Another benefit? Capsaicin is known to make you feel good.
Consuming it can release a flood of hormones like serotonin which can boost your mood and relieve depression and stress.1
You can also speed metabolism by eating chewy, whole grain foods. Rich in fiber, they help your body burn more fat because the digestion process takes extra effort to break them down, more so than processed grains like white bread or white pasta.
Favor whole foods such as fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds, and whole grains like brown rice, quinoa, and oatmeal. The simple act of chewing these natural, high-fiber foods can boost your calorie burn rate by up to 30%! 2
Other foods that speed up metabolism include citrus fruits. Grapefruit is known to keep metabolism high and to help burn fat, which may be due to the high content of vitamin C, shown to reduce insulin spikes.3 Some individuals on medications may not eat Grapefruit due to its interference with medication absorption.
You can also support metabolism and speed up weight loss specifically with fruits like apples and pears. Both are important sources of fiber, which also promotes a feeling of fullness after meals. Research performed by the State University of Rio de Janeiro found that women eating three small apples or pears a day lost more weight than women who did not.4 For people with diabetes, sugar intake monitoring is essential when adding fruit to a daily diet.
When looking at how to speed up metabolism through diet, be sure to include foods high in calcium, such as leafy greens, broccoli, cabbage, nuts, and low-fat dairy. According to Michael Zemel, Ph.D., director of The Nutrition Institute at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville,5 “calcium stored in fat cells play a crucial role in regulating how fat is processed and stored by the body. The more calcium there is in a fat cell, the more fat the cell will burn – and the greater the weight loss. Calcium provides small increases in thermogenesis, the body's core temperature, which may boost metabolism and prompt our bodies to burn fat,", Zemel explains.
It’s worth noting that a diet to lose weight fast could include caffeinated beverages such as coffee and black and green tea. You can spark them up with a bit of dark chocolate, but don’t load them up with sugar or cream.
The caffeine can boost your metabolism by 5-8%. Although green tea doesn't have much caffeine, it contains catechins, an antioxidant that can raise resting metabolism by about 4%.