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CAN CAFFEINE HELP YOU LOSE WEIGHT?

By UNKNOWN - 6:34 AM

Coffee is very controversial when it comes to weight loss. Some say that it can be of benefit to dieters, while others say that it can be detrimental to a weight loss plan. 

In fact, coffee most likely has both positive and negative effects on weight loss, depending on how it's consumed and other factors.

How Coffee Can Help a Diet

Coffee contains caffeine which is a stimulant. It can enable people to feel more alert and help them to be more active, leading to weight loss. It may also act as a mild appetite suppressant. 

Drinking coffee during the afternoon or after dinner can help to reduce cravings for snacks or sweets, by filling the stomach and suppressing the appetite, without the addition of calories.

Coffee might also stimulate your metabolism by increasing your rate of thermogenesis (how your body burns calories to create heat and energy). However, this is only a slight increase and studies have not shown it to have a very large effect on weight loss. 

Coffee is often claimed to be a diuretic, but studies have shown that drinking it in moderation does not lead to water loss. 

Indeed, drinking coffee increases your fluid intake by the same amount as drinking water, which might make it easier for those who love coffee but dislike water to keep their fluids up.

While coffee has been said to increase insulin resistance which can lead to overeating and eventually might turn into diabetes, recent studies have shown that coffee itself is not the cause of the insulin resistance. 

The sugar often used in coffee is more likely a factor, as well as other unhealthy lifestyle choices. In fact, some have suggested that coffee, which contains antioxidants, may in fact raise insulin sensitivity, although this hasn't been proved.

How Coffee Can Harm a Diet

When you drink too much coffee, the caffeine can increase stress levels which might lead to overeating. 

It can also promote insomnia, which might also lead to a higher consumption of calories. However, coffee contains other chemicals which stimulate the production of cortisone and adrenaline. 

These chemicals increase stress levels, and cortisone has been linked with an increase in abdomen fat, which causes more health concerns than fat in other areas.

Coffee itself has very few calories and no fat, but people rarely drink it without something added to modify the taste. 

Even a shot of flavored syrup can add calories to a coffee, and some of the more creamy and elaborate concoctions can have as many calories as an entire meal. 

Milk and cream are also very high in saturated fat, which not only contributes calories but is also dangerous for your health. Too much saturated fat can lead to heart disease.

The effects of coffee on weight loss don't seem to be enough to radically cause people to gain or lose weight. 

The best advice is to consume coffee in moderation if desired, and to be aware of the effects it has on you, in order to take advantage of them.

CAN CAFFEINE HELP YOU LOSE WEIGHT?

You've probably noticed that caffeine is a staple ingredient in many popular diet pills as well as homemade fat-burning stacks. And you've probably also heard experts suggest that you drink coffee or other caffeinated beverages to help you lose weight. 

All of this begs the question, can caffeine really help you lose weight?
The answer is yes. And it primarily helps you lose weight in two ways:1

1.BY BOOSTING YOUR METABOLISM


Ingesting caffeine jumpstarts the process of lipolysis, which is when your body releases free fatty acids into the bloodstream. 

This occurs when your body is breaking down your fat stores to convert it into energy. In other words, caffeine boosts your metabolism slightly and helps you burn fat.

2.BY GIVING YOU AN ENERGY BOOST


If there's one thing that everyone knows about coffee and similar beverages and pills, it's that caffeine is a stimulant. It increases alertness and wards off drowsiness temporarily, which means that you can perform certain tasks for longer.

However, this isn't just limited to mental tasks. This includes physical tasks as well, such as running or lifting weights. This means a little shot of caffeine can give you the energy you need to give 100% during your workout. 

And giving 100% in the gym means you'll get the results you want more quickly.

So now that we've established that caffeine can indeed help you with your weight loss efforts, that brings us to the next question.

HOW MUCH CAFFEINE DO YOU NEED?

This is a bit tricky to answer, since different people react to caffeine in different ways. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about - some people drink one cup of coffee and they get all hopped up for hours. 

Others can drink cup after cup all day long with seemingly very little effect.If you don't regularly ingest a lot of caffeine, then a couple hundred milligrams will likely produce noticeable effects. 

You may want to start with 100 milligrams to see how it goes, then up your intake to 200 milligrams. You can then increase the dose by 50 milligrams if you're still not feeling any effects.

You can get your caffeine in various forms, including:
  • Pills
  • Energy drinks
  • Coffee
  • Tea
  • Various foods
  • Shampoos and soaps (No kidding!)
TIPIf you're someone who drinks a lot of caffeine and thus you have a high tolerance for it, you may want to consider first breaking your addiction and letting your body get used to no caffeine for a while. That way, when you eventually do ingest a small amount of caffeine you'll actually benefit from the effects.

BUT HERE'S THE PROBLEM

Unless you're taking your caffeine in pill form or in a standardized liquid, it's hard to tell how much caffeine you're actually getting. Coffee has considerably more caffeine than tea or chocolate.

However, different coffee brands and even different roasts have varying levels of caffeine, so it's difficult to say for sure exactly how much caffeine is in each cup. 

A good rule of thumb, however, is to figure that each cup of coffee has about 80 to 125 milligrams of caffeine.

As such, if you want to ingest your caffeine through coffee, start with just one cup to see how you feel. If needed, you may drink a cup or two extra to boost your energy and alertness. 

Personally, I sometimes like to add coffee to my protein shake. It's tasty and gives me just the boost I need to have a great workout!

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