29 Jul Weight Loss – The Last Puzzle Piece

Posted at 10:23h in Nutrition by SAgfc

Weight Loss – The Last Puzzle Piece

by Ashleigh Feltham, Accredited Practising Dietitian and Accredited Nutritionist.

The theory of losing weight is relatively simple: burn more calories than you consume. Integrating this into your lifestyle is the tricky part. You have probably heard repeatedly that you need to eat more vegetables and exercise regularly. But you may not have heard about the potential impact that body temperature has on weight loss.

Two different studies suggested that for every one degree increase in temperature, the amount you eat reduces by 110-360kJ a day. Adding a heated room to a sweaty cardio session adds more fuel to the fire, decreasing your appetite for the next meal by up to 25%.

Certain foods increase core body temperature too. One food known to turn up the heat in your body is chilli. Over a day, adding chilli can save you from eating about the equivalent of two or three pieces of chocolate and is nothing to write home about. To lose around half a kilo of body weight would take you several months.

There is good news for chilli lovers: one study found that regularly consuming 50g of chilli a day makes you 25% less likely to be overweight and obese than not having chilli regularly in your diet. However, if you want to make more of a substantial change to your waistline, consider that the temperature you live in may influence your appetite more significantly.

It is proposed that temperature influences your body due to a heat receptor in your brain, which, when activated, reduces appetite. These receptors, known as TRPV1 receptors, become active when you eat hot and spicy food, and even more so in response to cardio like running, as well as if you live in a hotter climate. As little as a 4ºC increase in temperature reduces average weight by one kilogram. In extreme temperatures, such as the Arctic compared to the desert, the findings are that the difference in meal size is as substantial as 7500kJ or 1903 calories.

To increase your core temperature, try adding chilli flakes to your meals and soups.

Take home message

Rather than suggesting that you live in a sauna or disregard other important lifestyle habits for health, this evidence shows how raising your core temperature affects appetite. If you eat a balanced diet and exercise regularly but are struggling to shift those last few kilos, adding chilli to your meals every day may be the missing puzzle piece.