Want to Burn Fat? Try These Foods

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Healthy ways to lose weight are always popular. Dozens of diets have espoused that they will help you drop five pounds in record time, but these diets often turn out to have rather unpleasant bodily side effects. The Master Cleanse that was so popular with celebrities did untold damage to women who believed that they could survive on maple syrup, lemon juice and cayenne pepper for a month. Such starvation diets do nothing but harm.

Despite their bad reputation, fad diets continue to be wildly popular. The recent focus, however, has not been just on lowering the number that shows up on the scale. The emphasis has been on burning fat. The goal for many women is to burn belly and thigh fat while maintaining the fat reserves in their breasts and buttocks that give them their feminine curves. Unfortunately, spot burning fat is not possible. The human body consumes fat at a consistent rate across the body. You can’t tell your metabolism to burn the fat on your inner thighs but leave the fatty tissues that give you a perky butt. That said, magazines are filled with tips on how to “burn belly fat” and “tone those thighs!” The internet, naturally, has been buried under such “helpful” tips. There is no way to successfully spot-burn fat without surgery, but there are healthy ways to lower your fat reserves. Here are four foods to help you burn fat while staying healthy and energized.

Lean Protein

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Organs and muscles are what burn fat. If you want to decrease how much fat you have, you want to increase your muscle mass. To build up your muscles, you need protein. Meat has a great deal of protein, but it can also have a lot of fat. To burn fat, you need to avoid eating fat. Continue to have meat in your diet, but choose lean protein. Skinless, white meat chicken has very little fat as does turkey. Trade red meat for poultry even in sausage. Use turkey or chicken sausage instead of pork sausage, and swap ground beef for ground turkey.

Fish is another excellent source of lean protein. It tends to be more expensive than chicken, but fish is extremely high in protein while remaining low in fat. Aim for oily fishes like salmon or meaty fishes like tuna. These will give you the most protein in return for the least amount of fat.

Fruits and Nuts

Cravings for sweet or salty things are difficult to handle when you are dieting. Most people don’t know of many foods that are naturally sugar-sweet or that have the same crunchy, salty, addictive qualities as potato chips. Fruits and nuts, however, can go a long way towards satisfying those cravings. Nuts are naturally very crunchy and have a rich flavor to them. If you buy lightly salted nuts, you can get both the crunchy and the salty tastes you are craving without all the added fats and preservatives in potato chips. Nuts have a reputation for being high in calories, but they are very filling. A handful of cashews may make you feel as full as if you ate half a bag of potato chips.

Fruit is a good substitute for processed sugars. Fresh berries can be nearly sugar sweet when they are in season and sometimes out of season, too. Stock your fridge with raspberries, strawberries or blackberries, and eat those when you are craving something sweet. Give it a little time and you will find that sugary goodies taste almost too sweet to stomach.

Citrus and Spices

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Changing your diet will only go so far if you do not exercise. It is the combination of these two things that really makes the pounds melt off you. It can be difficult to get up the willpower to go work out, however, when you are dieting. Cutting back on foods and fat can leave you feeling tired and lazy until your body gets used to its new normal. Until then, getting to the gym is a struggle. Keep some citrus fruit on hand for when you are low on energy. Citrus fruits such as lemons, oranges and grapefruits are known to increase energy and mental focus.

Liberally season foods with spices when you are on a diet. The spices can make a smaller meal feel just as filling and help you avoid eating high-fat foods when you are done with dinner. Spices also help you feel more awake and alert for almost no calories.

Tea

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Most people don’t realize how many calories and how much fat is in their drinks. Soda is extremely sugary which means it is both very high in calories and high in fat. Drinking soda when you are dieting is a surefire way for the pounds to cling stubbornly to your stomach. Swap out soda for tea instead. Black and green teas will give you the same caffeine jolt that a soda will, but green teas are high in healthy antioxidants instead of sugar. Herbal teas can also be consumed at night without keeping a person awake.

Tea can also slowly replace coffee. Tea contains caffeine, so you wouldn’t be going cold turkey, but tea has fewer calories and fat. If you drink your coffee black, the calorie difference is much less than if you add sugar, syrup or creamer. These things will add mountains of calories to your morning coffee and ensure that the fat continues to stick to you.