Foods That Boost Your Metabolism

Post date: Apr 27, 2011 4:06:46 PM

First things first brake the fast. YOU have to eat breakfast every single day no matter what!!Starting your day with out fuel will slow you down for the rest of your day. If you think you can save your calorie consumption for later you can’t. Your body will think OH NO! I’m starving and it will slow your metabolism down.

That’s what the biggest problem I think people have. You may have every excuse not to eat breakfast but not one of your excuses our as good as all the good reasons to eat breakfast!

Ask yourself these questions.

  • Do I want to feel and look better?

  • Do I want to lose weight?

  • Do I want a high level of energy for daily activities?

  • Do I want to be healthy?

  • Do I want to RAISE MY METABOLISM?

I hope you answered, "Yes, yes, yes, yes and YES!"

So, I beg you to eat breakfast!!!

So back to boosting your metabolism. Let me tell you about the foods I eat everyday that raise my metabolism and give me smoking energy! If you know me personally, you already know how much energy I have. So let me give you my secret, I eat every 21/2 to 3hrs a day, all non-processed foods. I drink water like its free. Oh ya, it is! And it just so happens that I consume foods that are on the list below. So lets talk about negaitive calorie foods.

What Are Negative Calorie Foods?

Negative calorie foods are essentially foods which require more energy from the body to digest them (aka thermic effect) then the food actually provides, thus a negative calorie effect. With this theory, you could potentially eat large quantities of these negative calorie foods, feel full and yet lose weight fast. Sounds good doesn’t it?

Do Negative Calorie Foods Exist?

Actually there are no foods that have been scientifically proven to be truly negative in calories so negative calorie food is a bit of an urban myth. Why? Well, the main reason they don’t actually exist is because our body is just such an amazingly efficient digestive machine. Even celery that is often quoted as possessing negative calories actually only requires 10% of energy of the energy it provides in order to be digested by our bodies.

Low Calorie Foods

Despite the fact that negative or zero calorie foods do not exist, there are a number of extremely low calorie foods that do raise your metabolism and eating them as the bulk of your diet can have excellent weight loss results. Though these foods do not provide negative calories per se, in the end they don’t actually have to in order to still be effective in fat loss. Why? The main reason for this is your body has to burn calories just to stay alive! Did you know for example that at least 1000 calories per day are burned just by sitting and breathing. When you take into account your regular routine of every-day tasks and depending on your gender and weight, you’ll be up to at least 2000 calories. Add in some brisk walks or aerobic exercise and you can be burning well over 2500 or even 3000 calories easily. So even if you’re eating low calorie foods versus no calorie foods, you can still burn a lot of fat and lose weight quickly.

List of Low Calorie Foods

Here are some low calorie foods to add into your diet. These foods are loaded with vitamins and minerals and yet contain very few calories.

Low Calorie Fruits

  • Apples

  • Blueberries

  • Cantaloupe

  • Cranberries

  • Grapefruit

  • Honeydew

  • Lemons

  • Mango

  • Oranges

  • Papaya

  • Peaches

  • Pineapple

  • Raspberries

  • Strawberries

  • Tomatoes

  • Tangerines

  • Turnips

  • Watermelon

Low Calorie Vegetables

  • Asparagus

  • Beets

  • Broccoli

  • Cabbage

  • Carrots

  • Cauliflower

  • Celery

  • Chicory

  • Chili Peppers

  • Cucumber

  • Edamame

  • Garlic

  • Green Beans

  • Lettuce

  • Onions

  • Radishes

  • Spinach

  • Turnips

  • Zucchini

Complete List of Fat Burning Foods

Often people are looking for a complete list of fat burning foods. I’m not sure a complete list exists seeing that nutritionists and scientists are often discovering new foods that burn fat. Having said that however, here’s my best attempt at a “complete” fat burning foods list.

All the foods listed below have certain common qualities that make them fat burning in nature. Firstly, all of them are natural foods; there are no foods listed with refined sugars or fat. Also, these foods have a high thermic effect, that is the increment in energy required above your resting metabolic rate to process food for use. In other words, all these foods require a higher than average number of calories for your body to burn in order to digest them; an important aspect for burning fat and weight loss. I’ve broken the list down into seven main categories:

Vegetables are by far the best foods you can give your body. Vegetables are naturally high in fiber, low in fat, and contain essential vitamins and nutrients to feed your muscles.

Low fat dairy products such as skim milk contain high amounts of calcium and complex carbohydrates, both of which help boost your metabolism and keep insulin levels low, resulting in increased fat burn.

Lean meats contain high levels of protein which boost your metabolism and burn fat. Fish rich in Omega-3 fatty acids such as salmon are also great for burning fat due to the lowering of leptin levels in your body and higher resulting caloric burn rate.

Fruits which contain Vitamin C are known to help shed fat. Vitamin C dilutes fat making it less effective and also helps in releasing it from the body. Eat fruits in moderation however as they are also naturally high in sugar.

Whole Grains are both high in fiber and complex carbohydrates, keeping your metabolism high.

Spices such as cayenne pepper and jalapenos speed up your heart heart rate and boosts the metabolism, resulting in increased caloric burn.

Teas & Coffee contain caffeine which can increase your heart rate and help burn more calories. Green tea in particular is good as it also contains a chemical known as EGCG which causes the brain and nervous system to run faster and burn more calories.

FatBurningFoods