Whether you are trying to lose a few extra pounds, or building a sculpted body; you will need every available technique in your arsenal when you begin to fight f-a-t. If you are only using one or two tactics you may get there eventually, but you will have a long uphill battle.

Are you ready to fire up your fat burning capabilities? The basics of metabolism has everything to do with fat burning. It is the biochemical processes that take place in the body; the breakdown of nutrients in the blood after digestion, resulting in growth of new tissue, more energy, and the release of wastes.

You have billions of cells- nerve cells, muscle cells, fat cells, blood cells, and all kinds of cells. These cells burn up a lot of energy as they get their job done in a well metabolized body, but a person whose metabolism runs slow, a lot of excess fat will be stored because not enough energy is burned up. The good news is that the metabolism furnace can be turned up substantially. There are several things which affect the metabolism such as exercise, the digestion of foods, body temperature, and hormone activity. Here are seven of the easiest ways to burn fat faster.

1. The food you eat. There are several foods that actually burn fat faster than others. Spices is one food that can help you burn more calories by triggering a thermodynamic burn that can last several hours after eating.

2. The time you eat. The best time to eat the largest portion of the foods you eat for the day is before two o'clock. Make sure you never skip a meal, especially breakfast. The process of eating actually starts your burner blasting. Do not skip breakfast, and wait until mid-day to eat because if you do your metabolism will run slower all day. That means you are burning less fat, which is not what you are aiming for. You want to burn fat faster, not slower.

3. The amount of food. If you deprive yourself of food, your body goes into a survival mode and slows itself down to prepare for a possible famine. That means that fad diets are definitely out if you want to burn fat faster. But on the other hand, if you eat more calories than your body uses throughout the day, these additional calories will be stored as fat. Therefore, the secret is moderation. Try eating three small meals and two small snacks daily. It's like throwing another log on the fire whenever you eat, but remember- small amounts of food at a time. If you have too much food in the stomach at any one time, it will slow the fat burn down, totally defeating the purpose.

4. To prevent build up of fat you need to increase your daily activities. The muscles are where all the calories are burned during exercise, and the more efficient the muscles are at burning fat - the quicker weight loss can be achieved. To be an efficient fat burner you need to increase your muscle mass. The timing and various types of exercise also contribute to a turbo metabolism. When you perform any kind of activity your body burns fat and glucose. The good thing is that you do not need to exercise hard to burn fat. It's a good habit to begin exercising every morning. Do as much as you can until you reach an entire hour each day, five or six days a week.

5. Do your strength training before doing any cardiovascular work. It takes the body about 15 minutes to warm up and start burning fat. For example, if you are jogging for 45 minutes, you will only be burning fat for the last 30 minutes of your workout. Instead, try lifting weights for the first 15 minutes, which gives your body the time it needs to warm up. By the time you hit the road, you will be burning fat during the entire jogging session. PLUS - you will have built muscle too!

6. Do not do the exact same workout every day. Your body will start to get used to that exercise, and eventually it will stop burning fat calories. So if you jog one day, try a different activity the next day. Keep rotating the exercises, that way your body will stay at an optimal fat burning state. The best way to burn fat is to work out as hard as you can for as long as you can. But if you are just beginning a program, try varying the intensity from fast, to normal, to fast, to normal. This will help to build endurance, and eventually, you will be able to extend the high intensity periods until your entire workout is done at an ultimate fat burning speed. The fat burning equation is simple. The more muscle tone you have, the more calories you will burn even when you are not active.

7. Inhaling and exhaling through your nose, rather than your mouth also helps to stabilize your heart rate, and increase your endurance. Of course you know this means turbo charged fat burning.

With these seven tips, you should be well on your way to burning fat at an optimal level. If you stick with these techniques, and make them a part of your day - your body will amaze you in a few weeks.