In my last post, I talked about skinny fat whereby the body is skinny with normal BMI, but has high body fat percentage. So, let’s look at how to lose those body fat.
There are 3 main principles to losing body fat:
- Know what food cause fat deposit in your body
- Know what food boost your metabolic rate and burns fat
- Exercise that burns fat
What food you should NOT eat?
1) Refined Carbohydrates (Simple Sugars)
Not all carbohydrates are created equal. You have the bad carbohydrates that will cause a surge in your blood sugar level and lead to fat deposits in your body. Reduce or avoid pasta, whole meal bread, whole meal crackers, white rice, cakes, muffins and the list is non-exhaustive.
2) Processed Food
All processed and packaged food contains a high amount of sugar (high fructose corn syrup), harmful chemicals (artificial sweeteners, artificial flavours, colorings and preservatives) and high amount of trans fat is used in food processing.
The additives and chemicals used in processed food add pressure to the liver to detox. But fat breakdown also happens in the liver. Therefore, the liver will be busy detoxifying the chemicals rather than breakdown fat.
3) Bad Fats
Eating bad fats cause the body to store fats. So, avoid or reduce deep-fried food that uses vegetable oils. Saturated fat from fatty meat, margarine and hydrogenated oil should be avoided.
What fat burning food you should eat more?
1) High protein
Digesting protein requires more energy than saturated fat or sugars. Go for lean meat from chicken, turkey, salmon, tuna and sardines. Better still, choose plant-based protein from chickpeas, lentil, quinoa, and soya.
Plant based protein are low in calories, high in fiber and antioxidants. Soya contains lecithin, which protects the cell from accumulating too much fat, and helps to breakdown fat deposits in the body.
2) Fruits and vegetables
Fruits and vegetables are the good carbohydrates that do not cause spikes in blood sugar. Colorful fruits and vegetables are rich in antioxidants, which boost your immune system. They are high in fiber, which fills you up and is important for maintaining colon health. Apples and berries contain pectin, which prevents fat from being absorbed into the body.
3) Whole grains (Good complex carbohydrates)
Use unrefined whole grains as your source of carbohydrates; millet, sweet potato, tapioca, yam, barley, brown rice and quinoa are excellent carbohydrates that do not cause your blood sugar to surge.
4) Green tea
Green tea contains EGCG ( Epigallocatechin gallate), which cause the brain and nervous system to run faster and helps to burn more calories. Green tea is also high in antioxidants and has 10 times more antioxidants than Vitamin C.
Most spices, especially chilies contain capsaicin, an ingredient that give a pungent flavor. capsaicin speeds up heart rate and boost metabolism, torching your body into burning fat.
Eating one meal of spicy food a day can boost your body metabolism by 25% and the calories burn last up to 3 hours after eating. Therefore, eat more chilies, garlic and onion. Garlic helps the body to reduce fat deposit.
Fat burning exercise
Increase metabolic rate and fat burning by keeping active and exercise regularly. Have 3-4 days a week of weight and strength training to tone and strengthen your muscle. Increasing muscle mass also increases your metabolic rate: 1 lb of muscle burns 30-50 calories a day compared to 1 lb of body fat burns only 3 calories a day.
Have another 3 days a week for moderate to vigorous cardio training; running, brisk walking, cycling or swimming is easy to do. Push to get the heart beat pumping and break out into sweat.
Alternatively, you can do circuit training. This is a series of about 5-10 exercises, which you do in a series of 60 sec for each exercise with 30-60 sec rest in between exercise. It can be a great time saver in getting some form of fitness and total body workout.
Try out these food and exercise and you can lose your body fat and gain lean muscle mass in no time.
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