Can coffee aid weight loss?

The caffeine in coffee is one of the world's most studied elements, and it's received a lot of good press lately. A central nervous system stimulant, caffeine may act as an appetite suppressant and increase your body's ability to burn calories by stimulating thermogenesis, the process of generating heat and energy from digesting food, according to the Mayo Clinic. It helps boost metabolism and promote fat breakdown, rather than the loss of muscle mass.

As most nutritionists will tell you, the best path to weight loss is to eat well (plenty of fruits, vegetables and fiber), get lots of regular exercise, get the proper rest, and have patience! However, modest amounts of coffee work well to keep the mind alert, the body revved up, and when we use that energy to exercise more and do it more frequently, weight loss can occur.

When studies reveal that one to three cups of coffee can aid weight loss that comes with a caveat: plain coffee, sans sugar and cream. And, certainly, not lattes and cappuccinos, no coffee drinks with sugary syrups, and no 500 to 700 calorie donuts or scones with to go with the coffee. Sigh, who said life was fair?

The good news is that coffee consumption can reduce the risk of Type 2 Diabetes; it does indeed give you more energy for a more demanding workout that lasts longer, enabling you to burn more calories. Best of all, caffeine speeds up your metabolism to burn more calories --- even while at rest.

Consuming caffeine prior to aerobic exercise can help toward weight loss, because it reduces fat-cell size and decreases fat-storing tissue weight through a process called thermogensis. In both lean and previously overweight individuals, 100 mg of caffeine has been shown to increase resting metabolic rate by three to four percent.

Caffeine is also an effective ergogenic aid to enhance exercise performance. Exercise physiologist, David Costill, Ph.D., first reported on the positive relationship between caffeine and exercise in the 1980s. Following the ingestion of caffeine, the subjects were able to perform an average of 90 minutes of cycling as compared to an average of 76 minutes in the placebo trial. Subjects burned more fat (lipolysis) as shown by measurements of plasma free fatty acids, glycerol and respiratory exchange ratios. Fat oxidation or burning was significantly higher (107% greater) during the caffeine trial (118 g or 1.31 g/min) than in the placebo trial (57 g or 0.75 g/min).

In both young and older men caffeine ingestion resulted in similar increases in both the old and young men for plasma caffeine levels. Metabolic rate or energy expenditure increased similarly by 11% in young and 9.5% in the older men. Older and younger men show a similar thermogenic response to caffeine ingestion, yet older men show a smaller increase in fatty acid availability.

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