, and becomes challenging as you go along because, when you are significantly overweight, your metabolism is already at an elevated rate, so that even a minor reduction in calories will yield an immediate weight loss.

But what happens after that immediate loss, when a plateau occurs and motivation seems to go by the "weigh" side? Old cravings and compulsions can swiftly come back, and when they do, do not neglect a valuable resource - weight loss hypnotherapy. Hypnotherapy can actually retrain your unconscious mind so that, in essence, you can get rid of food cravings. When we examine why we snack, realizing why weight loss hypnosis works so successfully becomes clear.

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

One of the most successful lose weight hypnosis methods for curbing the snacking cycle is Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP, which relies on negotiating with the unconscious mind and getting it to 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 quickly and seem almost magical to a person who has always experienced cravings.

NLP can be equally as important as exercise and motivation because, as you read above, it can help ensure that you eat the correct kinds of foods at the right times, and this is a main part of turbo-charging your metabolism. If you want to keep your metabolism at full speed and ensure that all of hard work and exercise aren't 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.