10 BEST Fat Loss Foods to Eat REGULARLY

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I'm JJ Virgin PhD dropout.

Sorry, mom turned four time New York Times bestselling author.

Yes, I'm a certified Nutrition Specialist, Fitness hall of Famer, and I speak at health conferences and trainings around the globe. But I'm driven by my insatiable curiosity and love of science to keep asking.

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Did you know that certain foods can accelerate your fat loss? Now, being a little more strategic with your meal plan could be the key that helps you get over a stubborn weight loss plateau and fit back in your favorite genes. I'm betting while a few of these ones I'm going to talk about are staples, there are also a few here that may surprise you and one that I've now made a point of integrating into my diet at least three times a week. So first up are berries. Now, I am a huge fan of berries. Blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries. And they're not only delicious, but why they're great is they are rich in fiber and antioxidants. This is going to help you in a couple different ways. Number one, it's going to help you reduce inflammation. Remember, if you're inflamed, you're basically blocking muscle protein synthesis and it can lead to more insulin resistance. It's also going to support good gut health and a healthy gut microbiome. And this is one I just found out about. It can help keep your sweet cravings in in check. And it does that without causing a big blood sugar spike. So there was a study in 2015, it was an observational study, it was published in Appetite that found that eating a mixed berry snack significantly reduced caloric intake at dinner compared to if you ate a sugary sweet snack. So they gave one group berries, one group, the sweet sugary snack. The people who had the berry snack ate 691 calories at dinner. The people who had the sugary snack, they ate 824 calories at dinner. So if you want that sweet, go for the berries. Next up is wild caught salmon. My favorite fish of all fish. This one of course is high in those omega 3s. They're anti inflammatory and they are. It's also a great source of protein. Salmon actually helps boost your resting metabolic rate and helps preserve muscle mass while you're burning fat. And a study even showed that omega 3s can increase your resting metabolic rate by 14% and your fat breakdown by 19%. It was a study in 2021 that was a review of seven studies involving 245 participants. And it was published in Evidence Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. And it found that those who took Omega 3 supplements had a higher resting metabolic rate compared to those who didn't. And this was seen both in women and obese people. Now, why is this happen? We're not really sure, but here's my hypothesis. There's a couple things that could be going on. Number one, we know that Omega 3s can help improve insulin sensitivity. So if you've got better insulin sensitivity, you have lower insulin response to food. And if your insulin's low, if it comes back to lower resting levels, it's easier for you to use fat as a fuel source, stored fat. The other thing we know about fish is that fish oil can be anabolic. It can actually help you build muscle. And we know that if you're building muscle now, that's a great place for you to both store sugar. It's a sugar sponge and it's one of the fastest ways to improve your insulin sensitivity. So those may be some of the reasons that this is happening. It's a little bit preliminary, but here's what I do know. Wild salmon and omega 3 fatty acids supplementing with fish oil every day is going to be a win for your health. Next up, my most favorite, something that I never go without on a daily basis. Can you guess what it is? Coffee. Now, it's not just a morning pick me up. I know we all think of it this way, but coffee has a very good thermogenic effect. It increases your metabolic rate and it helps support breaking down fat. It's what I do before I go to the gym. I always have some coffee because it's going to help me have that better workout effect and it's also going to help me with more fat burning overall. Plus, you may not realize this, but coffee is a great source of polyphenols, great source of antioxidants that support your metabolic health. But here's the thing we want to make sure of. Don't make a good thing bad. Don't go dump some terrible cream or garbage sugar into your coffee. If you need to sweeten it up, try some allulose, a nutritive sweetener. I love Rx sugar for that. And use maybe a little unsweetened coconut creamer. So there was a cool study, 2010 clinical trial that was published in the Journal of Health Science that showed that drinking coffee every day can help your body use more fat for energy after meals. And what happens when you do that? Well, might lose some body fat and improve your overall metabolic health. So cup of coffee or two for your health. The other thing that I drink every day is green tea. And this is actually what I like to take to the gym. So what I like to do is load up my big canteen with green tea and then I put in there some creatine, some electro replenish and some essential amino acids as well. So I've got my clean creatine electroplenish and my amino acid power. I put all of that in a 32, it might even be a 64 ounce or it's big to the gym. And I drink that while I'm doing that. It's amazing because it's loaded with antioxidants, particularly these antioxidants called catechins. And these help you with fat burning, especially during exercise. Also, green tea helps improve insulin sensitivity. And of course, again, that's a great way to support better metabolic health. There was a study that was published in Food and function in 2016 that found that people who consume green tea with high levels of catechins during their highest fat meal every day for 12 weeks showed significant reductions in visceral and subcutaneous fat compared to a placebo group. All they did was drink green tea. I recommend getting in, trying to get in at least 16 ounces of a quality green tea each day. More is better. The next one is bone broth. Bone broth is amazing because it's rich in collagen, which is so good for your gut. And also it's got anti inflammatory properties, so it's reducing inflammation, it's healing and sealing your gut. Now how I do it is I use my Paleo inspired protein powder, which is basically concentrated bone broth rich in collagen. And then if I'm cooking things, I'll also cook and use bone broth in my cooking as well. So this is an easy one. If you need something in the afternoon, if you have to go for the snack, maybe a little warmed up bone broth can do the trick for you. And here's the thing, it's going to also support better connective tissue, right? And so it's going to help reduce inflammation and support better connective tissue. So bone broth for the winter. Now the next one I have a little challenge with, I must admit, because I don't love the flavor and it's coconut, but I've made A point of figuring out how to put it into my world. Because coconut oil, coconut milk, coconut flakes, they're rich in something called medium chain triglycerides. And medium chain triglycerides are really easy for your body to burn for energy. So it's easy for for you to burn fat. And it's great thermogenesis. In fact, there was a study in 2015, it was a meta analysis published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition Dietetics that found that replacing long chain triglycerides with medium chain triglycerides led to modest reductions, but still happened in body weight, waist and hip circumference and body fat. But it did this without imploding your blood lipid levels. So where I do this is I'll do a little bit of foamed up coconut cream on my coffee and my midday coffee as a treat. That's an easy way to get in. Now the one that I'm obsessed with, that I've been incorporating into our diet multiple times a week now and at least three days a week. If I could get it in every day, I would. Are mushrooms. Mushrooms Anti obesity effects are attributed to their antioxidant properties. And their antioxidant properties are helping enhance cellular antioxidant defense systems and promote anti inflammatory actions. Remember, it is so important to get the inflammation down. Inflammation is an independent risk factor for obesity. The more inflamed you get, the more it drives body fat gain. The more body fat, the more inflamed you are. So you really want to get control of that inflammation. Mushrooms can help, but here's what's cool. They also have glutamic acid which gives you a really good umami flavor. Flavor similar to salt. So they can be a great thing to add into your food. Super low calorie, but loads of taste. So I like to add them in. Here's what we've been doing with them a lot is they are our side dish with steak or lamb. And so what we will do is get really good mushrooms. We've been looking at doing a lot of shiitake and oyster lately. We will saute them in a little bit of olive oil. I'll use a little bit of of the pluck organ seasoning on top. Sounds gross. It's really good. And so we use a little pluck organ seasoning, a little bit of sea salt and then I throw some onions in and too. And that's what we put on our steaks. It's amazing. And then I have leftovers. You can use it to put into an omelette, which is fabulous. You can put it into your cauliflower rice as a stir fry. So mushrooms are just incredible. There was a 2018 animal study that was published in the Nutrients Journal that found that incorporating mushrooms into the diet of mice led to significant fat loss. The study showed that a mushroom enriched diet experienced a notable reduction in body weight and body fat percentage, with an average decrease in body fat of 4.3% over the trial period just by adding in mushrooms. Now what do I love with my mushrooms? I love lean beef protein. Now I think that we're all smart enough now to know that you can eat beef and burn fat. I don't know why beef has been so villainized for so long, but lean bee protein helps with fat loss by promoting muscle growth and repair while being the preferred fuel for burning fat. In fact, processing protein burns more calories than carbs and fats due to its higher thermic effect. You know that when you're eating protein, your body has to work hard. It takes 20 to 30% of those calories to do that processing and build those muscles, compared to pretty much zero for fat and 5 to 10% for carbs. So way bigger pro thermic effect with protein. And we also know that protein slows digestion like those GLP1 drugs do, right? So then you're not snacking, you're not hungry, which of course is going to help lead to weight loss over time as well. And you got more muscle. Guess what happens, You've got a place for that sugar to go. And what you're going to find when you eat more protein is that you don't crave the sugar, you don't crave the carbs, and you got way better blood sugar levels. There was a study in 2017, it was published in the FA journal where researchers found that including eating lean beef in a high protein diet can support weight loss as effectively as a high protein diet without red meat. So I'm telling you this, if you're one of those phobic of red meat. Over 16 weeks, 119 overweight or obese adults followed high protein diets. They either did it with with red meat or without red meat. Now, both groups experienced significant reductions in body fat percentage, basically from 40.7% to 35.6% and fat mass from 40.3 kg to 32.4 kg. The final body fat percentages, lean beef was 35.1% versus no red meat, 34.9. So no significant difference and same with the fat mass, it was about 31 kgs, both. So if you're thinking, oh, I can't eat red meat, lose weight, nope, it's just the opposite. So have fun with it and add those mushrooms. One of the other things that I love, and this is a great one, if you're not dairy intolerant. So when I wrote the Virgin Diet, I saw how many people really struggled with with dairy and struggled with eggs. But when you heal your gut, quite often you can incorporate these back in. And if you can, Greek style yogurt is amazing because of its high protein content, which is going to help you. Of course, it's more thermogenic like I talked about with beef. It's going to improve increased satiety. It's going to help you hold on to or build muscle if you're doing caloric restriction. So it's easy for you to have that fat loss and that satiety. That can be difficult when you're trying to lose weight. Right. It's like hard for you to make sure you're holding on to muscle and losing fat. Greek style yogurt and what I like to do here is I'll do Greek style yogurt non fat. And I know I'm going to get some hating on people going, why aren't you eating fat? Well, because I'd rather add other types of fat in. So I do, I do plain non fat Greek style yogurt and I'll add in either some nuts, some freshly ground flaxseed meal, something like that. I prefer to do that part. There was a study 2019 that was published in the Frontiers of Nutrition, where researchers found that eating fortified yogurt daily helped overweight and obese individuals lose more body fat compared to those who ate low fat plain yogurt. So realize fortified yogurt Greek style yogurt versus just plain old yogurt, which is lower in protein, higher in carbs. They were all on a caloric restricted diet. The people who ate the fortified yogurt lost 5.1 kg on average. Those eating the plain yogurt lost 4.3 kg. And the fortified yogurt group also saw greater reduction in body fat percentage and waist circumference, had better improvements in metabolic health, lower insulin resistance and lower triglyceride levels and higher vitamin D and HDL levels. And they also preserved more muscle mass. So again, Greek style yogurt is different than regular yogurt. Look for the Greek style yogurt. There was a 2015 review that was published in the International Journal of Obesity that showed that yogurt consumption is associated with lower body weight, bmi, waist circumference and body fat. But here is the important thing. Note that I said plain Greek style yogurt. You can do it with low fat, non fat or full fat. That's not the issue. Here's what you want to avoid at all costs. Avoid the yogurts that have added in fruit. It is basically like they just took a bunch of sugar with a little bit of fruit and made turned your yogurt into a sundae. So you're getting the plain. That's the deal we have to have. Otherwise you've got a bunch of sugar added in. This is one that I incorporate in to my salads. But this is another great thing that you can do, especially if you're really working on fixing your blood sugar. If you've got any issues with higher fasting blood sugar, higher blood sugar throughout the day, higher blood sugar response to a meal, or you're insulin resistant, you're going to want to incorporate this in. And if not, you're still going to want to incorporate this in. But you can incorporate into things like salad dressings. I'm talking about apple cider vinegar. And There was a 2018 randomized clinical trial that was published in the Journal of Functional Foods that found that combining apple cider vinegar with a caloric restricted diet, it was a 250 calorie a day deficit, significantly improved weight management and metabolic profiles over 12 weeks. In fact, those consuming 30ml of ACV daily saw greater reductions in their body weight, their bmi, their hip circumference, their visceral fat and their appetite scores compared to the control group. And the ACV group experienced significant decreases in plasma triglycerides and total cholesterol and an increase in HDL cholesterol. So what's this mean? This means that ACV can affect your metabolic health. It can improve your metabolic health, it can enhance your weight loss. So what do we do with this where I use this again? I think that all of us should be using this as our vinegar or choice when we're making salad. So what I like to do is some acv, a little olive oil on my salad. So that's the first one. But if you are actively working on your blood sugar control, on your insulin sensitivity, this is one that I would look at doing before each meal, if at all possible. And it can be as simple as putting a little bit into some green tea, 2 tablespoons into green tea better if you drink, if you do this with the fork, avoid your teeth or you can even take it in capsules. But. But you know I like the food first approach whenever possible. So easy enough to throw into some green tea and have before your meal, especially your bigger meals. Give it a shot. Now that you've got your nutrition on point, you've listened to these 10 the ones that you haven't incorporated in like let's make that commitment, you're putting them on into your diet. Look at how they can get into that rotation because so much of this is just creating new habits, right? Be be sure to join me next time for more tools, tips and techniques you can incorporate into everyday life to.

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