Creating a calorie deficit is essential for those who want to lose weight. However, it's also important to pay attention to the types of foods you are eating - not just the amount of calories in them.
According to a fitness and nutrition expert, swapping processed foods for minimally processed ones is a great way to "lose fat faster". If you're trying to slim down, eating sandwiches made with wholegrain bread is much better for you than ones made with white bread.
Jeremy Ethier advised slimmers to "stick mostly with foods that have been minimally processed". This means they should up their intake of oats and wholegrain bread and reduce their intake of "refined" grains such as cereal and white bread.
The expert explained that refined foods like these have been "stripped of most of their important nutrients and fibre".
Making a daily swap to your lunchtime sandwich could be an effective fat loss solution
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Minimally processed foods are better for those trying to lose weight because they provide more nutrients and keep the body feeling full for longer. When a person feels full, they are less likely to reach for snacks and junk food throughout the day.
The nutrition guru added that minimally processed foods have another "unique benefit" to them, and that has to do with the thermic effect of food.
Jeremy explained that the thermic effect of food is "the amount of calories that our body burns to metabolise and actually use the foods that we ingest".
He said: "In most cases, our body burns significantly more calories when digesting unprocessed foods than it does when compared to their processed counterparts."
The expert referenced a study that showed more calories are burned when eating a sandwich made with wholegrain bread and real cheddar cheese than when eating a sandwich made with white bread and processed cheese.
While both sandwiches used in the study contained roughly 800 calories and virtually the same amount of protein, the more processed sandwich had a 50 per cent lower thermic effect than the wholegrain sandwich.
This meant the body burned "significantly fewer calories" (73 calories) eating the processed sandwich than the wholegrain sandwich (137 calories).
In another six-week study where one group ate more wholegrains and the other ate more processed, refined grains, the group that ate more wholegrains burned around 100 more calories per day.
According to the experts at Bodychef, 100 calories is equivalent to a 15-minute brisk walk, 10 minutes of cycling, or eight minutes of jogging.
Britons looking to lose fat faster should aim to make daily swaps that make a real difference over time. Ditching cereal for oats, white rice for brown rice, and white bread for wholegrain bread will all aid weight loss.
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The body burns 'significantly fewer calories' eating a sandwich made with white bread than with wholegrain bread
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Britons can also lose weight by eating a breakfast that "keeps the body in a state of fat-burning".
Opting for a breakfast comprised of healthy fats and protein is a weight-loss-friendly choice because it digests slowly and does not spike insulin.
Another way slimmers can shed fat is by keeping active. Jeremy shared the "number one" exercise for losing belly fat "for good".
While running, rowing, cycling and HIIT workouts are all ways to burn calories "very quickly", most people struggle to stick with an intense regimen long enough for it to torch fat in "stubborn areas". This is why a slow and steady form of exercise can actually be more effective.
