Yes and no.
Yes because when you eat, your metabolism "works up" slightly due to the thermic effect of food and when you digest and absorb the food you eat, you need energy (hence burning of calories) to complete the process.
So if you view foods from this perspective, then all of them are capable of increasing your metabolism.
That's why if you don't eat, skip meals or go on a "diet" by restricting calories, you don't have this benefit of "working up" your metabolism with this sheer act of eating, digesting and absorbing food which uses up energy, hence burns off calories. In fact, you would have slower metabolism because of the absence of food......
No because foods can't spike up your metabolism sky-high. The total thermogenic effect of foods constitutes only 5-10%. In a nut shell, this kind of effect would not cause you to lose weight significantly.
If that's the case, why bother to use food as a means to increase your metabolism?
Well, you still have a 5-10% spike-up in metabolism, right?
Combined this with a regular routine of exercise, cardio exercise it has to be, which is the best metabolism booster, you got an excellent combo to fight off your bulges and lose weight.
And if you maximise eating foods known as negative calorie foods, you make it worthwhile simply because these kinds of foods have special capability to burn fat. Just by eating them, you end up burning more calories than you are eating.
Say you wanna eat a negative calorie food that contains 20 calories and it burns 25- 30 calories. You eat it and in the process burn off 30 calories. You consume 20 calories and these 20 calories burn off 30 calories. Can you see? By eating this food, you burn off 10 calories net.....What better way to "metabolise", if there's such a word......
So what foods you think have this "negative calorie" property?
Fruits and vegetables.
Fruits like apples, oranges, grapefruits, blueberries,lemons, pineapples, limes, papayas, watermelons.....and etc.
Vegetables like carrots, tomatoes, broccolis, cabbages, cauliflowers, asparagus, chilies, lettuces, cucumbers....and etc.
Here are some smart ways of eating negative calorie foods to lose weight:
- For quick weight loss and to lose only a few lbs, eat them for 3-5 days
- For more sustainable weight loss, incorporate the foods into your meals in proportions that suit your need
- For speeding up even more metabolism, combine your diet (with food that has the negative calorie property in it) with moderate cardio exercise
What about foods rich in protein, carbohydrates and fats?
You'd be surprised to know that fats have the least effect on your metabolism because they burn few calories in the digestion and absorption process due to the fact that they're sent directly to your body's fat stores, hence your body uses very little energy, or calories, to do the job.
Same thing for carbohydrates, the simple carbohydrates like refined sugars. Your body not only uses little energy to convert them into fat, a high level of refined sugars also causes your body to release more insulin to deal with the excess sugars. This higher insulin levels stimulate your appetite to eat more and increase the storage of excess calories as fats.
For protein - a meal of pure protein can burn up to 25% of the calories of the meal itself in your process of digestion and absorption. This doesn't mean that you can consume a diet that's purely protein or a diet high in protein because the law of the thermic effect of food says that the thermic effect constitutes merely 5-10% of total calorie expenditure.
And a pure protein or high protein diet deprives you of the chance to consume other vital vitamins and minerals that are essential for your nutritional needs.