7 Foods That Boost Your Metabolism

Water stimulates the metabolism.

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One of the best ways to ensure that your body keeps on burning excess calories instead of storing them as fat is to keep your metabolism going. Many of us have jobs where we sit all day (guilty), and that’s B-A-D for your body. There are lots of ways to keep your body active during a typical workday, but today I want to talk about the foods (and drinks) you can consume to help.

 Water—no joke, when you get dehydrated your body’s metabolism slows down. People who drink plenty of fluids every day tend to burn more calories than those who don’t.

Salmon—Foods high in Omega-3 fatty acids help our bodies build muscle. More muscle means more calories burned. Omega-3 is also thought to help reduce cortisol levels, which in turn would reduce how many calories our bodies convert to fat (this has not yet been proven).

Coffee—As long as you don’t overdo it, drinking coffee can be a great metabolic aid. Just one cup of coffee contains enough caffeine to speed up our metabolism by up to 15% and keep fat-storing processes at bay.

Hotter is better! Eat chili peppers to burn more calories.

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Avocado—The essential oils, fats, and antioxidants present in avocados help keep our blood vessels healthy and inflammation down, meaning that our metabolism can function well. Avocados also have lots of fiber, which speeds up our metabolism as well.

Beans—Because our bodies have to work extra hard to process the fiber and resistant starch in beans, we burn more calories doing so. Studies suggest eating foods with high levels of resistant starch (beans, whole grains) can boost metabolism up to 24% throughout the day.

Chilies—Spicy foods that contain chilies also contain capsaicin, which boosts calorie burn. The hotter the better!

Green Tea—The combination of caffeine and antioxidants in green teas naturally stimulate our bodies and speed up our metabolism and increase fat burn. Various studies have suggested that drinking green tea on a regular basis can help people stay slim.

Green tea's antioxidants and caffeine can help us stay slim.

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Other foods that you can eat to give your body a natural boost include almonds, apples, pears, broccoli, cinnamon, curry, grapefruit, lean meat, oatmeal, spinach, unsweetened soymilk, and yogurt. I don’t know about you all, but those are some of my favorite things to eat anyway!

For more information on these foods and others, check out “Surprising Foods That Fight Fat” on Health.com and “16 Foods that Naturally Boost Your Metabolism” on Organic Authority. I used both as sources.