Will Eating Certain Foods Help You Burn Calories?

Most of the diets you’ve been on focus on what not to eat, rather than what to eat. When weight loss is the goal, are there foods that need to be added to your shopping list?
Which is more important? Focusing on the foods you add to a diet or worrying about the foods you eliminate?
In reality, when it comes to weight loss, what you eat is just as important as what you don’t. As long as you’re choosing the right foods, it is really possible to burn calories while you are eating. Research shows that some foods really do help dieters lose weight faster than others and that’s because they actually help you to stay full for longer or speed up your metabolism.

Here are some foods to eat if you want to lose weight:

•Protein: Protein takes more calories to digest than any other nutrient. It will be burned as the food is metabolized. In high-protein diets you actually burn 25% of the calories which come in.
•Green Tea: 3 cups of green tea every day for 60 days can provide significant changes in weight. And this is because of its catechins (a type of antioxidant) and caffeine, both of which increase metabolism.
•Spicy Foods: Spicy foods, such as chili peppers can help you burn more calories while suppressing your urge to eat.
•Rye Bread: Hunger is a big drawback to dieting. Eating rye bread early in the morning can silence these urges. Rye provides satiety as much as eight hours.
•Nuts: Peanuts, almonds and cashews are called as “energy dense” foods, since they are high in fat and calories. “Energy dense” means having a lot of calories packed into their small wrapping. But, when eaten in moderation, they would help for weight loss.
•Grapefruit: Grapefruit itself can help with weight loss, but the grapefruit diet where you survive on grapefruit alone until you reach your goal weight lacks in proper nutrition. In fact, pre-meal citrus snacks help in losing weight.

Christelle Bedrossian
Dietitian-Nutritionist
Beirut, Lebanon