Here’s the second part in my Quick Weight Loss Secrets series. 
I was asked today by a few great blokes whether coffee is good for you during dieting and weight loss.
It sure is!
As long as you don’t have any heart conditions, high blood pressure, or any diagnosed conditions where your doctor tells you to avoid caffeine then its one of the few substances that works and cheap to buy.
What you probably don’t know is that all the expensive “fat burners” and “pre-workout” supplements are really just caffeine. Yes im talking about those supplements that cost a mint to buy, spend millions on advertising, make outrageous, false claims with regards to results, and ramble on about “special secret tri-blend stack”.
You can get the same results for free with green tea or coffee at home.
I’ll be doing an article in the future about the big supplement scam but for now all you need to know is that anything that claims a “special fat burning stack” but then not telling you what it contains is bogus, a waste of money and contains elements in such tiny amounts to not do anything whatsoever. If it did anything at all it would be legally required to specify it’s contents.
They are all just a waste of money and if they produced such amazing claims as they state they would be taken off the market and classified as a drug. This has happened before in the case of Ephedrine. It’s been banned for sale in Australia and the USA as it did work well and resulted in chemical changes to your body – fat loss, appetite suppressant, etc.
Coffee is legal and tastes great however!
Heres the reasons why coffee and caffeine are good for exercise:
1. SPEEDS FAT LOSS
The fat burning properties of having coffee before your workout are awesome. Coffee consumed before exercise can cause fat cells to be used as an energy source as opposed to glycogen (the sugar for fuel stored in your muscle). The caffeine in coffee also speeds up your metabolism, making you burn more calories, and when used in conjunction with exercise, you burn calories longer after you finish your workout. If you imagine your body is an engine, then the caffeine makes it run faster and longer.
The caffeine and other compounds in coffee also act as an appetite suppressant – which means you will be less hungry throughout the day.
A few tips- try to stick with black coffee, short blacks, or skim milk when having flat whites. Don’t have sugar with it. Use a sugar substitute such as Equal or Aspartame.(no calories). Don’t be worried by the calories in a dash of skim milk. It’s negligible. Aim for 200mg of caffeine before your workout.
2. INCREASES PERFORMANCE
Several studies have shown results linking caffeine intake before exercise
and increased athletic performance. A report published in Sports Medicine refers to caffeine as a “powerful ergogenic aid,” and claimed that people can “train at a greater power output and train for longer” after taking caffeine. Another study published in the British Journal of Sports Science found that subjects who consumed coffee before running 1500 meters on the treadmill completed their run 4.2 seconds faster than the control group, on average.
This is a well know fact however, and Olympic athletes have known about the caffeine stamina trick for some time. In urine tests, the majority of professional athletes have caffeine in their bodies.
3. DECREASES MUSCULAR PAIN
Researchers at the University of Illinois found that people who consumed coffee before exercise experienced less muscular pain during their workout than their non-caffeinated counterparts. In other words – you can complete more reps at a higher resistance during your weight training sessions, and run faster and longer during cardio workouts.
4. CAFFEINE MAY PREVENT ALZHEIMER’S AND PARKINSON’S DISEASE
A study of more than 600 men published in the August 2006 European Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that coffee drinkers may be protected from mild memory and thinking problems that come with old age. A study in the Journal of Neurological Sciences in 2003 found that researchers discovered evidence that tea and coffee drinkers were protected from Parkinson’s. Another study of more than 8,000 men in the Journal of the American Medical Association by G. Webster Ross found that those who drank the most coffee (more than three cups a day) were the least likely to get Parkinson’s. The evidence for caffeine reducing the likelihood of developing these neuro-degenerative diseases is getting stronger with each study.
5. LOWERS THE RISK OF STROKE
A recent study conducted by
Japan’s National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center found that people who drink coffee and green tea daily have a lower risk of stroke.
The study followed 83,269 Japanese adults aged 45 to 74 over the course of 13 years. Those who drank at least one cup of coffee per day had a 20 percent lower risk of stroke than those who rarely drank it. Participants who drank two to three cups of green tea a day had a 14 percent lower risk of stroke, and participants who drank four or more cups of green tea daily had a 20 percent lower risk of stroke.
This is one reason I always tell my clients to have at least 3 cups of Green Tea a day. Sencha would be my fave.
6. HELPS WITH DEPRESSION
Just getting out of the house or work, and sitting down with mates having a coffee is fantastic for your mind and body. After my outdoor sessions, i always get together with all my clients and we go down to the nearest cafe for coffee. It’s great for your mind and there are benefits not just in a social sense.
A new study by Harvard University researchers found that coffee acts as an antidepressant among the people who consume caffeine on a regular basis.
The researchers studied 50,739 older women participating in the Nurses’ Health Study who were free of depression and studied them for 10 years, from 1996 to 2006.
They discovered that women who had two to three cups of coffee a day were at 15 per cent lower risk of developing depression than the ones who had only one cup or less coffee in a week.
Over a 10-year period, 2,607 of the women developed depression, but the women who consumed four or more cups of coffee a day were at twenty per cent reduced risk of depression.
The researchers suggest that during the 10-year study, they observed that caffeine or caffeinated products have a protective effect, and that people who consume caffeinated products(coffee, green tea) on a regular basis are less likely to suffer from depression.
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