How do you know if you are eating the "Right Foods" to activate your metabolic system?
All calories are created equal where the numbers game of
weight loss is concerned, right? Wrong!
According to a relatively new eating plan
The Active Calorie Diet from
Rodale Publishing and
Prevention Magazine. Based on recent research, this plan works off the
premise that certain
types of food can affect metabolism and appetite. Eat the
right ones, and you’ll be able to boost your body’s weight-loss
abilities. Sounds good, we all would love some help losing and boosting metabolism at one time or another. None of us wants to feel hunger when trying to lose weight and inches so by eating better choices of food we can feel fuller, energized and also lose more quickly.
What makes those foods more effective for getting trim?
Certain
foods just take more work for the body to eat and then digest making your body work harder to
process what you consume! Yes, this means your body burns more calories in the digestive process! Another benefit of food being slower to digest: there will not be the spikes and drops in blood sugar that can create cravings and binge eating. Even something as simple as chewing fruits, vegetables, lean meats and whole grains
can up your calorie burning by as much as 30 percent.
Proper chewing technique will also aid in grabbing all the nutrients from what you do eat. Your body craves nutrients and needs those as building blocks for a healthier active body. Food is the gasoline in the human engine...not the right fuel no ambition and energy to move! The old maxim "You are what you eat" is a fact not just a saying.
Here’s a look at the eating plan's four “active calorie” groups and
how each category improves your body burning calories more efficiently:
- Chewy – These foods make your body work from the moment
they cross your lips, chewing items like lean meats, fish, nuts, and whole produce.
The foods with the greatest impact are those in a whole state, like apples
instead of applesauce, or peanuts instead of peanut butter. The higher the
protein, the better the effect – high-protein foods take more effort to chew
and more time to leave your stomach, which means you’ll eat more slowly and
feel full sooner than with empty carbohydrates.
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| Nuts such as Almonds |
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| Whole fresh fruit |
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| Lean proteins like Salmon |
- Hearty – Fiber is your friend in the quest for weight
loss. While that’s nothing new, categorizing it in this way is a fresh take.
Fiber-rich foods like fruits, vegetables, brown rice, whole grains, and cereal
take up more space in the stomach, leaving less room for seconds. They also
tend to take more effort to chew and to burn, increasing the food’s thermic
effect.
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| Brown Rice, Quinoa and Freekah |
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| Muesli |
- Energizing – Caffeine stimulates the central nervous
system, and this boost carries over to your metabolism. Coffee and black tea
include enough of this energizer to ramp up your metabolism by 5-8 percent.
Green tea has less caffeine, but it offers the benefit of catechins, an
antioxidant that ups your resting metabolism by about 4 percent. Dark chocolate
boasts of both caffeine and catechins, making it a sweet addition to any diet –
but in moderation, of course, since it also has plenty of sugar and fat.
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| Dark Chocolate |
 |
| Coffee |
 |
| Green Tea |
- Warming – Spice up your diet with peppers, cinnamon,
vinegar, bay leaves, mustard, cloves, garlic, and ginger. Not only do these add
tons of flavor, but they also include chemicals that boost the body’s
calorie-burning ability. For instance, capsaicin, the chemical that provides
peppers’ heat, has been found to double dieters’ energy expenditure for several
hours after eating. Adding these spices will fully activate the calories from
all of the chewy, hearty, and energizing foods you’re consuming.
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| Chilis, Paprika, Chili Powder |
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| Cinnamon |
