In first world countries, it can sometimes seem like everyone is overweight. According to the American Heart Association, an astonishing 60-75% of the United States population is overweight or obese!1
People swing in and out of challenging diets, and gain and lose weight in cycles. The good news is that by using lifestyle and nutritional tactics that consistently help burn fat, you can make long-lasting healthy weight loss a reality.
Also, boosting the function of your thyroid gland helps to keep you lean. This is because the thyroid plays a crucial role in controlling the metabolism of your cells, the rate at which they use energy or the rate at which your cells perform their duties.
If you’re looking to lose weight, you should know that the thyroid and weight loss are deeply connected. Hypothyroidism not only slows down your metabolism, making it take longer for you to burn calories, it also can make you gain water weight.
9 Ways to Burn Fat and Boost Your Thyroid
1. EAT FOODS IN A TRADITIONAL MEDITERRANEAN DIET
A Mediterranean diet, a diet rich in whole plant foods and omega 3 fats from plants and fish, has been evidenced to fight disease in a multitude of scientific studies. Importantly, a review of randomized controlled studies found that a Mediterranean diet consistently helps people lose weight.2Whole plant foods like vegetables, fruit, whole grains, nuts, and seeds help to keep blood sugar and insulin within healthy (or lower) ranges because the sugars in these foods are absorbed more slowly than processed carbohydrates.
The higher your insulin, the more energy you store and the fatter you tend to get. Interestingly, chronically high insulin causes itself to lose its ability to signal satiety, leaving you feeling hungry all the time (which leads to overeating).
Nuts consumed in a Mediterranean diet might increase the rate at which you burn energy, and the olive oil, which is traditionally eaten, has been shown to help people lose weight as compared to reduced fat diets.
2. REDUCING CALORIES
Let’s get this boring one out of the way. Reducing calories does help people lose weight.4 More interestingly, reducing calories can also lower fasting blood glucose and inflammation throughout your body.
Lower glucose means less insulin that causes you to store calories, and inflammation has been implicated in promoting weight gain and causing insulin resistance.
3. ASHWAGANDHA
Ashwagandha has been used for thousands of years in Indian Ayurvedic medicine and can bolster thyroid function. In humans, more thyroid hormone was produced as a result of daily Ashwagandha supplementation. Patients’ levels increased in the range of 7-24%.7,
This herb is also indicated to help burn fat and promote muscle growth.8 So take Ashwagandha to be a lean, mean, muscle machine.
4. GUGGUL
Guggul has also been used in Indian Ayurvedic medicine for close to 3,000 years. In animal studies, this herb has been shown to promote thyroid function, and there is some evidence that it reduces body weight.
5. BERBERINE
This is a powerful alkaloid found in some plants. It can be taken as a supplement and is a powerful anti-diabetes herbal compound.
A clinical study has shown it to be as effective as metformin, a popular diabetes drug, at lowering numerous parameters of diabetes-like insulin, glucose, and plasma triglycerides.10 Once again, lower insulin and glucose means less fat storage.
Berberine also activates an enzyme, AMPK, that increases glucose and fat energy usage in cells.11 AMPK is important for keeping a lean body because it reduces fat storage and lowers insulin resistance.
(Note: If you want to discover the top 10 foods that Master Herbologist and Nutritionist Dr. Donna Schwontkowski recommends to boost your thyroid, then you can check out the guide here.)
6. CAYENNE PEPPER
This spice is a great adjunct herb for boosting metabolism and energy expenditure. (This means it burns up fat.).
Cayenne has been thought of as having thyroid-mimicking stimulatory effects, and it is a great tool for fighting the clinical disease signs that accompany weight gain: diabetes and metabolic resistance.12
7. GINSENG
Ginseng has been shown to promote weight loss in humans and might increase thyroid hormones. Ginseng has also been shown to reduce levels of the thyroid hormone-inhibiting factor, “reverse-T3”
8. COCONUT OIL
It might seem paradoxical, but coconut oil (which is a densely fat substance) has been shown to reduce abdominal fat in humans.15It's thought that the medium chain triglycerides in coconut oil speed up fat burning in our bodies.
And although there is little research at this time that relates coconut oil to the thyroid, many practitioners and hypothyroid sufferers swear by coconut oil’s ability to help vitalize the thyroid.
9. GREEN TEA
Green tea is evidenced to have mild weight loss effects.16 Polyphenols in green tea can inhibit fat absorption in the intestines, and they also activate AMPK, the enzyme that helps you burn fat.17
Change Your Body with Lifestyle and Nutrition
These are just a few of the ways that nutrition and lifestyle habits can help burn fat or invigorate thyroid function. There are plenty more. But as you can see, there are realistic and easy ways in which you can fight fat storage and give your thyroid a boost.
By eating healthy, using lifestyle and nutritional tricks to burn fat, and invigorating your thyroid, you’ll feel more energetic, slim, and just plain better.
Thanks for reading How To Stimulate The Thyroid To Burn Fat And Activate Metabolism