Coffee and weight loss often go hand in hand, so let us do a study on whether coffee really plays an important role in losing weight or is it just another myth.
Coffee is the most widely used beverages among all the people around the globe. There are some ways to show the relationship between coffee and loss in weight:
It decreases appetite:
Because of the caffeine content of coffee, it reduces appetite to some extent, thus may be helping in weight loss. As the desire to have food diminishes, but there is no proper way to measure this and we cannot correctly tell the time period for how long this may continue.
Water weight:
Coffee has a diuretic property that enhances urination and people thus urinate more often and in higher amounts. This reduces our water weight of the body because of the excessive elimination of water from our body that is a temporary loss. However, this is not our actual body weight being lost. The excessive water flow from our body may lead to dehydration some times.
Calorie burning:
Coffee contains caffeine, a stimulant. This has a thermogenic nature, which helps to speed up the metabolic activities of our body, and thus we burn a larger amount of calories. This boosts up the energy expenditure of our body. Since larger amount of calories are burnt, a lesser amount is left, transformed, and stored as fat. This helps to decrease weight.
Side effects associated with coffee:
Before we include several cups of coffee in our daily schedule just because it plays a role in helping us to lose weight, we should be well aware of the various harmful side effects of caffeine, the most important content in coffee.
The roasting level of coffee beans and the brewing method and the variety of bean determines the percentage of caffeine in a cup of coffee. There is a rule that states that darker the coffee bean more will be the caffeine content. Generally, the espresso coffee drinkers consume the highest amount of caffeine.
Studies state that espresso drinkers’ intake 100mg/shot of caffeine while brewed coffee drinker’s intake varies between 85-135 mg.
There are many other negative effects of over dose of coffee consumption. Overdose of coffee consumption leads to sleeping disturbances or insomnia. This lack of sleep makes us feel drowsy the whole day and thus we cannot concentrate properly and other daily activities, our decision taking capability also decreases. This over dose also causes anxiety, nausea and caffeine content increases the urination amount and frequency, thus leading to dehydration and irregular heart rate, and fluctuation of blood pressure.
This may sometimes cause ulcers. Higher coffee consumption leads to loss of density of bone minerals, thus fastening osteoporosis. People with a higher affinity for coffee are often found to suffer from withdrawal syndromes.
Calorie content in coffee:
Coffee without any kind of additives like sugar or cream is a zero calorie beverage. This is the reason of its high popularity because people often associate coffee with weight loss, but even if we do not lose weight, we will not even gain weight if we consume coffee without using milk, sugar or cream.
Coffee can be a curse for those who are planning for a weight loss if they flavour the coffee with milk and sugar. We should try to get the benefits of coffee as a weight loss remedy by enjoying the simple plain coffee without any milk or sugar.
People often add cream or sugar to add taste and to decrease the bitter taste of caffeine, but these additions increase the calorie content to some extent and thus may not help in our weight reduction method.
Does more amount of coffee imply more weight loss?
Excessive use of anything may prove to be bad for health. Over consumption of coffee may lead to weight gain. Adding extras to our coffee like milk and sugar which in turn adds the calorie value of the coffee and may help in gaining weight.
It has also been observed that people who have stopped having coffee have suffered from weight gain. Caffeine present in coffee often affects insulin resistance, which makes the weight losing process somewhat difficult.
Caffeine also encourages cortisol production. It has been studied that people having coffee throughout the day responds more clearly because of higher cortisol production. This in turn increases the weight and also affects pressure and causes diabetes.
Therefore, it is always advisable to have a moderate amount of coffee.
Does coffee really help in weight loss?
Thus, we have seen that there is a link between coffee consumption and weight loss, although it cannot be stated with certainty. Coffee helps us to lose some weight in some ways, but still we cannot consider it as a healthy substitute for our diet or our regular exercises for losing weight.
So, we should try to enjoy our morning cup of coffee without any additions.