Burning Unhealthy Fats: How Can Food Choices Accelerate This?

Have you ever heard someone say, “What should I do to burn fat?” or “What should I eat to burn fat?” Oftentimes, we use phrases like “burn fat” as if we can literally just burn fat by eating certain foods or doing certain exercises, but that is not the case. Although there are many food options and exercises that help boost your metabolism or benefit your body when you are trying to balance your diet or calorie intake, nothing can directly burn fat. 

Burning Unhealthy Fats: Eight Insights

1. The key to sustained weight loss is increasing your metabolism, meaning increasing the number of calories your body burns. There are several ways you can boost your metabolism through exercise and diet. The goal is to maintain a calorie deficit – which means you eat fewer calories than you burn, hence you either decrease the number of calories your intake or increase physical activity to increase your calorie burn.

2. The smartest way to increase calorie burn and boost your metabolism is by incorporating exercise into your routine. The best form of exercise you can choose is either strength training or heart rate-based interval training, also commonly known as HIIT or high-intensity interval training. HIIT, or heart rate-based training are forms of cardiovascular exercises which involve working on your cardiovascular health through aerobic exercise. 

3. High-intensity or heart rate-based interval training can help you push your heart rate to the right training zone based on your fitness level to allow you to burn fat while increasing or retaining your muscle mass. Further, by pushing your heart rate through interval training to 84% of your max heart rate or higher, you can also achieve an afterburn effect, also known as EPOC or excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. The afterburn effect, or EPOC, will allow you to burn extra calories at rest for the next 24 hours without any extra effort, hence heart rate-based training allows you to train smart to burn your unwanted calories and fat. HIIT or heart rate-based training helps people burn up to 30% more calories faster and in a shorter time in comparison to other cardio exercises such as steady-state jogging, walking or cycling. This form of exercise can definitely help you achieve your fitness and weight loss goals faster.

4. Strength training can include either using your body weight or other strength equipment such as dumbbells or medicine balls to increase your muscle mass in order to increase your metabolic rate. Increased muscle mass can significantly contribute to increased calorie burn in your body, even while your body is at rest and result in weight loss. Similarly, resistance training can help reduce body fat percentage while increasing your strength and muscles. 

5. High-fiber foods promote satiety, reduce hunger, and move through the digestive system slowly to prevent weight gain. Protein-rich foods such as beans, legumes and lentils or lean fish/meat are ideal for weight management as they help reduce appetite, increase muscle mass and in turn, increase your metabolism. No matter what diet you follow whether vegan, vegetarian or non-vegetarian, your choice of protein can be chosen based on your dietary preference as long as you incorporate a high protein diet. 

6. You might think to “burn fat” you should not eat fats, but on the contrary, incorporating good healthy fats into your diet can help your caloric burn, help with weight loss and kickstart your metabolism. People associate the term fats negatively because they have been shown to increase body fat, but that usually refers to saturated fats or unhealthy food oils. Reliable sources of fat to include in your diet include coconut oil, avocados, nuts, such as almonds, and walnuts, and seeds, such as chia or flax seeds. 

7. The key to “burning fat” or weight loss is to eat foods that boost your metabolism and to exercise regularly. The ideal combination of exercise to follow would be a mix of strength and cardio training to burn body fat and increase lean muscle mass. While incorporating superfoods and clean ingredients in your diet, it is important to eat mindfully, stay hydrated and get enough sleep. 

8. We might be eating metabolism-boosting foods and working out often, but we may not be watching our sleep habits or staying hydrated which will hinder our results. The easiest way to stay on track is to remember the 80/20 rule. The goal is to balance everything - stay active and eat clean at least 80% of the time to balance the 20% of the days in which we may not be able to exercise or eat clean. 

Authored by Drishti Chhabria, Founder & Chief Experience Officer, Orangetheory Fitness India