Now it is worth a discussion, because obviously your body will react differently when different foods are ingested. But before talking about that, let me just get the fundamentals down.

At the heart of any diet or attempt to lose fat and become leaner, there must be an energy imbalance for it to be successful. This is the CORE of any weight loss/fat loss strategy.

You’ve probably heard of this concept right? It’s called a calorie deficit.

And it alone is what dictates whether or not you will lose fat and look great.
But at the end of the week, how many dieters look back and know for a fact that they were in a calorie deficit?

Not many. Before you even think about foods that burn fat or whatever magic foods/herbs the magazines are talking about, you need to CALCULATE and ensure you are eating in a calorie deficit.

The first step is to know your BMR. This stands for BASAL METABOLIC RATE. It’s the most important term in body composition. This is simply the amount of calories your body would use if you were to lie in bed all day. It’s the energy your body uses to keep your heart beating, to fuel every cell in your body, to grow your hair, your nails etc… you get the point.

Your BMR is mostly dictated by your LBM (lean body mass), and that is mostly dictated by how tall you are. Plain and simple ladies! Here’s a graph of average BMR’s for different heights.

You can also find heaps of formulas to calculate your energy expenditure. Just Google the ‘’Harris benedict formula’’ or ‘’calculate my RMR’’.

OK ladies… let’s keep going shall we?

Once you know your BMR (adding any other energy you expend…like exercise), you can start to look at the foods you eat and see how many calories you’re eating. You want to come up with somewhat of a routine every day so you have an idea of the calories you’re consuming every day. You need to be able to GUESS or ESTIMATE your calories.

I know this goes against what you hear everywhere. But at some stage, every person serious about changing their body realizes this simple truth. If you don’t know roughly the calories you take in, you’re leaving weight loss up to chance.

A question I get a lot is… ‘’what if I just eat healthy food, do I need to know how many calories I’m consuming?’’

AARGH! Yes you still need to have an IDEA. The reason is simple; you can still get fat eating healthy food. For example, just say you need to eat approx. 1500 calories a day in order to lose 2 pounds per week, did you know that 1 avocado will give you about 300 calories? 1 cup of almonds will give you about 800 calories? 1 cup of rolled oats – about 300 calories?

You can see how easily you could be eating in a CALORIE SURPLUS while only having ‘’healthy food’’.

I don’t care how healthy you eat; you can’t defy the law of thermodynamics, which says to lose weight you must consume less calories than you burn overall!

Every fitness model, bodybuilder, and physique athlete knows this, but it seems the magz and TV DO NOT! (Actually what they KNOW, and what they SAY are 2 different things) 

Now, I started this article talking about foods that burn fat, and although I kinda went off topic, let me end by giving you some specific food advice…
There’s no denying that eating more of certain foods and less of others will get you to your goals faster.

In fact, when I’m advising a friend or client, I will usually cut out any ‘’white’’ products, diary, regular red meat, sugar, and wheat they eat. And also most ‘’processed’’ foods.

First of all most of the foods that contain the above ingredients are usually more calorie dense than the foods I recommend, but secondly the ‘’bad’’ foods above can create a hormonal environment that is not favourable for fat loss. Can you say ‘’stubborn fat’’!?

For example when trying to get nice lean muscle gain, and fat loss you want to lower your estrogen levels. Avoiding processed garbage and the ingredients I put above will help you with this, so will adding cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, kale etc.

Combine this approach with a smart exercise program (will leave this for another post), and you nearly have a full-fledged fat burning machine running.

To end this article let me give you some of my favourite ‘’foods that burn fat’’ (providing you’re in a calorie deficit of course) 

- Rolled oats
- Fruits and vegetables
- Yams and sweet potatoes
- Quinoa and millet
- Lean proteins like chicken breast, grass fed lean steak, free range eggs, white fish
- Almonds
- Whey protein powder
- Coconut milk, oil, flour, water
- Nut butters
- Beans like lentils, black beans etc
- Spices for extra thermogenic calorie burn and insulin control (cayenne, chilli, cinnamon, ginger etc.)

Of course this is just a taste of the foods I eat (i.e foods that burn fat), but this should give you some idea of what should and shouldn’t be staples in your diet.

Well this article is getting too long and you’re probably sick of reading so we’ll end this article here, I hope you enjoyed it.

Leave your comments below please? What are your favourite foods? Have you calculated your BMR? Are you allergic to any foods for e.g. do you find diary causes bloating?

Talk soon,
Karen