Bone Broth
Bone broth is one of my absolute favorite healing foods. It truly has the potential to transform your health in tangible ways and help burn fat. Thanks to the abundance of amino acids bone broth contains, bone broth prevents muscle breakdown, increases your metabolism and helps detoxify your body. While our ancestors ate bone broth regularly, since they wasted no part of an animal’s body, it’s no longer as common in our daily diet. But you can reap the benefits of this ancient elixir. Try making my favorite Beef Bone Broth Recipe to add this nutrient-rich, fat-burning food into your diet.
Green tea
Green tea compounds in the tea-house favourite called catechins help speed up your metabolism. They do this by reducing your levels of the enzyme catechol-O-methyltranferase, which degrades the fat-burning hormone norepinephrine. Too much science? Don’t worry about it: just try to get two or three cups a day.
Chicken
If you’re trying to lose weight, chicken is a readily available, powerful fat-burning food. Just three ounces of chicken — about the size of a deck of cards — provides about 37 percent of your body’s daily value for protein. This nutrient helps keep our bodies energized, our muscles looking sculpted and our bellies feeling satiated. Opt for quality, locally grown or organic chicken whenever possible.
Eggs
Eggs are full of healthy proteins that the body expends a lot of energy trying to process. They’re also packed full of healthy cholesterol and actively reduce the level of bad cholesterol in your blood.
Dark Chocolate
If you thought losing weight would mean giving up all your indulgences, look no further than dark chocolate. A study at Louisiana State University found that gut microbes in our stomach ferment chocolate and boost our body’s production of gut-healthypolyphenolic compounds, including butyrate, a fatty acid that encourages the body to burn fat as fuel and turns off genes linked to inflammation. (Add fruit to the chocolate to boost fermentation and the release of the compounds.) Make sure you go with chocolate that has a cacao content of 70 percent or above—these have the highest concentrations of antioxidant polyphenols.
Coconut oil
Coconut oil should take pride of place in your cupboard because it’s high in medium-chain triglycerides, chemical compounds that encourage the body to burn fat for energy. Cook with it, or put a spoonful in coffee instead of grabbing breakfast on the go.
Ghee
Ghee, a clarified butter originally made popular in India, is a surprising fat-burning food. Because of its high smoke point, ghee retains its phytonutrients during cooking. As a bonus, it’s also appropriate for lactose- and casein-sensitive individuals. And, thanks to the medium-chain fatty acids it contains, ghee can actually help your body burn other fats.
Matcha Green Tea
Sipping on a cup of matcha green tea is more than just soothing; drinking it regularly can actually reduce body fat and lower cholesterol levels. Plus, it helps your body repair more quickly after high-intensity workouts like burst training. I guarantee no energy drink sold at the store can match those benefits!
Black Beans
Research suggests these magical pulses are one of the closest things we have to a fat-burning pill. For starters, beans are a great source of resistant starch, a type of slow-digesting, insoluble fiber that feeds the healthy bacteria in your gut, triggering the production of the chemical butyrate, which encourages the body to burn fat as fuel and reduces fat-causing inflammation. They’re also one of the top sources of soluble fiber. A recent study at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center found that for every additional 10 grams of soluble fiber eaten per day, a study subject’s belly fat was reduced by 3.7 percent over five years. Black beans? One cup boasts an impressive 4.8 grams of soluble fiber.
Strawberries
Strawberries are rich in polyphenols, helping improve blood sugar control and reduce fat storage and are also high in vitamin C, which helps clear the stress hormone cortisol after exercise to speed up recovery.