Foods That Burn Fat – A healthy weight is a key to your mental and physical well-being. The problem of being overweight has never been more acute than it is now. Many people struggle to lose every pound and, very often, this end up with nothing. Do you recognize yourself in this? If yes, we only want to tell you that you shouldn’t give up. In fact, everyone can maintain a healthy body mass. What do you need for this? Just choose the right food and bring regular workouts to your life.
Losing body fat is not always enough to keep fit. The weight can go back fast. Luckily, you can prevent this by building sufficient muscle mass. Oh, by the way, we know how you can do both at simultaneously. We are ready to share. Are you ready to read? Then let’s not waste a second!
Essential Nutrients for Healthy Body
Even if you have never been on any special diet, you probably know that to function properly and stay fit, our body needs three basic types of nutrients:
- Protein, which is the building material for our muscles;
- Carbohydrates, which provide us with energy charge;
- Fats, which are the source of essential fatty acids.
To be able to lose weight and increase muscle mass simultaneously, we should learn how to keep a balance between these three. Besides, it’s crucial to know the difference between carbohydrates and fats that are good for our health and those that are not.
Good and Bad Carbs
All carbohydrates can be split into two groups – the good and the bad ones. The difference between them lies in the amount of energy we can receive from consuming them. Good or slow carbs are found in natural plant foods, like green vegetables, starchy and non-starchy vegetables, fruits, brown rice, beans, lentils, and others. They work well for our metabolic processes and digestion. It takes our body a lot of time to digest them, which allows for extending the period we receive the energy from such foods.
We receive bad carbohydrates from processed foods only. These include soda and some other artificially sweetened drinks, white rice, white bread, pasta, sweets, cereal, and practically any other foods sold in a package. Such products provide us with energy, but this goes fast, and within some hours only, we already feel the hunger, which is never healthy for a person striving for weight loss.
Good and Bad Fats
Have you ever wondered why fatty fish is good for you while bacon is not? The difference is in the type of fats you can get from these products. Fatty fish, as well as avocado, nuts, and seeds, olive oil are the sources of unsaturated, also called healthy fats. They provide our body with this essential nutrient while doing no harm to our blood vessels and not converting to fat stores.
Saturated fats, on the contrary, are super harmful to our health. They cause our cholesterol levels to go up and provoke atherosclerosis, heart disease, and the growth of our body mass. Saturated fats are present in practically all processed foods, including butter, baked sweets, sausages, and other stuff we love to eat so much.
The Best Foods for Burning Fat and Growing Muscles
Now that you know the difference between seemingly the same things, we can get down to our recommendations on what food to eat to lose weight.
Full-Fat Dairy Products
One of the main mistakes that people who want to lose fat make is eating low-fat dairy. The problem is the shortage of fat in the product is often compensated by the increased content of carbohydrates. And as you may already guess, they are bad carbs.
To burn fat and gain muscle, you should eat full-fat dairy. Products like Greek yogurt and cottage cheese are excellent sources of whey protein. Besides, they contain linoleic acid. What does this make for you? Protein builds your muscles, while linoleic acid works to burn fat – a perfect combo!
Fatty Sorts of Fish
Sea fish, particularly salmon, tuna, and tilapia, are a great source of protein while low in calories. What’s more, due to the high content of Omega-3 fatty acids, these products work great to reduce inflammation and decrease the production of the stress hormone cortisol.
A drop in cortisol takes your body out of the stress-work regime, thus preventing your body from creating fatty deposits and normalizing other vital processes. So losing fat is not a problem anymore.
Eggs
Have you heard about eggs containing a lot of cholesterol? Well, this levels off with a plethora of health benefits we get from this product. Like no other product, eggs are almost pure protein, which makes them perfect for building muscles. At the same time, eggs contain amino acids, like CLA, leucine, and DHA, that have significant fat-burning potential.
Nuts
If you are looking for the best snack, then you should definitely start with nuts. Depending on what nuts you choose, they may vary in their beneficial properties. Almonds, peanuts, pecans, and some other nuts can become your main source of monounsaturated fat and protein. The latter helps grow and strengthen the muscles, while monounsaturated fat is great for reducing bad cholesterol levels in the blood. Also, they can supply you with Vitamin E, calcium, and other nutrients for body health.
Chicken Breast
Chicken breast is a real protein bomb. This kind of meat has the best protein-fats ratio you can ever find. While providing you with loads of so much needed proteins, it contains almost no fat, which makes it great for promoting fat loss while growing muscle mass. The only ‘but’ is that you should refuse to eat the skin part of chicken as it contains saturated fat.
Beef
Do you like red meat more? Then you should add beef to your diet. It contains high-quality protein and loads of essential amino acids that are hard to find in non-animal products. However, you should be attentive and avoid fatty meat.Choose lean meat instead.
Brown Rice
We have already mentioned brown rice as a great source of healthy carbs. However, this is not the only benefit of this product. Brown rice is gluten-free, low in calories, and rich in fiber. Besides, it contains vitamins and minerals, such as iron, calcium, manganese, B1, B6, selenium, phosphorus, and others.
Green Tea
You don’t think we’ll leave you without a drink, do you? Green tea is a perfect addition to your fat-burning diet. This herbal tea is thermogenic, which means it burns fat. Besides, it is packed with antioxidants that promote fat breakdown and speed up the metabolism.
Yet the biggest surprise for green tea lovers is that this drink stimulates the secretion of the human growth hormone, which plays an essential role in muscle building and increasing mass. So if you want to keep fit and feel great, green tea is the clue.
Workouts – Another Way to Burn Fat
You can speed up your fat-burning process and growing muscles by adding weight training to your routine. What’s more, physical exercises will make your body look times better than it would be without them.
The secret of a training program that allows growing muscle mass and reducing fat is alternating the approaches to your workouts. What do we mean? You spend the first week doing your strength training with heavy weights and low repetitions, and the following week you concentrate on working with low weights but high repetitions.
In the first case, you work on your muscle growth and strengthening, while in the other, you teach your body to be durable and promote fat burning. By alternating such workouts, you’ll be able to achieve both goals without making significant changes in your gym routine.
Besides, by implementing such a strategy, you will be able to boost your metabolism, thus preventing weight regain. Isn’t it what you need?
To get maximum results, start workouts with a trainer who will explain what exercises should be done and when to ensure all groups of muscles are involved.
Foods That Burn Fat – Summing up
Many people think that burning fat and building muscles are mutually exclusive concepts. However, science and practice show that everything is possible. You only need to know what foods should be incorporated into your diet and what approach to physical training is most effective for achieving your goals.
You may not get fast results. Everything needs time. Butby staying determined and having your goals clear, you’ll be able to achieve everything you have in mind.
