These fat burning foods work in a number of ways, from thermogenic benefits, which means it takes more calories to digest the food than the food contains, to phytochemicals in the food that helps burn fat. These foods that burn belly fat aren’t exotic, but part of a healthy diet that fills you up longer and contain other nutrients that can help you build a strong body, boosting your metabolism and improving your overall health and energy. Let’s start with a favorite, avocado that contains monounsaturated fats that not only let you feel fuller but also the oleic fatty acids that actually attack abdominal fat. Switching out regular cooking oil for avocado oil can help you reduce your midriff.
Beets, spinach and kale are two superfoods that burn belly fat and keep you healthier.
Beets contain betaine, an amino acid that puts your metabolism into high gear. It also can help reduce insulin resistance and works at a genetic level to increase fat burning. Kale has loads of vitamins and fiber, particularly vitamin B that helps reduce belly fat. Popeye doesn’t have a pot belly because he eats his spinach that contains sulfoquinovose that helps improve gut bacteria and discourages the growth of bad bacteria that promotes belly fat.
Your morning coffee or either matcha green tea or regular green tea at noon will burn belly fat.
Both coffee and tea have caffeine, which increases your metabolism and that boosts the burning of calories and fat. Caffeine also helps suppress your appetite, so it does double duty. Green tea has catechins that are also known for their weight loss benefits. It boosts your metabolism and has antioxidant benefits for your overall health. Green tea contains epigallocatechin gallate—EGCG—that is a belly fat burning catechin. Matcha green tea is green tea that’s grown and processed in a special way then ground into a powder makes it 137 times greater concentrations of EGCG, the belly fat burner.
Some breakfast favorites are also fat burners.
Eggs can be your friend when you’re trying to lose belly fat. They’re high in protein and choline that is also a fat burner. Most of the choline is in the yolk, just as much of the protein is, so eat the whole egg and enjoy it. You’re getting a good source of protein that will keep you going for the whole morning. Add a bowl of oatmeal and you get soluble fiber, beta-glucan. It turns to a gel in your intestine and helps regulate blood sugar levels. Without the spike and drop in blood sugar, the risk of insulin resistance decreases and so does the risk of belly fat.
- Focus on high protein lean meat for a thermogenic effect. Lean protein, ones that are at a ratio of 90% protein to 10% fat, use 30% of their calories to digest. If you ate 100 calories of lean protein, you’d only be getting use of 70 of those calories for your body.
- Some hot options to add to your diet include hot peppers with capsaicin. Those boost your metabolism, but have the thermogenic effect on the calories they do contain.
- Apples are definitely a fat buster, especially around the belly. Apple peels have a compound, ursolic acid, that helps increase the amount of muscle and brown fat. Brown fat actually helps burn belly fat.
- Make your own trail mix and include lots of nuts and seeds. Nuts are high in protein that keep you feeling fuller longer. They’re also high in vitamins E and several B vitamins, thiamin, potassium and magnesium. While they’re healthy and help burn belly fat, keep portion control in mind, too.
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