Experts say
eating chillies can help burn energy, hours after a meal. It’s also been
suggested eating spicy food may temporarily suppress the appetite. Add
jalapenos or red and green chilli to the dishes to give them a fat burning
boost.
It doesn’t
just heat up your mouth, the spicy hotness of a chilli pepper also kick-starts
your body’s fat burners.
Food
scientist Heidi Allison, author of The Chili Pepper Diet, found that you can
lose 10 times as much weight if you add a sprinkle of dried chillies to your
meals.
Eating chili
peppers may be useful on a weight loss diet.
They contain
a substance called capsaicin, which has been shown to help reduce appetite and
increase fat burning in some studies.
This
substance is even sold in supplement form and is a common ingredient in many
commercial weight loss supplements.
One study
showed that eating 1 gram of red chilli pepper reduced appetite and increased
fat burning in people who didn’t regularly eat peppers.
However,
there was no effect in people who were accustomed to eating spicy food,
indicating that some sort of tolerance can build up.
Foods containing chillies are said to be as
foods that burn fat. Chillies contain capsaicin that helps in increasing the
metabolism. Capsaicin is a thermogenic food, so it causes the body to burn
calories for 20 minutes after you eat the chillies.
The secret
to pepper's fat-blasting power lies in an alkaloid substance called capsaicin,
which is also the source of the hot flavor. Not only does capsaicin ignite your
mouth, but it may actually cause your body to heat up so that you burn calories
faster.
The
capsaicin/temperature link may be explained by the activity of brown fat. Most
of the fat in our bodies is white, and excess levels of white fat are what
cause people to become overweight or obese. In contrast, brown fat makes up a
very small percentage of total fat (not all people may even have it), and is
highly active as it works to regulate body temperature. Experts used to think
that only babies have brown fat and they lose it growing up; now we know that
adults also have brown fat, and can even build new brown fat cells.
In animal
studies on hot peppers and weight loss, subjects demonstrated higher levels of
brown fat activity after exposure to capsaicin. Although animal studies do not
accurately predict results among people, it's possible that hot peppers also
increase human metabolism by activating brown fat.
There also
may be hope for people who desire similar effects without having to eat spicy
foods, although research is still in the beginning stages. A small study
published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition revealed that young men
who had previously demonstrated brown-fat activity burned slightly more
calories in the hour after taking capsinoids, which are capsaicin-like
substances found in a unique variety of sweet pepper. Capsinoids don't taste
hot, but this study suggests they may have similar thermogenic effects as spicy
foods.
Regardless
of the mild metabolism-boosting effects of peppers, the most effective way to
slim down is to reduce caloric intake and increase physical activity. Peppers
won't make up for overeating, just give you a minor boost.
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