The superfood groups are the super heroes of the nutrition world, hailing special powers and properties, giving them a status above other foods.
These special powers vary from building bones, preventing disease, improving your eyesight, and helping to elevate your brain activity. What would you think if the superfood helped increase your metabolic rate, helped with weight reduction, fat metabolism, and helped you stay at your goal?
Personally, if I could really eat myself slim it would be a preferential diet. Obviously you cannot just eat these foods and the weight fall off, but the following 6 superfoods have been shown during research to have a beneficial effect. So tweak what you eat, and start adding these foods into your diet, and reap the benefits.
Green Tea: If you have at least 4 cups of this drink a day you may notice that your appetite is curbed, as well as it helping to reduce craving responsive snack consumption. It is also said to help regulate blood sugar, which again can reduce cravings.
It is said to have a fat absorption inhibitory quality, and is regularly attributed to increasing the bodies basal metabolic rate. It is thought that drinking green tea post work out helps maintain the elevated fat burning and increased metabolism you have created.
Pineapple: This tropical fruit is full of iodine, which is active in the health state of the thyroid gland. The thyroid gland is the control center for how quickly your body uses energy sources. In basic terms, if your thyroid gland is under-active you may find yourself feeling fatigued and prone to weight gain.
Conversely if the thyroid gland is over active your health can become at risk with pressure on the heart muscle, increased pulse rate, increased heartbeat, and increased nervous activity. You may find that you lose weight as a side effect, but in an unhealthy fashion.
Ginger: This spice warms in your mouth, but it also warms your body inside. It creates body heat that kick starts your fat burning system. I would suggest that you try to avoid this spice too near to bedtime, and also when you need to calm down as it is a stimulant, and you don’t need to disturb essential “beauty” and recovery filled sleep.
I find that it is a strong flavored spice so you don’t need much, go steady at first and use it sparingly. You could add this to soup, curry or grate onto a salad, or very simply add to warm water for a spicy drink.
Chili: Similarly to ginger this “spices” things up on your insides, as well as setting your taste buds tingling. It can be potent enough to set your eyes and nose running.
Chillies and peppers contain capsaicin, this is a chemical that increases your body’s internal activity levels, and means that there is a higher likelihood of burning available calories and not turning them to fat. There is evidence from research to suggest that the effect from eating these body boosting gems continues passed the meal, and in some cases maintains a 25% efficiency at burning fat for up to 3 hours post consumption.
Salmon & Sunflower seeds: Are lemon seeds edible? Possibly. These are both high zinc foods. Leptin requires zinc for it to work effectively. Energy regulation and how the energy is used is controlled by the hormone leptin, so if the leptin hormone is inefficient due to a lack of zinc, it will affect your energy systems and the control of the body’s metabolism.
Another benefit is the high protein content of both of these foods, essential for keeping you feeling full for longer periods and simultaneously stabilizing a healthy blood sugar level.
Brown or Wild Black rice: This useful grain is burned slowly within the body, so similarly to salmon and pumpkin seeds, it helps to keep you feeling full for a longer period. It is an invaluable source of the B vitamins, they are delivered in a complex and are essential for burning fat, assisting the liver to clear toxins and reducing congestion.
Wouldn’t it be lovely if you really could just eat these foods and lose weight? In truth they are food assistants, and in order to effectively boost your metabolism, diet tweaks combined with exercise will be required. These lush recipes incorporate some of my favorite metabolic boosting foods, tasting great in combination, and if they help shift some pounds what a bonus!
Recipes
Smoothie – pineapple, green tea, green spinach, honey, lemon and ginger
Method – 1 cup of pre brewed green tea, 3 handfuls of spinach, 1 tbsp honey, 6 tsps lemon juice, 1 tsp ginger paste, ½ a fresh pineapple. Place all the ingredients into a food processor or blender and pulse until you are happy with the consistency. I prefer it a little textured.
Flaked salmon and black Chili rice risotto
Method – boil a pan of water add a cup of rice and bring to the boil and leave to simmer until the rice is cooked. Steam your salmon fillet, separately steam long stem broccoli with sliced fresh red Chili. Drain and rinse the rice. Place in a bowl and add the broccoli, Chili and your salmon fillet (which you have flaked). Toss together and serve.
Salmon with a teriyaki, soy and pumpkin seed crust. Pak choi, kale, courgette and long stem broccoli warm Chilli salad, with ginger and pineapple chutney.
Method – mix 1 tsp of malt extract, 1 tsp of teriyaki, 8 drops of shomu soy sauce. Drizzle it onto the salmon fillet and top with pumpkin seeds. Place into a pre heated oven on 180 degrees C for 20 minutes. Whilst this is cooking, chop half a courgette length ways, long stem broccoli, and trim the base from the pak choi. Slice a fresh red Chilli and 2 cloves of garlic. Throw everything into a wok and stir fry for 5 minutes. Add 2 handfuls of spinach and cook for a further 2 minutes. Time this to be ready with your salmon. Serve with your pineapple chutney.
Green tea, coconut frozen pudding with pineapple topping
Method – pre brew some green tea, add a mug full to a bowl. To this add 2 cups of desiccated coconut. Allow it to absorb the tea and add a tin of coconut milk. Mix thoroughly and then add 1 tsp of matcha green tea powder. Heat a little water in a pan and dissolve some gelatin crystals into the simmering water, add this to your mixture if you are refrigerating as appose to freezing. If you are freezing the dessert add equal amounts to silicon bun cases, cover with cling film and place in the freezer until solid. The gelatin crystals will help the mix set if you are only using the fridge. Serve with a pineapple foam. (fresh pineapple mixed with Walden farms pancake syrup and blended until foamy in texture.)
Ginger seed cake with pumpkin seeds
Method – Pre heat your oven to 180 degrees C. Grease your baking/cake tin 8inch round. To your food processor add 2 tbsp ginger paste, 1 cup chestnut flour, 1 cup Linwoods (flax, sunflower, pumpkin, and goji berries), ½ cup melted coconut oil, 7 figs, 2/3 cup almond milk, 2 medium eggs, 1tsp baking soda. Blend together and spoon into the cake tin. Sprinkle pumpkin seeds on top and bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. I serve drizzled with Walden Farm pancake syrup so I tend not to use stevia or honey in the mix. You can add it into the cake mix if you prefer. (stevia to taste, 3 tsps I would suggest.)