With summer just round the corner the pressure is well and truly on to look in great shape for the beach. A healthy diet doesn’t have to be starving or depriving yourself from delicious foods. It is all about making the right choices at the right times.
Below you will find a selection of fat burning super food ingredients and tips to help lose the extra pounds with minimal effort.
Calcium – Growing evidence suggests that a calcium rich diet allows us to burn more calories and help the body get rid of fat. Calcium binds with bile acids and increases the amount of fat we excrete through the bowel – so instead of storing it we lose it. Foods rich in calcium include cheese, milk, broccoli, rhubarb and salmon. Full fat milk and cheese should be avoided, low fat alternatives should be consumed instead.
Omega 3 – Found in the likes of oily fish, kidney beans, chickpeas, garden peas, avocado and walnuts, studies suggest Omega 3 fatty acids are one of the great secrets to permanent fat loss. They help maintain healthy blood sugar levels, inhibit the storage of calories as fat, encourage glucose to be stored in muscle cells instead of fat cells and increase thermogenesis – the production of heat by cells within the body causing fat to be used as fuel and calories burned.
Astaxanthin – A carotenoid that gives salmon, prawns, langoustine, rainbow trout and lobster their pink colour has been shown to increase the usage of fat as an energy source and accelerate fat burning during exercise.
The rules:
Eat only fruit until 11.30am – it’s easier to digest if eaten on its own. A poor digestive process will severely affect any weight loss efforts.
Have a bowl of soup at lunchtime, and a plate of salad too.
Avoid the starchy carbs allowed in the diet after 6pm unless you exercise in the evening (sweet potatoes, beans, lentils, couscous, brown rice, quinoa).
Have plenty of vegetables or a big salad with every meal.
Eat small meals often to keep fat burning going all day and avoid energy dips and cravings.
Avoid white rice, bread and pasta as they give only short-lived energy, provide few nutrients and don’t fill you up for long.
Get 30 minutes of physical activity every day, ideally on an empty stomach first thing in the morning when you burn fat more efficiently for as long as eight hours afterwards.
Drink water every two to three hours – every chemical reaction in the body from extracting nutrients from food to encouraging fat burning needs water to get a result.
Use one of our supplements to help with motivation and speed up results.
