How Soup Can Help You Lose Weight – What Soups Are Good For Weight Loss?
All over the internet you will find ads recommending specific foods to eat or avoid for weight loss. How can soup help you lose weight and keep it off? Soup makes a great weight-loss food, but unlike other trendy foods with health claims, this food is versatile- it can be made with thousands of different ingredients, and you never have to eat the same recipe twice if you don’t want to!
Energy Density Principal And Weight Change
Foods with a low energy density make people eat fewer calories. What is energy density? Energy density is the amount of energy, in this case, calories, per unit of volume or mass.
An example of a very energy-dense food is peanut butter. A measly two tablespoons contains 200 hundred calories. While it might fill you up when paired with other foods, alone it is too small to fill your belly, even though it has lots of calories.
An energy-sparse food is salad- a huge bowl of greens, tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, sprouts, and other non-starchy vegetables could have fewer calories than the two tablespoons of peanut butter. Now think about how long it would take you to eat each of those foods- you could eat a big spoonful of nut butter in less than a minute, but a huge salad will take at least a half hour to chew, even longer if you chew thoroughly.
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Why Does Soup Keep You Fuller For Longer?
Soup works by the same property. Since it is full of water, it takes up more space in your belly, but has fewer calories. Some studies have shown that eating the same ingredients, but in soup instead of solid form, makes people feel significantly fuller and eat fewer calories.
The feeling of fullness will come from the expansion in your belly, and you will consume less. Take advantage of the low energy density while using your favorite flavors, or add in some ingredients that speed weight loss.
Soup Recipes for Weight Loss
Click through the links below to find great meal ideas. All of them are soups that have ingredients to help speed weight loss. For example, a spicy soup could help rev up your metabolism. Capsaicin, a compound in hot chili peppers, has been found to reduce appetite and increase thermogenesis, which increases the calories burned after eating the spicy food.
- Spicy Black Bean Chili
- Spicy Tomato, Bean and Veggie Soup
- Green Tea Chicken Rice Soup
- Spicy African Chicken Peanut Soup
- Spicy Asian Seafood Soup
- Kale and White Bean Soup
- Zucchini and Potato Curry Soup (with PGX granules)
Enjoy sipping soup and slimming down!