Here’s some good news: you don’t have to starve yourself to lose weight. In fact, drastically reducing your calorie intake to shed pounds will backfire in the end. But wait—there’s more good news! You can still eat delicious food and lose weight. By eating the right delicious foods, you can actually increase your metabolism, which helps your body burn fat faster and more efficiently. Do this, and you’ll lose weight faster and easier.
A saying that we always spread to our boot campers, and that you should always keep in mind, is that “you can’t out-train a bad diet.” You need to eat the right foods along with getting in regular, good exercise in order to see the results you really want. So, we’ll show you some delicious foods that will also help you lose that fat your body is holding on to. Just make sure you only rely on diet, exercise is important, too!
Say goodbye to fat when you add these seven foods and drinks to your fat-fighting diet.
Greek Yogurt
Plain, low-fat Greek yogurt is high in both calcium and protein. Without enough calcium in your diet, your body’s more likely to store calories as fat. Protein fills you up, gives you energy, and supports muscle growth. The more muscle in your body, the more calories you’re able to burn. Muscle burns fat, that’s just a fact.
Eat Greek yogurt plain, add fruit, or mix it into your favorite smoothie.
Green Tea
Green tea may do more than help prevent cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. It may also help you lose weight. The caffeine and high antioxidant content activates your nervous system, inhibits your appetite, and boosts your metabolism to improve the body’s ability to burn fat. If green tea is a little bitter it’s okay to add some local honey, but don’t add any sugar, that defeats the purpose.
Drink a cup or two a day, just not late in the day if caffeine keeps you awake.
Beans
They’re good for your heart and for your waistline. Their high fiber content and resistant starch makeup cause your digestive system to work harder—which uses more energy and burns more calories. This happens because beans resist digestion, as they make their way to the large intestine to be digested by gut bacteria. Eat black, pinto, or any of the other variations of beans you can think of, but don’t go eating those refried beans.
Eating a diet that includes resistant starch foods like beans, potatoes, and unripe bananas can increase your metabolism by up to 24 percent. Plan to eat a source of resistant-starch food at each meal.
Apples
Eat an apple a day to keep the doctor and the weight away. Apples contain pectin, a substance that reduces the amount of fat absorbed by your cells. They’re also a great source of fiber, are low in calories, and high in antioxidants. This means they fill you up, take energy to digest, and are healthy for you. And apples help wake you up in the morning, so drink a glass of water and eat an apple when you wake up instead of drinking coffee. Keep apples on hand and on your countertop for snacking on the go.
Coffee
Of course, you can still drink coffee, relax. We’re not making you give that up. Your cup of Joe in the 
morning does more than help wake you up. It also helps kick your metabolism into gear and burns off extra fat. Enjoy one or two cups a day for help burning fat. Just be careful to keep the cream and sugar to a minimum!
Spices
Two spices in particular may help you burn more fat: cinnamon and turmeric. At zero calories, cinnamon helps you metabolize sugar, lower blood sugar levels, and reduce cholesterol. Sprinkle some on whole-grain toast, oatmeal, or in your fruit smoothie.
Turmeric is a spice found in curry powder and has powerful healing properties. Turmeric contains curcumin, an ingredient that hinders fat cells from growing and may also lower blood sugar, cholesterol, liver fat, and triglyceride levels. Add turmeric to poultry, rice, soups, and stews for a boost of flavor and a thinner waistline.
Pine Nuts
They’re called nuts, but they’re actually seeds from large pine cones. Pine nuts contain many of the same wonderful nutrients as other nuts making them a healthy addition to your diet, but they’re also high in pinolenic acid, a fatty acid that increases levels of ghrelin, the hormone that tells your brain when you’re full. Anyone trying to lose weight wants more ghrelin because it reduces your appetite. Pinolenic acid may also work to prevent belly fat, so try a handful of pine nuts today.
