Good or bad? caffeine and your weight loss

The health and fitness industry is full of conflicting information, quite frankly it’s hard to keep up as a fitness pro, never mind someone looking in from the outside!

One of these contentious topics is caffeine, and particularly coffee. Is it ok to drink? Does it actually help your health? How much can you have a day before it becomes too much?

Past studies may have swung more towards coffee being bad, newer studies are now showing it to have health benefits.

First off I will say it really depends on how you have your coffee, if you’re having a starbucks coffee loaded with added flavouring and toppings etc then they are bad for you in excess, the calorie intake from those drinks is huge. Remember that to lose weight, and lose weight fast, you need to be in a (controlled) calorie deficit.

Assuming you don’t drink heavily loaded chain coffee, let's now look at what you get.

Well, the most recent studies suggest that coffee can play a part in decreased mortality, as well as offering protection against Parkinson’s disease, type 2 diabetes, liver disease, heart attack and stroke.

Fast Weight Loss

So, the other big question, does drinking coffee help with weight loss?

Well unfortunately it isn’t the magic weight loss pill so many people seem to be searching for. Caffeine alone won't help you slim down. It may slightly boost weight-loss efforts or help prevent weight gain, but there's no solid evidence that caffeine consumption leads to noticeable weight loss.

Although the research isn’t definitive, there are a number of theories about how caffeine could affect weight loss:

• Appetite suppression - Caffeine may reduce feelings of hunger, therefore limiting the amount you eat. Energy balance is so important for fast weight loss, as I explained in this article here.

• Caffeine increases fat burning during exercise - Caffeine doesn’t cause you to burn a lot more calories from a workout. But it does shift your calorie burn to use more fat.When you work out, your body burns a certain number of calories. Those calories can come from either stored carbs or stored fat. The harder you work, the more carbs and the less fat you burn as a percentage of your total calories.A study found that consuming 3 mg of caffeine per kilogram of body weight shifted calorie burn more towards fat and increased the maximal rate of fat burning relative to carb burning.

• Caffeine may help prevent weight regain after weight loss - caffeine, or caffeine supplements, aren’t proven to cause weight loss on their own, however studies have shown that it can prevent you from piling the weight back on after you’ve worked so hard to lose it.

In summary caffeine probably helps, and almost certainly doesn’t hurt.

For more personalised help, or to find out about personal training in Warwick, Leamington Spa, or Stratford Upon Avon drop me a message, or contact me.