How Spicing Up Your Diet can Help You Lose Weight
One of the best ways to start losing weight, and keep it off, is to cook for yourself. Going out to dinner and picking up take out is easy. However, the foods are rarely nutritious often over cooked, and actually lack flavor. They’re usually packed with fat, sugar, and sodium. Three ingredients that practically guarantee weight gain.
Many people just don’t know how to cook at home without using fat, sugar, and salt to make the foods taste good. We are so accustom to having everything cooked with sugar and salt, we don’t know what the foods should really taste like. The trick to tasty and healthy foods may rest in your spice cupboard.
How Do Spices Help You Lose Weight?
There are actually two primary ways that spices help you lose weight. The first is that they make your food taste better so you don’t have to add fat, sugar, and salt to make it palatable. Some commonly used spices include:
* Onion powder, not onion salt (Salt is salt, onion salt just has onion added to salt)
* Garlic powder, not garlic salt
* Peppers (cayenne and black) Try Fresh ground black pepper for true pepper taste
* Turmeric
* Cumin
These spices can be found in any supermarket. If there is a Spice shop near you, that is even better. You always want to use the freshest spices available. They’re easy to use and they add great flavor to most foods. You might try a little onion or garlic powder and black pepper in a grilled turkey burger for example. You’ll get all the taste you could want and much less fat than a beef hamburger.
The other way that spices can help you lose weight is by directly influencing how your body burns fat. Many spices boost your metabolism and some work as a diuretic to reduce water retention.
Spices that Boost Your Metabolism
Cayenne – Cayenne pepper and even other cooked peppers, have been shown to increase metabolism. It’s the Capsaicin in the cayenne pepper that boosts metabolism. Studies have shown that it may also help people lose weight by reducing the amount of calories you absorb. Some people even take capsaicin capsules to help them lose weight. I am not sure that would work for me, I enjoy chili pepper on my foods but not in capsule form. You don’t have to do that, just add a little pepper to your meals, after all you are going for flavor.
Cinnamon – Cinnamon is on the other side of the flavor spectrum than cayenne pepper but it offers many of the same benefits. Cinnamon actually contains a compound that helps you break down your body’s resistance insulin resistance. It promotes your body’s ability to absorb and energy and burn calories more consistently over a period of time.
Cinnamon is so effective that some people take it by the teaspoon full. We don’t recommend that because it doesn’t taste very good in pure form and it’s awfully dry and powdery. You can sprinkle it on your foods or take cinnamon supplements. It is getting a lot of good press lately, so I sprinkle a little in my morning coffee, a trick I picked up in Mexico where they add a cinnamon stick when brewing coffee.
Black pepper and mustard seed also have similar properties to cinnamon and cayenne pepper. In fact, scientists found that one teaspoon of hot mustard can boost your metabolism up to 25% for several hours after eating it. It’s not just for hot dogs, try mixing a little into your salad dressing for a new taste treat.
Fennel and ginger both work as a diuretic. That means they help water flow through your body and flush toxins. You don’t retain water which makes you feel better and you’re not bloated or retaining water. Ginger is also being studied as a metabolism booster. Ginger is used in Asain and Indian foods. It adds a nice flavor.
If you’re seeking lasting weight loss, open your spice cupboard or drawer and get cooking. You can make delicious and nutritious food that helps you lose weight too.
Till next time, take care of yourself, Eat Healthy, Enjoy Life.
Chef William
















