Best Spices To Beef Up Your Meals For Weight Loss

Give your meals some flavor with the best spices for weight loss.

For our weight loss goals, we often hear that eating can’t be fun, but with the best spices for weight loss, it actually can be. No more plain chicken breasts, or cold, flavorless broccoli. Looking to those certain spices that can really boost our weight loss goals will ensure a great tasting meal while also putting an emphasis on our sculpting and toning goals. And more, once you buy a container of any of these spices, they will last a long time for a more cost-effective solution.

Eating well can be difficult, but it doesn’t have to be. When faced with the option of a good tasting meal, it can be easy to want to cover our plates with our favorite sauce. But we must refrain. Here is where spices can come in handy to really boost all areas of our fat loss goals in efforts to help us reach our desired goals. By adding taste without calories or other nonsense that can ruin our gains, we set ourselves up better when we look in the mirror.

We’ll talk spices and more below. The different kinds of spices that taste great and work well, why you should stay away from certain condiments, although we love them, and the best way to approach spicing up your meal so it doesn’t totally overpower you. With the best spices around for weight loss, you love how you look and how your meals taste.

Why Stay Away From Certain Condiments?

Certain condiments tend to have a lot of sugar and other elements on the nutrition label that we just can’t have ruin our gains. While there are alternatives out there, be them sugar-free, reduced sodium, and more, for those following a strict diet and way of approaching weight loss effectively, staying away from certain condiments may be a wise decision.

Here is where spices will come into play. By providing great tastes, while also working to give you nutritional value, you will start to see a difference in how you look and feel when you mix in these spices to your nutrition plan without a problem.

Best Spices For Weight Loss

Let’s take a look at some of the best spices for weight loss. Knowing which ones are out there and how best to tackle your goals can be of great assistance as you start to find your meal prepping groove. With benefits to weight loss, why wouldn’t you want to put these spices into your dishes for the best gains possible? So, without dragging this along further, here are some of the best spices to beef up your meals while seeing those weight loss goals.

• Black Pepper

Black pepper can work to enhance your metabolism while also working to stop the build up of extra fat. Black pepper extract is also used in supplements as an aid to provide for better absorption, making black pepper a nice spice to put in the mix for more than just weight loss benefits (1).

• Ginger

Ginger is an interesting one for this will promote better digestion and work to keep cravings at bay by suppressing your appetite. The potential to help with weight loss, ginger will provide that interesting flavor to put on your dish (2).

• Cayenne

Cayenne can work to speed up your metabolism to burn more calories in efforts to see those weight loss goals take shape. By working to reduce hunger as well, you won’t feel like you have to snack as often, thus leading to less calorie intake. For those who want a bit of a kick, definitely give cayenne a try (3).

• Turmeric

Turmeric may help with weight loss by preventing fat from being stored and working to enhance thermogenesis. When mixed with a healthy diet, turmeric can aid in those weight loss goals, but again, that ties into a healthy lifestyle to start. It also has other benefits like relieving inflammation which is a nice bonus (4).

• Saffron

Saffron might sound too fancy, but trust us, it is a great spice. Working to reduce cravings, it can stop overeating and help with weight loss results. Psychologically, it does have some mood-enhancing effects that will contribute to feeling better overall and keeping up with your progress (5).

• Ginseng

Ginseng is another one you may be hesitant of, but it doesn’t hurt to try it. By controlling certain hormones and working to keep your appetite in check, this may have nice weight loss effects while giving you that added taste (6).

• Cinnamon

Cinnamon is one of those spices we love to put on a variety of things and sprinkling this onto meals at any time of day can be of great assistance. For appetite control, reduced belly fat, and less cravings, cinnamon is a nice option to potentially help with those weight loss goals (7).

How Much Spice Should I Use?

Ultimately, this is up to you. There are people who love pepper and tend to load it up. Others just need a sprinkle to get a hint of a taste. The nice part about spices is that you can experiment and play around with how much you want and how other spices may work together. It isn’t an exact science with spices when you’re simply trying to add some taste to your meals. Don’t overthink it and just enjoy the different flavors you now have.

Wrap Up

The best spices to beef up those meals for weight loss can be game changers when it comes adding variety into your meals. With the right approach and knowing how best to season our dishes, we can get rid of the boredom of plain old meals and work to capitalize on our gains much better. Trying new spices can be an enjoyable process so don’t be shy and try some these great tasting and healthy options today.

Let us know what you think in the comments below. Also, be sure to follow Generation Iron on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 

*Images courtesy of Envato

Reference

1. Singletary, K. (2010). “Black Pepper: Overview of Health Benefits”. (source)
2. Anh, N.; et al. (2020). “Ginger on Human Health: A Comprehensive Systematic Review of 109 Randomized Controlled Trials”. (source)
3. Varghese, S.; et al. (2017). “Chili pepper as a body weight-loss food”. (source)
4. Hewlings, S.; et al. (2017). “Curcumin: A Review of Its’ Effects on Human Health”. (source)
5. Mashmoul, M.; et al. (2013). “Saffron: A Natural Potent Antioxidant as a Promising Anti-Obesity Drug”. (source)
6. Li, Z.; et al. (2018). “Ginseng and obesity”. (source)
7. Mousavi, S.; et al. (2020). “Cinnamon supplementation positively affects obesity: A systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials”. (source)