Many of the foods known to promote weight loss work by increasing your body's metabolism of fat. With some foods, this fat-burning activity is due to a specific nutritional component; with others, it is caused by a complementary reaction between multiple chemicals. Your physiology and current state of health may dictate how significantly specific foods help you burn fat.
Green Tea
Green tea contains therapeutic chemicals called catechins. They can boost the activity of your sympathetic nervous system to help you burn fat. This increases your body's rate of thermogenesis, which is the process of metabolizing fat to produce heat. A study published in the 2009 issue of "The Journal of Nutrition" found that subjects who drank green tea lost more weight and more abdominal fat than subjects who drank a catechin-free formulation of green tea. Catechins also lower the amount of fat that your body stores, as well as your blood triglycerides and free fatty acids.
Hot Peppers
Hot peppers, such as the chili pepper and red pepper, get their burning effect from the chemical capsaicin. Eating capsaicin can increase the amount of calories and fat that your body burns, and it can suppress your appetite. It does this by stimulating special receptors in your mouth and digestive tract that signal your sympathetic nervous system. A study published in the 2007 issue of "The International Journal of Obesity" found that eating 1.2 mg of capsaicin can increase your resting metabolism by 2.4 percent.
Coffee
Coffee contains caffeine, which stimulates your nervous system to promote the fat-burning process called thermogenesis. Caffeine also amplifies the weight-loss effects of other coffee components, such as catechins and chlorogenic acid. Coffee affects the metabolism of people at different levels and is less likely to increase the burning of fat in obese people.
Yogurt
Eating foods that are high in calcium, such as yogurt, can help your body burn fat. An increased intake of calcium suppresses parathyroid hormones and stimulates the oxidation of fat that would otherwise be stored in your cells. Because dairy sources of calcium have a greater effect on fat-burning than non-dairy sources, other dairy product ingredients -- such as peptides and amino acids -- may magnify calcium's effects. More research is needed to confirm how this works.
References
- "International Journal of Obesity"; Body Fat Loss Achieved by Stimulation of Thermogenesis by a Combination of Bioactive Food Ingredients: a Placebo-Controlled, Double-Blind 8-Week Intervention in Obese Subjects; A. Belza, et al.; January 2007
- "The Journal of Nutrition"; Green Tea Catechin Consumption Enhances Exercise-Induced Abdominal Fat Loss in Overweight and Obese Adults; Kevin Maki, et al.; February 2009
- "The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition"; Coffee, Diabetes, and Weight Control; James Greenberg, et al.; October 2006
- "Journal of the American College of Nutrition"; The Role of Dairy Foods in Weight Management; Michael Zemel, et al.; December 2005
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