Let’s dispel this myth once and for all: coffee will not make you lose weight; it is not a magic potion.
However, when combined with other factors, including a healthy diet and exercise, coffee can help to rev up your metabolism, and thereby aid in weight loss.
What Role Does Coffee Play in Weight Loss?
Caffeine is a substance found in coffee that triggers a fat-burning mechanism.
This is due to the fact that caffeine promotes thermogenesis (an increase in body temperature) which boosts the fat oxidation rate in adipose tissue (body fat).
Caffeine also stimulates the degradation of lipids (lipolysis) because it breaks down and burns fat.
However, the number of calories burned is not sufficient to see a noticeable weight loss.
Therefore, coffee alone won’t help you slim down. Drinking coffee must be combined with other healthy lifestyle habits to produce satisfying results.
How to Make Your Cup of Coffee Weight-Loss Friendly
If you’re trying to lose weight, you need to primarily focus on eating a healthy balanced diet and engaging in regular physical activity.
For more information on this topic, check out my article How Can You Lose Weight?
- To help you eat healthy, I recommend the Nutri Coach app.
- For a guide on to how to engage in regular physical activity, I recommend the Fitness Coach app.
And how does coffee enter into all of this? Well, drinking a cup of coffee 30 minutes before a workout can create a strong synergistic effect that increases the number of calories your body burns (specifically through the degradation of lipids) and promotes weight loss.
Coffee provides a little boost to the fat-burning process. However, it does not play a major, or even essential role in this process. You can successfully lose weight without drinking coffee.
I also recommend reading the article 5 Fat Burning Tips
Important note:
Drinking large amounts of coffee is not a good idea because the benefits will not multiply as the quantity consumed increases. On the contrary, drinking coffee in high quantities can cause undesirable, and sometimes dangerous side effects, such as caffeine dependence, irritability, anxiety, and even severe digestive disorders. Also, depending on each individual’s health issues, coffee may not always be an appropriate beverage.
Say no to the “coffee and lemon challenge”!
In 2021, Tiktok users became obsessed with a viral “coffee and lemon challenge”. Basically, the idea was to drink a so-called “miracle” concoction of coffee and lemon to lose weight.
I feel compelled to revisit this trend here because this is a false claim that you absolutely should not believe.
The only result you’ll obtain from this regimen is serious damage to your intestines. In fact, mixing these two ingredients could be aggressive for the mucosa of the gastrointestinal wall. This is likely to lead to digestive disorders and, in the long term, to intestinal dysbiosis, a serious condition that I wouldn’t wish on anyone!
What are alternatives to coffee?
Alternatives containing caffeine:
- green coffee
- guarana
- yerba mate or mate
- green tea
Caffeine-free alternatives:
- maca coffee or hot chocolate
- hot water with ginger
- wheat grass coffee
- lupine coffee
- raw cacao hot chocolate
Now you have all the information you need! 😊
Join me again next week when I’ll be featuring a new article. Until then, please don’t hesitate to share your comments and experiences!
