The Best Weight-Loss Food: Tomatoes

Meet tomato, probably the best weight-loss food there is, as it slows down fat accumulation.
Whatever ripens under the summer sum is a natural food for weight loss. After all, nature’s purpose for this time of the year is to avoid useless weight gain, because when it’s warm we don’t need this kind of protection. But for tomatoes it’s different, they are a step ahead as they are the richest in lycophene, a type of carotenoid which helps pancreas cells produce less insulin. This in turn slows down lipogenesis, the mechanism which causes fat accumulation. The coolest thing about lycophene is that the cooking process will not spoil it, on the contrary, it will increase its concentration. This was only recently discovered by a research carried out by the Ucla School of Medicine in California: heat breaks tomatoes cells, making five times as much lycophene available.

The most important thing is to use sun ripened tomatoes instead of hothouse tomatoes. This is usually a problem during winter, when even the sunniest countries have no sun at all. In this case, a great substitute is tomato concentrate, which can have up to 20 times as much lycophene content than the same quantity of a fresh tomato.
There are more reasons that make tomato the king of foods for weight-loss:

• It’s super-light: only 17kcal for 100 grams, how about that? Also the same quantity has 297 grams of potassium, which is great against liquid retention.
• It’s a natural mineral supplement. Their water content is 94% and are very rich in minerals.
• It slows down aging. Tomatoes are very rich in antioxidants, which fight the effects of free radicals on the skin and on the metabolism in general.

Although there is no “tomato diet” per se, it is nonetheless a great diet food, and your aim should be to eat 250z of tomatoes per day, both as whole and as juice.
There are a number of ways in which tomatoes can be prepared:

• In the morning with your breakfast. This is not a very common thing, but tomatoes are good laxatives, so it may be worth it….
• As appetizer. Before your main meal, it will calm down the typical voracious hunger of an empty stomach, which makes us eat more than we need. This is the real essence of tomato as a weight loss food: making you eat less. It will also improve digestion.
• At lunch, with rice or pasta. The simplicity of tomatoes and complex carbohydrates are a great match, provided you don’t exaggerate with the latter. Also, rice stuffed tomatoes are a good option.
• Raw, dressed with half tablespoon extra virgin olive oil. Vitamin E, flavonoids and fat acids of olive oil will strengthen the effects of lycophene. A tomato salad will be the perfect side dish.
• At dinner, with cheese, for proteins and calcium.

Another perfect match for tomatoes is Triphala. It’s another food for weight-loss, made of three herbs, which belong to the Ayurveda tradition. It has a very high nutritional content and many effects on the body, all of them good:

• Purifies
• Improves blood circulation
• Helps the liver
• Helps the digestion
• It is a light laxative
• It preserves body strength

Triphala powder is usually sold in single-dose capsules to be taken three times a day between meals, for one month. Triphala plus 25oz of tomatoes per day will make your body lean, leaving you with a pleasant feeling of energy and vitality.