I love New York, NY. It’s an exciting city with so much to offer, whether it’s the arts, commerce, or food. With so many food choices, how do you decide what to eat? If you’re trying to lose weight, you want something that tastes good, is lower in calories, and maybe even boosts your metabolism. Yes, foods do that, but only by a small amount. You still have to eat healthy to accomplish weight loss. That doesn’t mean you should ignore these foods. All advantages help. Exercise, adequate hydration, and a good night’s sleep are still necessary.
Choose food higher in protein.
When you eat food, it takes calories to digest it. The calories you burn create the thermic effect. In the average diet, 10% of the calories consumed are used for digestion. High-fiber food like fruits and vegetables burn more. They use 20% of the calories eaten to digest the food. Protein uses 30%. Fat only burns 3%. High-protein foods like nuts, fish, dairy, eggs, and beans, take longer to digest so they keep your metabolism higher for longer.
Eating foods high in nutrients boosts your metabolism.
Your body needs the raw materials to function properly and keep your metabolism high. That includes foods containing B vitamins. They play a vital role in metabolizing energy. An inadequate amount of one B vitamin affects the benefits of all the others and lowers your metabolism. Food high in iron and selenium is also necessary for boosting your metabolism. They improve the functioning of the thyroid. Eat seafood, nuts, and legumes to increase B vitamins, iron, and selenium. Fruits, vegetables, dairy, and eggs also contain B vitamins. Food containing vitamin D, calcium, and magnesium also boosts your metabolism.
Your favorite morning drink might be your metabolism booster.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a tea or coffee drinker, they both increase your metabolic rate. For coffee, it’s the caffeine that helps rev up your calorie-burning fires, Tea also contains caffeine, but it also contains catechins that increase the effectiveness of caffeine.
- Adding spice to your food can burn extra calories. The capsaicin in the peppers that turn up the heat also heats your metabolism. Ginger, turmeric, cumin, and cinnamon can also be beneficial if you’re trying to lose weight.
- Eating protein helps boost your metabolism in another way besides burning extra calories. It provides the nutrients to help maintain muscle mass that you can lose when dieting. Muscle uses more calories to maintain than fat so the more you have, the more calories you burn.
- Check out food that’s high in fiber and water content to help. Celery may be the closest to a negative-calorie food. It’s mostly water and fiber. The juice acts like a diuretic. The fiber takes excess calories to digest.
- No matter how low-calorie or calorie-burning the food is, the benefits won’t be there if not prepared correctly. Even though chili peppers can increase your metabolism, jalapeno poppers won’t because they’re stuffed, breaded, and fried.
For more information, contact us today at UpFit Training Academy
