Instead of taking pills and supplements, you can burn fat by eating certain types of foods. These foods are neither expensive or uncommon; in fact you may have just been to the supermarket and they were there right in front of you and you did not know it!

Most if not almost all of the population does not recognise the potential in these foods so they will go on trying to buy the latest quick fix for fat loss or slimming shake. You, on the other hand, being savvy, have decided to go and find out what are the best fat burning foods to eat.

What is the science behind fat burning foods?

Essentially, if you take in too many processed carbohydrates, it spikes your blood sugar levels, which in turn causes your body to not fully turn your food into the optimal amount of glucose (which is the primary source from where we get our energy to move). It turns more of the food into fat than it should or it simply does not digest it properly and it sits in your intestines.

Do you ever notice that you feel more sleepy after a heavy pasta meal? This happens because though your body is spending time sending blood to the stomach to process your food, which it always does when you eat, the food itself is not being properly turned into fuel for you to move around. You slow down because more digestive effort is being used storing up the food as well as burning it.

The idea of a fat burning food is that you eat something that gets turned more into glucose rather than into fat. Then, when you are not eating and your body starts burning its fat stores, once the available glucose is gone, there is less overall fat around.

If you are not replenishing the fat stores by continuing to eat too much processed and sugary carbohydrates your body will burn what is there, resulting in a net fat loss every day.

Of course, this is a simplified version as the way you eat is related to a whole set of interacting processes, some of which are habits that you have trained yourself to do over time. However this one idea, that you should eat foods that get digested properly and in line with how you body digests food to its full benefit, can make a massive difference to your fat loss plan.

Changing what you eat does not have to be drastic though as the following list will show.

The 5 easy meal ideas for burning fat are:

• Have whole meal toast with sliced bananas and honey as part of your breakfast

• Rather than eat baked beans, have some carrots, parsnips and broccoli

• Eat oat cakes, nuts, peaches and pears as a snack rather than a chocolate bar

• Eat some eggs per week, poached or boiled

• Do have pizza, chips and beer every 7 to 10 days.

The last bullet may not seem correct: Have pizza, chips and beer?

The reason they are there it that it helps vary your diet, so that it keeps your complex digestion system on its toes. You may find that fat burning becomes hard if you stick with the same diet, day in day out, even if it is healthy.

In body-building the concept is sometimes referred to as the "Yo-Yo Day" or a "Binge Day". You do not have to be that extreme though; just have some more chips and pizza than what you normally eat, or a take-away.

I typically also recommend that you do not fully go off eating chips, pasta, white bread or drinking alcohol when trying to lose you belly fat, especially if you eat and drink these at the moment.

The key is to gradually swap out more of these foods for some of the 5 types of foods listed above. This gradual process, over a number of weeks is easier to maintain which gives you much more benefit in the long run.