Coffee For Weight Loss
Drinking black coffee is a great way to augment a weight loss strategy. If consumed without cream or sugar, it’s almost calorie free. Also, the caffeine in coffee can stimulate our metabolic rate and act as an appetite suppressant.
Caffeine may also help burn calories by stimulating thermogenesis, which is our body’s way of generating heat from metabolizing food.
Note that the caffeine in coffee acts as a diuretic, causing some water loss. Some recommend drinking a glass of water for each cup of coffee to offset diuretic water loss, though note that your body may become more tolerant of caffeine’s effect, which both obviates the need for compensation and reduces the influence of coffee on appetite.
Drink Sensibly
Coffee consumption combined with a healthy diet and exercise regimen can help achieve weight loss. But there are caveats. While coffee may temporarily squelch your appetite, it should be consumed sensibly: excessive coffee can lead to increased stress levels and insomnia, which aside from being problems in and of themselves, can lead to overeating just when you’re trying to lose weight. . Although coffee may help you to burn fat more efficiently, it is an addition to a sustainable, sensible regimen of diet and exercise.
Drink Before Exercise
The best effect is achieved by drinking coffee minutes before you start to exercise. A caffeinated cup of coffee can give you more energy, helping you to work out longer and harder, burn more calories and lose weight faster.
Caffeine stimulates the brain to signal the fat cells to break down fat.
Drink Before Meals
To achieve the maximal boost to weight-lossfrom exercise, it’s best to drink the coffee on an empty stomach, in moderation.
Beyond the realm of exercise, because of its putative appetite-suppressant qualities, coffee can help alleviate cravings for food between meals, or unnecessarily going for second helpings.
Coffee isn’t right for everyone: some feel it makes them jittery or anxious, and it may increase your heart rate. It is recommended to consult a doctor before adding coffee to your weight-loss program.
Drink Your Coffee Black
If you’re drinking coffee to augment a weight-loss regime, you’re best off drinking it black, without sugar. An eight-ounce cup of coffee contains about two calories, that’s all, but each teaspoon of sugar you put in adds about 16 calories, and cream will add more.
The caffeine in coffee also stimulates blood circulation, which in turn, has a positive effect on your base metabolism.
The jury is out on coffee during pregnancy. Caffeine does cross the placenta and heavy coffee consumption in early gestation has been associated with heightened rates of miscarriage, though as doctors point out, since one of the markers of healthy pregnancy is aversion to coffee, it is possible that sustained coffee consumption could be a marker of a doomed pregnancy, rather than a cause of it. Broad studies have found no associations found between coffee and problems such as premature birth or lower birth-weight. As in so many things, the key may lie in moderation.
Importantly, people who habitually consume a lot of coffee will lose the beneficial effects of caffeine because their bodies develop tolerance. The best effects are noted in people who stick to moderate to low amounts of coffee in their day-to-day life. If anything, habitual high coffee consumption has been associated with weight regain compared with a low coffee habit.