Best Foods to Boost Your Metabolism

Metabolism: We hear it all the time, it’s a part of your biological makeup, and yet the concept still confuses us. Your metabolic rate is a complex yet a quintessential part of your health. It is the rate at which your body actually burns calories, even when your body is resting. To put it in the simplest way possible for even myself to understand it, we think of it as the process of converting food into energy. This energy is important to stay moving, growing, and active. And when we say moving, we mean even the smallest movements, like breathing, digesting, even thinking! Needless to say, keeping your metabolism at a steady and healthy rate is important and there are foods that can help with this. 

The first and largest food group is protein-rich foods. Meat, fish, dairy products, and eggs are all high in protein and require more energy to digest which is also known as the thermic effect of food (TEF). In other words, your body is burning more calories in order to digest the food. 

The second might be exciting for all you coffee lovers out there! The caffeine in coffee has been proven to increase your metabolic rate. It’s actually one of the few substances that is able to mobilize the fats from your fat tissue. The increase of fat burning is the main reason for this boost of metabolism.

Avocados have many amazing health benefits, one being its anti-inflammatory properties. If you are looking to boost your metabolism it is important you are consuming foods that don’t inflame parts of your body that interfere with your metabolism. Avocados are a great food source to incorporate in your diet to stabilize that metabolic rate. 

Spicy foods; such as chili peppers, also have metabolic benefits. There are certain compounds, like capsaicin, that increase your heat generation and therefore, speed up metabolism. 

Last but certainly not least, switch to whole grains if you’re looking to boost your metabolism. In addition to whole grain foods containing lots of fiber and anti-inflammatories, whole grains require more time to digest. Similar to protein-rich foods, your body works harder to digest and break down the whole grains and thus, burning more calories and increasing your metabolic rate. 

Keep in mind that there are many other great food sources that help with your metabolism as well. For people who are gluten intolerant or vegetarian, beans, lentils, green tea, and tempeh are also great options!