Lose Weight While You Eat: Five Foods That Speed Up Your Metabolism & Help You Lose Weight!

Put the foods you eat to work for you to increase your fat burning powers!

Lose Weight While You Eat: Five Foods That Speed Up Your Metabolism & Help You Lose Weight!

by Craig Watkins

Here’s the basic concept of dieting: burn more calories than you take in. It’s that simple. But, if dieting is so simple why do most diets fail?

Briefly, most diets fail because as soon as you change the amount of food you are consuming with your diet, your body goes into self-defense mode and your metabolism begins to slow down to preserve it’s stores of energy. You will normally lose some weight at the beginning of a diet, but as you start to see some success you may be tempted to start to return to your old diet. This is where the “yo-yo” effect starts. Your metabolism is slower now because of the diet you have been on and will take some time to get revved back up to it’s normal rate. The result? Your body refuses to burn as many calories as before and you start to regain the weight you’ve lost and then some.

So what can you do? Why not put your metabolism to work for you by carefully selecting foods that will speed up your metabolism instead of reducing your calorie intake to levels that will make your metabolism slow down?

Following are five foods that speed up your metabolism to turbo speed!

1 -  Broccoli

Broccoli is very high in calcium, which has been shown to enhance weight loss,  and Vitamin C, which aids in calcium absorption. So how can you go wrong? And that’s not even the best part. Broccoli is also what is called by some a “negative calorie” food. This means that you actually burn more calories eating and digesting broccoli than you take in from the broccoli itself. Instant weight loss and you don’t have to do a thing!

Other “negative calorie” foods similar to broccoli include lettuce, zucchini, celery, cauliflower and asparagus.

2 – Hot Peppers

Hot peppers of the jalapeno, habanero and cayenne variety contain a chemical called Capsaicin that can cause your metabolic rate to increase by as much as 25%! And the effect may last as long as three hours after you have eaten. Capsaicin causes the release of stress hormones that speed up your metabolism and heat up your body. That explains why your face gets sweaty too.

3 – Lean Red Meat

Recent research suggests that lean red meat should be consumed at least once a week. Red meat contains creatine monohydrate which aids your body in using more of the creatine phosphate (ATP) in your system which is used to build muscle. More muscle means more fat burning!

4 – Garlic

Garlic has been shown to have a thermogenic, or heat generating effect in the body which also increases metabolism. Garlic aids in keeping blood-sugar levels stable helping to control the release of insulin, which helps to maximize the burning of bodyfat.

5 – Grapefruit

High insulin levels cause your body to store fat and grapefruit will lower your insulin levels. Grapefruit is also high in fiber which causes your body to burn the extra calories to break this fiber down.

Now that you are armed with the facts on these five foods that speed up your metabolism, you can make simple changes to your diet to give your metabolism a fighting chance. The best part is, these are only a few of the foods you can use to battle the bulge!

Craig Watkins is the owner and operator of FitnessForBusyBodies.com.