Coffee holds a secret about how to eat healthy

Healthy weight loss tips are not found in fad diets or bland diet food. They are found in the supermarket. Simple and common ingredients like green tea, cinnamon, coffee, and hot red pepper are all useful in healthy diets. These healthy eating hints are all backed by research. Let's start with coffee and see what science has to say about eating right with this diet food.

Caffeine, in general, is a definite calorie-burning substance. The question is whether or not this principle can be applied to drinking coffee. Dr. Abdul Dulloo (PhD), from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, has an answer: "There have been a couple of studies that have compared coffee with its equivalent in caffeine on metabolic rate. No differences have been found, suggesting that the thermogenic effect of coffee (as assessed at rest) is explained essentially by its caffeine content."

Basically, yes, drinking coffee can burn extra calories. Based on studies performed by Dr. Dulloo and his colleagues, the minimum effective amount is probably 1 cup. Research participants ingested 100mg of caffeine, which is the amount in 1.2 cups of coffee, and their calorie-burning rates increased 4% for 2.5 hours.

The addition of 1.2 cups of coffee to your everyday diet plans, assuming you normally burn 1,500 calories a day, would amount to an extra 6.25 calories. So, drinking 1 cup of coffee per day would burn off an extra tablespoon of nonfat milk, for example, each day. If you are wanting to know how to eat healthy for sustained weight loss, this probably does not seem like your solution.

Fortunately, Dr. Dulloo and his colleagues also measured the thermogenic effects of coffee in a more aggressive way. This time, subjects ingested a 100mg dose of caffeine every 2 hours over a 12 hour time period. The culmination of 600mg of caffeine caused participants to burn calories at a rate 8-11% higher than normal. With this effect, a person would burn as many as 83 extra calories each day. The negative aspect of this scenario is that 7 cups of coffee would be the goal each and every day.

7 cups of coffee sounds more like a fad diet than a healthy weight loss strategy. Even if you wanted to take that route, it is important to know that there is evidence that the equivalent amount of caffeine might be more effective if consumed in a different way. For example, 600mg of caffeine in a capsule would do more for you than would 600mg of caffeine obtained from 7 cups of coffee. Most people agree that drinking that much of any caffeine drink day after day is not a good idea anyway.

Using all your tools that you know about how to eat healthy, remember that variety is key. A team of fat-fighting ingredients, including pure caffeine, can work together in a capsule to supplement your own healthy eating plans. Adding 7 cups of coffee to your healthy meals would help you lose 1 pound of body fat in a month and a half by burning 83 extra calories a day. Doubling this amount would have you shedding 1 pound in only 20 days.

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