The Thermic Effect Of Food

What Is The Thermic Effect Of Food?

The Thermic Effect of Food (TEF) is the amount of calories your body burns while processing foods. However, not all foods have the same TEF. Protein has the highest TEF where 20-30% of the calories from lean sources of protein are burned just to process it. Carbohydrates are next with 5-15%. Fats have the worst TEF where the range is 0-5%.

Why Is The TEF Important?

This is crucially important in your fat loss efforts because you now know what foods to eat more of. Even if you’re already in decent shape and you’re looking to get leaner you can use this information. Quality of food really does matter instead of just filling up your diet with worse food choices. When you eat more protein you’ll hold on to more muscle and burn more calories. Protein also helps make you feel fuller for longer. The same can be said for quality carbohydrates. This means a diet made up of quality proteins, carbs and mostly healthy fats will allow you to stay in a caloric deficit a lot easier. Junk foods usually contain a high sugar/high fat combination which makes them calorically dense but they don’t fill you up. You can eat lots of them and they’ve such a low TEF that not many calories are burned processing them.

If you’ve tried to lose fat or get leaner in the past it might pay to look at your food choices. Eating a little more protein if you hadn’t been already, or decreasing fat intake might mean the difference in a couple hundred calories per day. That may be all you need to move things in the right direction without changing much else!