Shopping for fat burning foods

You’ve undoubtedly read the statistics, which are a little disheartening.  Nearly 60 million Americans are overweight, with one in six of us falling in the clinically obese category.  The trend data is even worse in the younger generation, as one in three adolescents is currently overweight.

Consequently, because America’s battle of the bulge is going so poorly in statistical terms, there’s no shortage of weight loss tips offered by “experts” of various pedigree and popularity.  Many of these tips, which espouse short-term diets that work to help you lose weight, are effective in the short term but too difficult to follow (or just too unhealthy) to be sustainable over time.

A more reasonable and flexible approach is to apply healthy knowledge of fat burning foods.  The moniker is a little bit misleading, because no foods technically burn any fat, but there is surprisingly broad and deep listing of foods that help you create the metabolic conditions necessary for your body to utilize fat for energy instead of storing lipids in your fat cells.

Here’s the list.

• Eat meats.  We’re omnivores, and our digestive systems are perfectly able to accommodate meats.  There’s some debate over whether you should eat red meat or not, but that’s a personal choice.  You can lose all the weight you want without cutting out red meats.
• Eat vegetables.  Make these the staple of your diet.  Eat whatever vegetables you like, though variety is the spice of life.
• Enjoy seeds and nuts.  They’re high in fat, which is a good thing.  Eating fat doesn’t make you fat, despite conventional wisdom.
• Eat fruit in moderation.  It’s healthy for you, but modern fruits are bred for high fructose content, which we want to avoid.
• Eat limited starches.  Cut way down on breads, potatoes, pastas, and rice.  Hard for most of us to do, which accounts for our fatness.
• Cut out sugar.  Avoid sodas, fruit juices, candy, and desserts.  Yep.  If you want to lose weight, you have to give up sugar.

Simple, and once you get the hang of it, you’ll find it’s delicious too.