While you hear about miracle fat burning foods, they’re a bit of a myth. If all you had to do was eat a bowl of kale or two stalks of celery, obesity wouldn’t be at epidemic proportion. However, there are foods that do boost your metabolism. These are thermogenic foods. They’re lower in calories and use most of the calories you consume to help digest and utilize the nutrients in the food. Celery, for example, has a lot of fiber and water, but very few calories, so digesting it burns off more than you consume.
You’ll be hot, hot, hot when you burn calories with capsaicin.
Capsaicin is what makes peppers hot. It’s located in the pith and ribs in the peppers. While that heat from the pepper will burn your eyes and skin, it also burns your fat by speeding up your metabolism. The increased thermogenesis means an increase in fat and calorie burning. If that weren’t enough, it regulates blood sugar, has anti-inflammatory effects to relieve pain, clears out the sinuses and triggers genes that prevents fat accumulation.
Have a cup of Joe.
That cup of coffee in the morning not only wakes you up, it also can boost your metabolism to help you lose weight, as long as it’s not filled with sugary flavors and whipped topping. It’s the caffeine that makes it effective. You’ll get a similar boost by starting your day with a cold glass of water that contains a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar—ACV. The cold water makes you body work to warm it and the ACV will keep you feeling full for hours.
Green tea has benefits for weight loss as well as health benefits.
The EGCG—a type of catechin—in the green tea, acts like an antioxidant an increases fat oxidation by as much as 25 percent. Green tea also contains caffeine, which boosts your metabolism just like coffee does. One study showed that combining six or seven cup of green tea with a program of exercise helped weight loss, while also flushing out toxins from the system, reducing tooth decay, and reducing the risk of serious conditions like Alzheimer’s, cancer and Parkinson disease.
- Food that contains fiber is also beneficial to weight loss. While it leaves you feeling full, it also makes your body work harder to digest the fiber.
- Sometimes, things you might otherwise throw out is what is actually the best for you. Use the bones from animal products to create bone broth that provides protein, collagen and boosts your metabolism. Grass fed beef bones and free range chicken bones are best.
- Using medium-chain fatty acids like coconut oil has fat burning benefits that can help you lose weight. High protein foods like meat are also high thermogenesis foods that add to calorie burning.
- At 180 Fitness, not only will you get a great workout program, you can also get a personalized nutrition program that will help you burn fat.