While just eating the top fat-burning foods won’t get you the perfect body, you need a healthy diet for that, they will give you a little extra boost toward achieving your goal. Some of these foods actually burn more calories to digest than they contain, while others help build muscle tissue or encourage the body to burn fat. Foods high in protein, healthy fat or fiber tend to fill you up, so you won’t be as hungry for snacks, which aren’t really fat burners, but do help you achieve your weight loss goals.
Eat food with a high thermogenic effect.
Foods that have a high thermogenic effect are those that take a lot of calories to digest. While they might not burn more calories than they contain, it does actually lower the amount you get. Brown rice, foods high in lean protein and even high fiber foods like oatmeal have a high thermogenic effect. Be aware that white rice isn’t as effective as brown rice and even starts out higher in calories. Fiber rich foods, which excludes many processed foods, have a high thermogenic effect. When you eat a food like chicken breast, the body requires about a third of its calories to digest it. Have you ever wondered why celery is so popular on diets? You guessed it. It has a high thermogenic effect.
Some food contains certain nutrients that help the body to burn fat.
When your insulin levels spike, your body thinks it’s going to starve or that food is scarce. That’s why the more spikes to insulin you have, the more fat it stores…for those lean times. While the times might be lean, you won’t be. What’s especially bad is the fat is stored around the middle and called visceral fat. It’s the most difficult to lose and the most dangerous to your health. If you include foods higher in healthy fat in your diet, such as those high in Omega-3 fatty acid, like walnuts or salmon, it helps prevent insulin spikes. Kale, sardines and Jerusalem artichokes can help. Brown rice also falls into this group, while also being thermogenic.
Increase your metabolism with healthy food, so you’ll burn more calories.
You’re continually burning calories. It takes calories to keep your body going even when you sleep. When you’re more active, your body burns even more calories. If you want to make weight loss easier, you need to boost the amount of calories you burn, even when you sleep. That means you’ll raise your metabolism. Foods like beans, almonds, eggs, chia seeds, dark chocolate and lean meat increase your metabolism and help you burn more fat.
- One quick way to boost your calorie burning is to drink a tall, cold glass of water. It takes extra calories to warm the water to body temperature, so you’ll be increasing the number of calories you burn.
- Green tea contains catechins and caffeine, which not only help break down fats, also help give your metabolism a boost. Green tea is good for your health, too, since catechins are antioxidants.
- Increase your potassium intake in the morning with a banana. Potassium affects your basal metabolism, giving it a boost.
- Get spicy and hot! Eat hot peppers. The capsaicin in the peppers are what cause your mouth to burn, but also helps burn calories and break down fat.