How to Spice Up Your Diet for Weight Loss

When we embark on a diet for weight loss, our food options can seem pretty bland, if not downright bleak. So many of the delicious meals we love preparing and savoring seem to contain all the forbidden ingredients we love. The good news is, more and more professional chefs, celebrities, and everyday bloggers are exploring and promoting the many ways you can spice up your diet while still indulging in a rich and colorful palette.

You may not think of pepper as anything more than a common kitchen spice, but it carries an incredible history. Once called “the king of spices,” with the Egyptians incorporating it into their sacred rituals and Hippocrates himself celebrating its medicinal values, pepper reached it’s height in the Middle Ages, where its “black gold” was declared a prized bartering tool.

Pepper has since been recognized as a powerful aid when added to your diet for weight loss, with Green Health Matters citing pepper’s potent fat-burning qualities: “Pepper is also a thermogenic food – which causes the body to burn more calories than it is using as well as boosting the metabolism.”

Besides boosting the metabolism and helping to burn fat, pepper also contains vital antioxidants such as Vitamin C, that keeps free radicals at bay and reduces stress-related tension. So how can you incorporate pepper into your diet beyond simple seasoning? Here are a few favorite pepper concoctions to start with:

1. Golden Milk.
Similar to chai, this warm and frothy beverage is an Asian favorite, praised for its numerous health and beauty benefits. Turmeric is one of nature’s most powerful spices, known for relieving everything from depression to skin problems to cancer-causing free radicals.