How Can you lose weight with coffee? Most people seem to think so. While drinking a minimal or modest amount of coffee may help keep you in shape because of the included caffeine, there is a positive correlation between drinking coffee and weight gain. Depending on how much coffee you drink, you may or may not be able to lose weight with coffee. Stay tuned to find out how coffee affects fat loss.
How coffee affects fat loss depends on how much coffee you are drinking. If you’re drinking less than five cups per day, then you may still get some fat loss benefits. However, if you drink five cups or more every day, problems start arising.
A study done on mice found that at the equivalent of five cups, mice could not longer metabolize fact within their livers and adipose tissue. This led to more fat retention. Specifically, visceral fat becomes stored in your abdominal cavity, which means your belly will get bigger. Why, of all places, does the fat get stored there? After all, it’s quite an unflattering location for it to get stored on your body. The reason is related to stress and cortisol.
Drinking just one or two cups of coffee can keep the coffee and fat loss connection possible. However, if you are going to be drinking more than that, you are putting yourself at risk of keeping extra unwanted belly fat.
The more coffee you have, the more stressed your body becomes. Our bodies can handle a little stress. However, if there is too much stress, then your health can take a nosedive.
When your body gets too stressed, your adrenal glands begin releasing stress hormones. These include norepinephrine and epinephrine. Once you start stressing out, these hormones become active. Norepinephrine blocks the production of insulin so that you get some fast-working energy ready to use for either a fight or flight response. Also, your digestion starts to slow down thanks to epinephrine, which begins relaxing the muscles in your stomach and intestines.
Normally, stress soon stops, and everything goes back to normal. However, if you are continually stressed, then cortisol keeps being produced and going throughout your body. This happens when you are drinking a lot of coffee.
When your digestion slows down, it becomes more challenging for your body to metabolize fat, which means you burn less of it. There is one big reason why coffee and weight gain are linked. It’s due to the fact that there are more cortisol receptors in your abdomen region than other areas of your body! Talk about a bad break.
This is by design, of course, to help prevent you from starving. Here’s how it works. When you are stressed out, your body is not sure when it will get to eat again. So, it tells your body to slow down the digestion process and conserve its fat. When your cortisol levels stay high, you will be holding onto more belly fat.
If you want to keep the positive relationship between coffee and fat loss, then you will want to stick to just half a cup of coffee, or one at the most. If you want to drink more coffee over the course of your day, then you will want to stick to decaf.
If you are someone who drinks several cups of coffee a day, then you are not going to get to burn fat as well as if you were sticking to just one cup. Besides the reasons mentioned above, you will also be increasing the amount of inflammation in your body. Also, your body will become more insulin resistant.
When your body needs more insulin, it won’t be storing it properly like it should. The end result of this is you having unwanted weight gain and more bloating. On top of this, the amino acid called homocysteine shoots up significantly. The reason you don’t want this to happen is because it can lead to having a higher chance of a heart attack or stroke.
If you are a regular coffee drinker, then you probably have elevated homocysteine levels. If your levels are just slightly elevated, then that’s OK. That will be the case if you are drinking one or two cups of coffee a day. If you are drinking several, then that is when you should be concerned.
There is this pervasive myth going around that says coffee is some sort of incredible weight loss cure. However, the evidence is pretty shaky when it comes to this claim, especially if people are claiming the weight loss is permanent.
How coffee affects weight loss is something most people are not even aware of. Pure caffeine can help you burn fat. In fact, it is why it gets included in many fat burners today. However, there is more to coffee than just caffeine. There are other ingredients that can pose issues when you are looking to lose weight. The more additions to your coffee, the less helpful it will be in helping you lose weight. It will likely even end up doing the opposite.
There are more calories in a cup of coffee than you may think, especially if you’re not getting a cup of straight black coffee. If you were to just get plain coffee, you’re only getting 2 calories. However, if you’re getting a more specialty cup of coffee, then you’re going to be astonished how many calories they come with.
Here are some examples of popular coffee drinks and how many calories they have:
- Krispy Kreme’s Mocha Dream Chiller (20 oz) – 1,050 calories
- Dunkin’ Donuts Vanilla Bean Coolatta (32 oz) – 860 calories
- The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Caramel Ice Blended (24 oz) – 790 calories
- Starbucks White Chocolate Creme Frappuccino with whip (24 oz) – 760 calories
- Peet’s Coffee & Tea Hot White mocha with whip (20 oz) – 547 calories
There are also a number of pros and cons to drinking too much coffee. Depending on how many cups you’re drinking every day, you may have more or less of these. As a general rule, avoid drinking more than four cups of coffee a day.
- Coffee is rich in antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals.
- Coffee reduces the risk of getting Alzheimer’s, Type 2 diabetes, gallstones, esophageal cancer, oral cavity cancer, asthma attacks, heart rhythm disorders, strokes, and cirrhosis of the liver.
- Too much coffee causes auditory hallucinations
- Took much coffee increases blood pressure
- Coffee causes heartburn
- Coffee can block the absorption of vitamins and minerals
Can you lose weight with coffee? The evidence we have today suggests that you are more likely to gain weight rather than lose it when you are an avid coffee drinker. The ways how coffee affects fat loss may be eye-opening to you. However, it is better to understand the ways that your coffee habit may be inhibiting your ability to lose stubborn and unwanted belly fat. You will be in a better position to get rid of the fat you have been struggling to drop.
Delta Fitness in Canary Wharf, London can help you with your weight loss goals. You can reach out to us, letting us know what you are looking to achieve. We will be happy to help you.