Weight Loss With Hot Pepper

Hot peppers contain capsaicin, the substance that gives them their heat. Consuming capsaicin may help you lose weight. Try adding hot peppers to scrambled eggs, burgers, soups, stews, stir-fries and sandwiches. Remember that to lose weight, you'll also have to burn more calories than you consume.

Effects

Capsaicin causes your body to heat up. For several hours after consuming a meal with capsaicin, the body burns more calories and burns more fat, according to a University of California-Los Angeles study led by David Heber. The effect was almost double that of a placebo group that didn't consume a meal with capsaicin.

Weight Maintenance

After you've already lost the weight, capsaicin won't necessarily help you maintain the loss, but it may help you continue to burn fat, according to a 2003 study published by Manuela P. G. M. Lejeune and colleagues in the British Journal of Nutrition. In the study, the capsaicin group regained the same amount of weight as a placebo group, possibly due to decreased compliance.

Mechanism

In addition to causing you to burn more calories, capsaicin may decrease your appetite, according to a 1999 study published by Garry Egger and colleagues in the Medical Journal of Australia. A spicy meal containing capsaicin may reduce food intake by about 200 calories, according to a 1999 paper presented by A. Tremblay to the Australasian Society for the Study of Obesity.

Amount

To work, capsaicin may need to be consumed in large doses, according to a 2006 study published by Kristel Diepvens and colleagues in the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. The effect of capsaicin may increase with dose increases, found a 1987 study published by T. Watanabe and colleagues in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications.

Tips

Wear rubber gloves when seeding and chopping hot peppers so the oils don't irritate your skin. When you are finished, wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water. If eating a hot pepper burns the inside of your mouth, drink milk or eat yogurt instead of gulping water. Water just spreads the oils around in your mouth. Bread or rice may also help.