The best way to lose weight is to create a calorie deficit. While you can reduce the amount, you eat to do that, you can also give your metabolism a boost. Your metabolism is what controls a number of calories your body burns throughout the day. Boosting your metabolism will help to burn more calories leading to a larger calorie deficit without trying too hard.
To boost your metabolism, you need to eat the right foods. Great news about this is that the best foods are those that are naturally lower in calories. They’re also foods that are filling and overall good for you.
Not only do you improve your metabolic rate, but you end up eating fewer calories throughout the day by focusing on these specific foods. You will create a calorie deficit while protecting your health.
What do you need to eat? Well, it’s all about certain fruits. There are 8 fruits that you want to start eating more of daily.
Berries
This is technically multiple fruits on one, so you do get more than nine individual fruits on this list. Whether you like blueberries, blackberries, or strawberries, you will find you get a metabolic helping hand through them.
Berries are full of fiber and water. That’s pretty much all you’ll find in most of them, although there are some natural sugars. The fiber and water (berries are almost 85% water) will help to keep you feeling much fuller for longer. Your body finds it harder to digest fiber, despite the fiber supporting your digestive system.
You can eat berries multiple ways to get the metabolic benefits. Eat them raw, put them on top of your porridge, or turn them into a smoothie. If you are going to blend, make sure you get the whole fruit rather than juice. With the juicing, you get rid of the fiber, so end up with more sugars.
You also support your overall health with berries due to some antioxidants in them. Blueberries and blackberries are among the best for antioxidants, but you can get so many health benefits from all.
Specifically, blueberries and blackberries are full of flavonoids, which help the body use up the leptin naturally produced properly. The leptin is used by the metabolism to burn fat.
Grapefruit
Insulin levels can affect your metabolism. There’s a fruit for that!
It’s all about the grapefruit. Other citrus fruits are good, but grapefruit is the best. Studies have shown that grapefruits (despite being naturally sweet) help to lower the insulin levels within the body. When there is more insulin in the body, the metabolism can’t burn calories effectively. Everyone has higher insulin levels on a morning, so you want to start the day with grapefruit to help manage those levels and make it easier to kick start the metabolism.
There is also plenty of vitamin C in grapefruit, which helps to support the immune system. When the immune system is working effectively, the rest of the body does.
Of course, the fiber count in grapefruit is also important. It helps to keep you feeling fuller for longer, meaning you eat fewer calories throughout the day. Not only are you giving your metabolism a boost, but you’re also creating more of a calorie deficit through eating fewer calories.
Watermelon
Watermelons are the best, but you can also get the following benefits from any melon. Yes, there are more than nine fruits on this list when you consider some melons out there.
There’s this common misconception that melons are full of sugar. Sure, they have natural sugar, and they taste sweet, but the sugar in melon is not the same as sugar in a cookie or brownie. Melons, specifically watermelons, will help to boost the metabolism and handle the potential sugar rush.
Watermelons are full of an amino acid called arginine. This amino acid improves the metabolism directly, helping you to burn far more fat throughout the day. Yes, it’s another fruit that has proven metabolism benefits through studies. Arginine makes sure that the weight loss is through the fat, as it helps to increase the muscle mass. This gives you another benefit since more muscle means your body burns more calories naturally!
It’s also worth considering the amount of potassium in melons—a nutrient that is more commonly associated with bananas. Potassium helps the metabolism by giving the body the right energy. When the blood sugar levels drop, the liver will produce a substance called glycogen to help keep it running. The glycogen helps to burn more calories without you feeding the body more.
How does melon come into this? Well, the potassium in melon supports the body’s ability to create the glycogen needed to support the metabolism.
Strawberries
Technically strawberries can be added to other types of berries, but they deserve a special mention on their own. When you want a fruit that is sugary and sweet, there are high chances that you think about strawberries. These summer fruits are naturally sweet, but they can get a bad reputation for this.
It’s time to ignore the myths. They’re excellent for their metabolism-boosting abilities. They’re packed full of vitamin C—yes, strawberries have vitamin C! It’s not just citrus fruits that are good for this.
The vitamin C helps to support the body’s metabolism, by encouraging the body to burn more fat. This will help you get more energy throughout the day, without consuming a lot of calories. A cup of strawberries will only give you 50 calories!
You’ll also get all the antioxidant benefits that other berries offer, supporting your immune system. And you curb those sweet cravings. You’ll feel like you’re eating something naughty, even though you’ve eaten very few calories in your dessert!
Apricots
How often do you see apricots in the store but then bypass them? Well if you want to improve your metabolism, you want to start eating them more. Apricots are one of the best fruits for iron.
Why does your body need iron? Well, the iron helps with the creation of red blood cells and supports the flow of oxygenated blood around the body. When the organs get the right amount of oxygen, they will function efficiently.
If your body doesn’t get enough iron, the metabolism will slow down. The body struggles to work harder, and you will start to feel fatigued. Your muscles can start to ache, and you’ll get a brain fog that affects your clarity and memory.
A serving of apricots will give you around 20% of your daily iron allowance. At the same time, you get a fruit that tastes sweet without the masses of calories.
Blood Oranges
These oranges are likely the least common in the supermarket, but you want to consider them. Blood oranges are packed with vitamin C, and will certainly satisfy those sweet cravings that you get daily.
Like with the strawberries, getting more vitamin C through blood oranges will support your metabolism. You’ll be able to burn fatter and store the muscle. By having more muscle mass, your body naturally has a stronger and faster metabolism. Your muscles need more energy than the fat cells.
You’ll also get more fiber through blood oranges, keeping your digestive system in check. It’s easier for your body to absorb the vitamin C that you’ve offered.
If you can’t find blood oranges, other citrus fruits are the next best thing. Oranges, tangerines, and satsumas are among the best to eat. Lemons can be good, but you may not want to eat the bitterness straight. Put some lemon slices in your water and start your day with a vitamin-packed treat.
Apples
Apples are one of the most common fruits in the home, but they are commonly overlooked for their benefits. Did you know that they are great for boosting your metabolism? This is just one of the reasons people say that an apple a day keeps the doctor away. It doesn’t matter which type of apple you buy either. Choose one that you’re more likely to eat daily. If you can afford organic apples, you want to get them over others.
Eating apples will help to prevent metabolic syndrome. This is a disorder linked to diabetes, abdominal fat, and cardiovascular disease. Your metabolism slows down because of your illnesses, so you end up burning fewer calories throughout the day. Chances are you don’t notice this until you start to see the weight gain. It’s hard to recover the metabolism unless you eat the right foods, so you want to stock up on your apples.
You just need one small apple a day for the benefits. You can stock up on other protein-filled foods with the apples, and you’ll see an even better effect on your health. Studies have shown that eating an apple a day can reduce visceral fat (the dangerous fat around your middle) by 3.7% over the course of three years. You may not notice the difference initially, but you are putting your health first. Visceral fat surrounds your organs and prevents them working properly, affecting your metabolic health.
While preventing metabolic syndrome, apples will also help to fill you up. They are packed with water and fiber, helping to support your digestive system and making it easier for your intestines to soak up all the nutrients and absorb them for later use.
Your body finds it much harder to digest fiber out of all the other food groups. It will break the apple down over the course of the day, helping to increase your metabolism by 10%.
You also get plenty of vitamins B and K from apples, which also help to protect the health of your metabolism. The B vitamins support the adoption of carbs, fats, and protein into energy for your body to use throughout the day. Vitamin K helps to metabolize the protein in the body, as well as aiding with the blood flow.
Pears
The last fruit on the list is closely linked to apples. Pears have many of the same benefits, particularly the vitamins and fiber contents. You get all the vitamins B and K that your body will need for the metabolic support. Your body finds it easier to turn the food groups into energy throughout the day.
Of course, pears are also packed full of fiber, which will help to keep you feeling fuller for longer. You will only eat 96 calories in an average pear, making it the perfect snack. The juicer the better when it comes to pears, as the water content will help the fiber make you feel full sooner.
Make sure you eat the pear skin. This is where most of the fiber is. Rather than drinking pear juice, opt for a pear smoothie made from the whole fruit.