Foods that Help Burn Fat

How Fat is Stored in Our Bodies

Storing fat boils down to “excess.” Simple carbohydrates, sugar, and starches are all converted into glucose in the body. After a meal, as blood glucose rises, the pancreas responds by releasing insulin, which signals the body’s tissues to take up surplus glucose.

Suppose you’ve just had a meal containing a piece of bread, baked potato, chicken, and dessert. You’ve ingested simple carbohydrates, starches, fat, and sugar. Glucose flows through the bloodstream, to the liver, and is then allocated for your body’s energy needs at that moment. Excess glucose is linked together, stored as glycogen, and sent to the muscles and the liver for short-term storage (4 to 6 hours). However, the glucose continues to enter the system. The next step is that the body stops using fat for energy, and diverts its attention to the excess glucose, leaving fat to circulate in the blood until picked up by fatty tissues and stored there. However, glucose continues to overload the system. When the muscles and liver are at capacity for glycogen, the liver has no choice but to handle the excess glucose by breaking them down into small fragments and assembling them into durable, long-term energy storage components: fats. These are released into the blood and deposited into fatty tissues. Fat cells may also take up glucose and convert it to fat directly.

How Our Bodies Burn Fat

Burning fat is an elementary concept when the fundamentals are understood. Fat is a unit of energy storage. When the body needs energy, it unlocks its energy stores (fat) to satisfy its immediate needs. How can you get your body using energy? Movement. The underlying way to eliminate fat is to minimize the amount of excess glucose taken into the body, and maximizing the amount of energy expended through exercise.

Weight training is a more effective way to burn fat longer-term than cardio because the tears made in muscles during training need to be rebuilt after the session is over, thus requiring additional energy from the body even when idle. Anaerobic exercise (cardio), rather, burns short-term stores of energy in the form of glucose.

Regulating meals, balancing the insulin levels, and eating complex carbohydrates (fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes) will also help to facilitate the fat-burning process.

Foods that Support the Fat-Burning Process

1. Foods low on the Glycemic Index

Although this is still a theory, there is much evidence to support eating foods lower on the Glycemic Index, such as fruits, vegetables, beans and grains in order to minimize the amount of insulin released after a meal. The reason why this theory is not fully proven yet is because a multitude of factors contribute to the spiking of insulin in the body: the time of day that the tests are taken, body size, weight, blood volume, etc.

2. Foods with high nutrient density

Our bodies receive a signal for satiety, or “fullness”, not only when we’ve consumed enough volume, but when we’ve consumed enough nutrients. This is critical. This is one of the reasons why the obese will report feeling constantly hungry: their bodies have not received enough nutrients yet, and need to continue to signal the brain to find food to satisfy this.

The highest nutrient-dense foods are organic sprouts, organic dark leafy greens, organic grasses (wheatgrass, barleygrass, etc), ideally grown in soil that has been enriched with as many trace minerals as possible (70 to 90), as opposed to the most common type of fertilizer, NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium).

This way, the body will be less likely to crave excess food, and thus store fat.

3. High-fibre foods

Fibre, when viewed through a microscope, resembles a tiny sponge, and its function is just that: it can absorb up to 300 times its size in toxins to expel from the body. This is key because any toxin, pathogen, or “foreign invader” that the body does not know how to assimilate, will be stored within fat cells. Imagine that your body has a mind of its own: either it can allow the toxin to float around in the bloodstream and potentially kill you, or it can wrap it in fat and keep it away from the vital organs.

Stewart Skinner, a 5th generation pig farmer in Guelph, Ontario, puts it best: “As for changing pig weights, it is usually carried out by changing fibre levels. If we need to get our sows to slim down, we will up the level of “filler” in the diet (higher fibre). When sows get ready to give birth, they need to bulk up a little bit, so we feed a ration that replaces high fibre with more energy (corn).” That’s poetry to our ears.

Fibre is cellulose, which is a plant’s way of storing glucose (starch). Our bodies lack an enzyme needed to digest cellulose, so it passes through our system. Celery is highly abundant in cellulose, along with broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, swiss chard, and spinach.

4. Dark leafy greens

Greens adhere to heavy metals and toxins locked in our fat cells, and are highly efficient at mobilizing these toxins out of our bodies. This allows our body readier access to fat stores when it’s time to be burned, so greens are an excellent food to consume to enhance this process.

5. Vitamin C

Vitamin C is essential in the process of creating cartinine, a substance which turns fat into fuel.

Dr Mehmet Oz and Dr Michael Roizen reported a study recently where two groups of participants were observed while exercising on treadmills. The group which did not have adequate levels of vitamin C burned 25% less fat than the group that did have adequate levels of vitamin C. To learn more about how much vitamin C you should be getting, view this accompanying article.

6. Green tea

Green tea contains catechins, an anti-oxidant which helps break down fat and lower insulin levels. A Japanese study found that after 12 weeks of drinking the equivalent of 6 bags of green tea every day, the men reported a drop in body fat and body-mass indexes.

7. Cinnamon

Cinnamon is also a source of catechins, which lower insulin and help the body to catabolize fats. However, sprinkling the spice on dessert foods or sugary breakfast foods will not do any good – view a healthier recipe for apple crumble at the end of this article.

8. Hot chili peppers

Hot peppers contain capsaicin, which helps to suppress appetite. In another Japanese study of 13 women, those who ate breakfast foods with chili ate less calories later on at lunchtime.

9. Grapefruit

Phytochemicals in the fruit help to decrease insulin levels. The Florida Department of Citrus conducted a study in which participants were fed 1 serving (half a grapefruit), 3 times a day, for 12 weeks. On average, participants lost 3.6 pounds without altering their diets or exercises.

Take this with a grain of salt, since the sponsors obviously had a stake in positive results.

Digestion is Paramount to the Process

If food is improperly digested, our bodies have no choice but to store the leftover food as fat. Use these strategies to make sure your digestive tract is operating at an optimal level.

1. Food combining

If food is improperly combined in the stomach, it could lead to fermentation in the gut, and undigested food.

• Fruit must be eaten alone, away from all other food groups.
• Melons must be eaten away from everything, even other fruit, because they begin to break down at a faster rate.
• Proteins and grains should not be eaten at the same meal.
• Dairy should be eaten separately.
• Vegetables can be eaten with anything, except for fruits.
• Leafy greens can be eaten with virtually anything, including fruits.

2. Probiotics

A good quality probiotic, made by growing the bacteria on the same culture that comes from our gut, will add “good bacteria” to your system, which will help to digest food. If the probiotic is not of this nature, it will most likely pass right through your system.

Probiotics also help improve mineral absorption, meaning that you’ll be closer to satisfying your body’s cravings for nutrients.

A brand that we use at home and recommend would be the Natren Healthy Start System (we earn no money from this recommendation).

3. Soaking nuts and seeds before eating

Nuts and seeds serve the same function in nature: they are both seeds at the core of the plant with the intention of spreading its genes. Contained in the seeds are high amounts of nutrients. Specifically, seeds are spread by animals consuming the fruit, passing the seed among fertilizer, which allows it to become another mature plant. Seeds contain inhibitors, which protect the nutrients from being absorbed into the animal’s body.

Soaking raw nuts, seeds, and grains in water will remove these inhibitors. The duration of time depends on the nut, but afterward, the nutrients will be much more readily available for assimilation into the body.

3. Having strong stomach acid (HCl)

Strong stomach acid will allow your body to digest and absorb nutrients more readily. Unfortunately, after years of poor diets, most people have weak HCl. This can be rebuilt either by taking HCl pills, or simply by consuming greens, especially blended in shakes or juiced.

4. Having a high amount of enzymes

Enzymes are a type of protein that performs thousands of functions in the body. A primary function is the digestion of food. Enzymes are highly abundant in all foods until they are heated over 118 F or 48 C. Once they reach this tipping point, they are denatured, or destroyed.

Eating as much raw foods as possible will help to restore your stores of enzymes, and aid digestion.

Dispelling Myths

The following foods have been touted as popular fat-burners, however, there is insufficient scientific evidence to say for sure that they are effective.

• Apple-cider vinegar
• “Negative-calorie foods”, such as celery
• Thermogenic foods, such as ice water

Recipes

1. Green Shakes

• Blend together your favourite fruit with any type of dark leafy green (kale, spinach, dandelions, romaine, beet tops, collard, parsley, etc), and pure water.

2. Vitamin C Salad

This salad is absolutely packed with vitamin C.

• Kale
• Parsley
• Cilantro
• Red bell peppers
• Celery
• Broccoli florets
• Avocado
• Onions
• Pinch salt and pepper
• Lemon juice
• Cayenne pepper

3. Raw Sushi Rolls

• Using raw nori paper, roll together avocado, julienned celery, green onions, and julienned bell pepper.
• Serve with Nama Shoyu (unpasteurized soy sauce).

4. Raw Apple Crumble – tastes just like the real thing

• In a food processor, pulse raw shelled sunflower seeds, dates, salt, cinnamon, and vanilla.
• Chop up an apple into fine pieces and sprinkle with cinnamon.
• Combine together in a bowl and serve.

5. Blondies

This is not a “fat-burner,” but it’s much healthier alternative to other desserts, and will store less fat while giving you your sugar fix.

• In a food processor, blend together raw shelled sunflower seeds, dates, salt, vanilla, and a tablespoon of cold-pressed coconut oil.
• To turn it into a “brownie” by simply adding 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder.
• Form into balls or squares and serve.

Good luck!

Photo Credit: Stephan Wurth