Increase Your Daily Calorie Burn With These 6 Tips

When trying to lose fat and build some muscle so you can reshape your body, it helps to find simple tricks to eliminate or burn more calories, whether it’s through your workout program, or through your nutrition plan. Here are five simple nutrition tips that will help put your body in fat burning mode, and increase your daily calorie burn. This will help you get even more out of your workout plan, helping you make even faster progress.

1) Eat more vegetables to increase your daily burn

Simple sure, but how many people really do it? Try mixing and matching fresh vegetables for variety, and how you prepare them. I love carrots that are thinly cut, rather than thick, whole carrots, for example. I also like adding a dip, such as hummus, to make them a little less mundane. Besides the numerous health benefits, most veggies are full of fiber, which will fill you up, as well as burn more calories than eating other foods.

Yes, frozen vegetables are just fine. In fact, frozen fruits and vegetables have shown to be more likely to hold their nutrient value versus fresh because of things like the time they sit after being picked before you have them at home and eat them. AVOID BOILING YOUR VEGGIES!! Always go raw, if you can, and you will increase your daily calorie burn!

2) Get Your Fitness In!

Try a High Intensity Interval Training program in order to really maximize your calorie burning capabilities. Make your workout the most efficient by doing a HIIT workout. Generally less than 30 minutes, HIIT workouts will include a mixture of cardio and strength training that get your blood pumping, metabolism kicking and calories burning!

2) Go ahead and snack

Make sure it’s the good stuff, like nuts (especially almonds), veggies and some fruit, and in moderation! Not dried fruit, though. Have you ever looked at the calorie count and ingredients of most mixed nut and fruit “trail mix” products? It’s not pretty! I find my favorite fruit to snack on is pink grapefruit – it’s not too sour, and fills me up. PLUS, it’s pretty much negative calories – it uses up as many calories eating it as you are putting in!

3) Speaking of nuts, add nuts to your yogurt and salads

Chopped nuts make a great alternative to “breaded” style garnishes like croutons. I love adding a crunch factor to my greek yogurt, and nuts are the best thing for it! Each nut has different benefits, so a mixture is always good. I will portion mine out though, as I really have a hard time stopping! For those of you with a sweet tooth, try adding a tiny bit of honey to the mixture as well.

4) Specific food combinations can help to burn calories by ramping up your metabolism

Eat carbs that are rich in fiber. They take longer to digest and you will feel “fuller” for longer periods of time. Along with carbs rich in fiber, take in more protein. Your body burns more calories when you eat protein than it burns digesting either fats or carbohydrates.

Eating more protein to burn fat was confirmed in a study published in the American Journal of Physiology. One group was fed a high protein diet (just over one gram per pound of body weight per day) while the second group consumed a protein diet near equal to that of the RDA. The group eating the high protein diet burned more fat than the group consuming protein near equal to the RDA.

Want to burn fat or build muscle? Get lots of fiber and protein. Eating protein also helps to prevent muscle loss while dieting, which can help prevent the slowing of your metabolism.

5) Yogurt can help you lose weight while protecting muscle.

A study of overweight people who ate three servings of yogurt daily for 12 weeks lost 22% more weight, 61% more body fat and 81% more abdominal fat than people who ate a similar number of calories but no dairy products. Make sure to get yogurt with real fruit and no added sugar. Greek yogurt can also be found with high protein content, which again, helps with muscle recovery. Or, get plain yogurt and add your own berries to it. Yogurt is also an easy and convenient snack and usually contains high quality protein as well. Try it out as a way to increase your daily calorie burn.

Put these five tips into practice and your new muscle building, fat burning machine (your body) will reward you for it.