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Undoubtedly, burning fat is about consuming healthy food. When we eat right, eat healthy food, we do not have to bother about burning fat anymore. Working out at the gym for hours burning calories will not reduce your weight and burn enough of your fat when you do not consider what you consume. It means that burning fat by only doing exercise is not enough. Yes, you can burn fat and lose some of your weight by doing exercise but if you do not maintain what goes in from your mouth, soon you will get back the fat you burn. The root problem is controlling what goes into your body. And consuming healthy food is the solution.

What does it mean by consuming healthy food? The term healthy is very much dependent on the amount and frequency in consuming the food. There is no single food that contains all the nutrition our body needs. Thus, consuming healthy food actually talks about series of eating healthy foods over time, in other words, having healthy eating lifestyle. You do not get healthier right after you eat a lettuce; neither do you get significantly higher cholesterol by eating a piece of fried chicken. It is the series of eating those foods that affects your health. It is the constant action of eating the food you choose that affects your body. Thus, healthy eating lifestyle is what is important.

How to choose healthy food? There are two common characteristics of healthy food. First, the food is unprocessed. Second, the food is organic.

First, the food is unprocessed. It means we eat what the nature gives. Most of the food is provided on our table after several processes. They are boiled, fried, grilled, or preserved. Most of these processes do not make the food healthier. The unprocessed food includes fresh fruits and fresh vegetable. To name some, whole grains, legumes, raw nuts, fresh sprouts, etc. Probably the only process that the food can go through is the process of cleaning. The food has to be made fresh on our table as if we eat it directly after we pluck them.

Why do we avoid processing food? After processed, the food may lose the very nutrition that our body needs; lose entirely or some in quantity. For example, we lose healthy vegetable nutrients after we cook them. After processed, the food may contain ingredient that is dangerous for our body. For example, higher concentration of heterocyclic amines (HCA) or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) after grilling process. HCA and PAH can cause cancer. PAH is also found in tobacco smoke.

Second, the food is organic. It means we eat pesticides-free food. The food is natural, not genetically engineered, and irradiated. This kind of food offers you the highest nutrition and the purest taste of all the food available. Choose the organic food when you go to restaurant. Include organic food in your monthly shopping list. Select packaged food that has organic label, although you might need to check further on this one. Go organic.

Not only the selection of kind of food that are concerned, but also the nutrition that the food contains. Among carbohydrates, protein, and fat, protein is the one that uses more calories to burn. What does it mean? It means when you consume more protein, your body burns more calories. When your body burns more calories, your body is using more energy. It is identical to have you run in a longer period on your treadmill. It burns more of your body fat. Thus, the food that you consume determines how you will burn fat and lose weight.

Finally, your dream to burn more fat is not only about exercise. Exercise is, by all means, really good. But you also need to watch the food that you eat. By having healthy eating lifestyle, rest be assured that it avoids the fat you burn to come back filling up your body again. Consider healthy food as your daily menu. Filter your food choice. Get rid of those unhealthy foods. Make eating healthy food your lifestyle; choose unprocessed and organic food. You will be amazed how this can work in your progress of losing your weight.

We have said that eating healthy foods will definitely help you lose weight. And someone may ask what constitutes healthy foods? My personal definition of healthy foods is the green vegetable foods and fruits. These I also call the clean foods as they are clean, low in calories and do not have any residues after eating them. Unlike the high calorie foods and its fatty cousins which always leave bad residues of waste in your system, fruits and vegetables do not leave such residues that are why I see fruits and vegetables as healthy foods. On the meaty side, clean foods include foods like chicken, turkey and fish.

These meats are lean on fat and calories compared to raw beef. Lentils, dry beans and peas are also passing as clean foods. When one starts eating from the green vegetable and lean meat foods listed above, they will start losing weight because of the fact that fruits, vegetables and whole grain foods have high concentration of complex carbohydrates and fiber in them which the body can slowly absorb them and thus cause our hunger pangs to be satisfied quickly and efficiently.

The case against processed foods is that because their nutritional values are low and the fact that they do not make us feel full easily like the natural foods, they do not make us feel satisfied and this like addiction causes us to want to eat more of it when we know for sure that it is against our weight loss or maintenance goals. I once read a book about natural foods and the author said in that book that bad foods like drugs leave behind their unhealthy residue of waste behind after eating them so that as the residues stay in our system, it causes us to want to eat more to cover up the poisoning effect of that residues. You see, when we are not eating, our stomach gets into the mode for cleansing and when that happens, the poisons are all bubbled up from the tissues of our stomach into the surface.

When that happens we start feeling sick or weak and this I have found out that when it happens will cause people to eat more foods to stop the stomach’s cleansing work thus stopping the poisons from coming up to the surface and with this stopping comes our relief from the weakness that the food residues now turning into poison causes us to feel. Usually, people who undergo long periods of fasting for detoxification purpose experience this effect but even if you are not fasting one can still experience a mild form of this experience which even that is not convenient. This explains why people who eat junk food tend to eat more and that as already mentioned above is to stop them from getting sick or weak from the poisons in their stomachs that the stomach is trying to evict at ever chance of not eating for a few hours of time.

Even though manufactures of food argue that there is a need to include preservatives into our foods to preserve them and make them last longer, the side effect of such practice is not good as it has caused many of industrialized world’s health to deteriorate as it stands now. Perhaps our biggest nutritional mistake has been turning away from foods in their natural state. We have replaced them with processed foods that have been modified to last longer, be easier to manufacture and distribute, and be more convenient to store and use.

For example, when I go to the grocery store, I see apple Juice that has no fiber at all and then when I go to a health food store, I see apple Juice with the fiber in them. Unfortunately the apple Juice with the fiber in them are expensive and they are not found any where except in health food stores so a great majority of the population do not get access to the healthy apple Juice except the one that has been heavily processed and all the fiber taken out from them. The apple Juice with the fiber in them are the good ones because they are full of fiber and are able to help aid weight loss and good health. The apple Juice with no fiber is usually full of added sugars and they tend to contain more calories than the regular apple or the apple Juice with the fiber. This is to say that process foods are not good that is why they are usually less expensive than the healthy unprocessed equivalents.

Natural foods are good for our health and can easily aid us in losing weight and staying healthy. It is full of vitamins, minerals and fiber and contains cancer fighting antioxidants that are contained in natural unprocessed foods. These foods help reduce the risk of suffering from diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer and even help us to reduce weight and stay fit and healthy.

The foods that are processed may be added to what I call the bad foods as they are usually not healthy for us and contain lots of salt, sugars, preservative, saturated and Trans fats. Most nutritionist will tell you that the outer skin of foods in general are more nutrients than even the part that we think we must eat but unfortunately the outer parts of foods is what is thrown away as unfit for food. Take potato for example, the outer skin is more nutritious than the inner food but yet most people will throw out the outer skin and eat the starch within it. Since processed foods do not have fiber in them and are full of additives and food dyes for color they are not healthy for us and in most cases can make one sick.

The human body needs clean environment to stay healthy and eating foods doused with foreign chemicals and ingredients will not help us at all but will make people worse off. But as suggested above, eating healthy natural foods with high natural fiber and nutrients are good for us and can help us to lose weight and remain healthy and thin. It will cause you not to be hungry needlessly but will help shield you from the hunger pangs and cause you to stay slim, healthy and enjoy your life fully. Always remember that it is not about taste or quantity of food that matters but it is the quality of the food and the health it promotes that matters and with no food residues left in our system will also mean that craving for the bad foods will be eliminated or drastically reduced.