Eating clean is such a big and really important part of a healthy lifestyle! You cannot out train a bad diet. Just because you do the hundred Burpee burn or the thousand squat challenge does not mean you can go ahead and stuff your face with a burger, fries and a coke.  If you want to look good, feel good, feel strong, healthy and fit you need to feed your body the right things.

The right things are foods that are real that are unprocessed that come from the earth with ingredients that you actually understand. These are foods that pack in a double or triple win punch. So today I want to share foods that I think can help you burn belly fat.

Healthy foods that burn belly fat fall into two categories:  the first category are foods that help prevent blood sugar spikes the second foods that help speed up your metabolism.

Blood Sugar

Foods that help prevent blood sugar spikes are foods like salmon, avocado, olive oil, beans and almonds.  All of these foods are high in either protein, fat or fiber, which means that takes longer for them to get digested.  Longer digestion helps prevent a sharp increase in blood sugar spikes.

Blood sugar literally is the sugar in your blood. When you eat foods like donuts or white bread, or white rice you are dumping a lot of sugar into your blood.  Think of sugary dessert stuff.  When you eat sugary or processed foods you will have a rapid increase in your blood sugar.  Spikes in blood sugar actually make your hormones go out of whack and then they go crazy and then you get an increase in your abdominal fat.  Staying away from processed foods is critical.

When you eat foods that do not increase your blood sugar even if you eat them with carbs  (carbohydrates are absorbed quickly) the whole process of absorption and digestion slows down.  By slowing down this process you burn more calories just in the digestion process.

Fat and Carbohydrates take about 5% to 15% of their total calories to digest.

Protein takes 20% to 30% of the calories in the food just to digest.

Protein is made up of amino acids and amino acids are bonded together by peptide bonds. These bonds are hard physically to break apart, so your body has to work extra hard to physically break them down and that is why you burn more calories when you eat protein. Protein keeps you fuller longer so that you don’t overeat this is extremely important.

If you eat an excess of calories no matter what type of food it is, an excess of calories which will cause you to gain weight.

Metabolism

Foods that will help increase your metabolism are green tea, coffee, cayenne pepper, chili peppers, ginger, avocado, broccoli, vinegar and foods high in protein like eggs, dairy products, meat and fish. A cup of green tea or a teaspoon of cayenne pepper can help you burn an extra 10 to 20 calories.

Remember that it takes a deficit of 3,500 calories to burn off one pound of fat!

Exercise

Exercise is also a key to amping up your metabolism.  If you really want to change your body you’ve got to incorporate exercise too it’s all about that healthy lifestyle as a package. Exercise is really important it will burn calories and burn off fat cells.

Most importantly exercise will increase your muscle mass. Muscle mass is essential because when you have more muscle in your body you’re burning more calories at rest than if you would if you had less muscle.  A really great way to increase muscle mass is to do strength training. This doesn’t mean you have to go the gym and lift weights this means you can just use your body, your body weight, to do exercise to increase your muscle mass.

Sleep

Not sleeping enough could be the culprit to your belly fat issue.  When you’re not sleeping enough your body thinks you’re stressed and when you’re stressed your levels of cortisol will increase.  Increased cortisol contributes to belly fat.

Takeaway

Here are the keys to getting rid of belly fat:

• Eat foods that are high in protein and fiber.
• Burn more calories than you take in.
• Boost your metabolism by eating spicy foods and adding strength training exercises to increase your muscle mass.
• Get adequate sleep.

Sources:
https://www.webmd.com/diet/ss/slideshow-foods-to-eat-that-help-your-metabolism
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325237
https://www.prevention.com/food-nutrition/healthy-eating/g20504581/18-metabolism-boosting-foods/

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