If you want to lose weight, there’s only one way to do it. You eat fewer calories than you burn. You can boost that loss by including some thermogenic foods. These top fat burning foods help you by increasing the number of calories you burn, effectively making weight loss easier. Basically, they force your body to use more calories in the process of digestion, absorption and the storage of the nutrients in the foods. While the amount may be minimal, every little bit counts when you’re working your hardest to lose weight. Consider the old diet stand by, celery. It contains very few calories and it does require extra energy to digest than it contains.

Protein meats such as chicken, lean beef—90/10 ratio of protein to fat, fish and turkey burn about 30% more calories to digest than other foods. For instance, even if you ate a serving of pudding that contained the same number of calories as lean meat, you’d only have about 2/3rds the same number of available calories from the meat when everything was digested.

Hot peppers contain capsaicin that also boosts your metabolism. Adding these to your diet by including them in your recipes will give your metabolism a boost. Capsaicin provides the relief to achy muscles when rubbed on the skin’s surface by heating the area. They also have anti-inflammatory properties and can be good for your cardiovascular system and gastrointestinal system. While some people get relief from upset stomachs with hot peppers, others find they cause diarrhea, gas and irritation of the mucous membrains, so a better option for those people are sweet peppers, like bell peppers. They’re not hot, but do contain capsinoids that act much like capsaicin. If consumed too often, capsinoids and capsaicin lose the thermogenic effects as the body adjusts to them.

Both of these contain caffeine that boosts your metabolism. Of course, like any other caffinated product, too much of a good thing can give you the jitters. Caffiene also suppresses your appetite, giving it a double star for people trying to lose weight. Green tea and oolong tea contain catechins that also boost your metabolism and help you lose weight. The antioxidant properties of both tea and coffee can boost your overall health.