Coffee is great. It tastes good, it’s easy to make, and most importantly it has caffeine in it. Caffeine is a natural stimulant that can be found in coffee beans, but also other plants like cocoa beans. Caffeine is great as a moderate consumption (The FDA recommends that average adults consume no more than 400mg of caffeine per day) of it can boost your focus, alertness, and weight loss.
In fact what you’ll find in most weight loss diets is the use of caffeine to help burn fat. This isn’t only because it can help boost exercise performance due to the nature of caffeine, but for a variety of other reasons. So here are a few reasons why coffee is great for weight loss!
1: Caffeine can boost your exercise performance
The first big thing caffeine can do for your weight loss plan is that it can help you boost your energy, which in turns can help boost your performance.
Because of the big boost in energy, your body begins to burn the fat stores in oppose to the carbohydrate stores in our muscles. It’s been proven by academic studies that if drunken about half an hour before exercising, coffee can act as a form of pre-workout that can boost your performance. You obviously burn more calories this way and get in a better workout.
In fact, due to this, many people add coffee into their workout shakes or drink it straight black before going to the gym. Dark coffee can boost calorie burning significantly during an exercise, making it ideal.
2: Caffeine is filled with healthy antioxidants
Celebrity nutritionist Keri Glassman describes in her book called The O2 Diet how foods filled with antioxidants are almost necessary to weight loss.
Antioxidants are great for your bodily health. They’re a kind of compound that can help defend the body from the damage inflicted on it by molecules known as free radicals. Free radicals cause cell damage known as oxidative stress, which in really bad cases can be a precursor to heart disease.
However, coffee is filled with antioxidants, which not only help protect your body, but also help burn fat. In fact, according to Glassman almost 79% of the Western diet’s antioxidant intake comes from drinks, with Finland and Norway consuming the most coffee-based antioxidants (around 64% of their total intake).
3: Coffee can help reduce your water retention
We’ve all heard the phrase “water fat” before. But what even is water fat?
Edema, also referred to as water retention, is a form of swelling induced by your body storing fluids for extended periods of time. However, because your body can’t store caffeine, it lets it out a few hours after consumption (yup, you pee out all the caffeine you take in).
This means your body is able to release some of the unnecessary liquid it holds on to, which can thus help lower your total weight, as water retention is known to cause bloating.
4: Coffee can help stop you from overeating
Yup, you read that right.
Unfortunatley for my foodies out there overeating can be a problem at times. But coffee can help stop that.
Coffee contains acids known as Chlorogenic acids which can help suppress or silence your appetite, and thus lower your overall hunger. For those trying to eat less to lose their excess weight, this is awesome! It doesn’t stop there however.
Coffee beans contain the highest source of Chlorogenic acids out of any plant in the world. While the level of acid does go down with darker roasts, it’s still great either way. Just know the lighter the roast the more the concentration of appetite-suppressing acids.
5: Caffeine uses tissue fats to produce energy
Here’s a great fact about caffeine for those of you struggling with fat loss: caffeine can speed up fat burning.
One of the ways caffeine helps us lose weight is by targeting fat cells directly. The stimulant directly commands the fat cells in our body to break down nasty fats, which in turn can help boost our energy. Coffee consumption also boosts our adrenaline levels, and this also aids in fat burning.
So there you have it! Coffee is a great natural way to easily get caffeine in your system throughout the day. However, it is not an instant solution, and in order to lose fat you need time and focus. You have to be consistently exercising, consistently eating well, and consistently working on your weight.
However, a cup a day doesn’t hurt!
