Category: Weight Loss

The drink stimulate the body’s fat-fighting defences.

Drinking coffee can stimulate the body’s fat-fighting defences, research demonstrates.

Coffee helps to activate so-called ‘brown fat’, technically known as brown adipose tissue.

Unlike white fat, which simply stores excess calories, brown fat burns calories when activated (usually by low temperature).

In fact, small amounts of brown fat can burn several hundred calories per day — the same as 30-minutes of exercise.

Brown fat is typically located in the neck and the region above the collarbone.

The body usually only has a couple of ounces of brown fat, which are not visible as it lies deep below the skin.

Professor Michael Symonds, study co-author, explained:

“Brown fat works in a different way to other fat in your body and produces heat by burning sugar and fat, often in response to cold.

Increasing its activity improves blood sugar control as well as improving blood lipid levels and the extra calories burnt help with weight loss.

However, until now, no one has found an acceptable way to stimulate its activity in humans.

This is the first study in humans to show that something like a cup of coffee can have a direct effect on our brown fat functions.”

For the study, researchers examined the effect of caffeine on brown fat.

Thermal imaging showed that caffeine activates the brown fat and starts burning calories more quickly.

Professor Symonds said:

“From our previous work, we knew that brown fat is mainly located in the neck region, so we were able to image someone straight after they had a drink to see if the brown fat got hotter.

The results were positive and we now need to ascertain that caffeine as one of the ingredients in the coffee is acting as the stimulus or if there’s another component helping with the activation of brown fat.

We are currently looking at caffeine supplements to test whether the effect is similar.

Once we have confirmed which component is responsible for this, it could potentially be used as part of a weight management regime or as part of glucose regulation programme to help prevent diabetes.”

The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports (Velickovic et al., 2019).

This type of vegetable oil targets abdominal fat, trimming the belly in only one month.

High-oleic acid canola oil can help cut down belly fat in four weeks, research finds.

Canola oil-based diets have also been shown to lower cholesterol levels and provide health benefits in obese people.

Canola oil is low in saturated fat but high in monounsaturated fatty acids and mainly used in cooking and salad dressing.

Excess belly fat, which is located in the abdominal area, is a risk factor for metabolic syndrome.

This medical condition is a combination of high blood pressure, obesity, and type 2 diabetes which puts a person at greater risk of coronary heart disease and stroke.

Almost one in three US adults, one in four adults in the UK, and one in five Canadian adults have metabolic syndrome.

But a study has found that canola oil can reduce abdominal obesity in people who are at higher risk for metabolic syndrome and cardiometabolic disease.

Professor Penny Kris-Etherton explained:

“Visceral, or abdominal, fat increases the risk for cardiovascular disease, and is also associated with increased risk for conditions such as metabolic syndrome and diabetes.

Monounsaturated fats in canola oil decrease this fat that has adverse health effects.”

Participants in this study had abdominal obesity and either had metabolic syndrome or were at risk for it.

Participants followed five diets to test different five oils, but only the canola oil diet led to abdominal fat loss.

Based on participants’ daily calorie needs, the quantity of treatment oil was calculated.

For instance, a person on a 3,000-calorie diet would have 60 grams of canola oil a day to make up 18 percent of this calorie intake.

They drank two smoothies every day and each smoothie contained 30 grams of canola oil (two tablespoons) with 100 grams of non-fat milk, 100 grams of orange sherbet, and 100 grams of frozen unsweetened strawberries.

The results showed a reduction of 1.6 percent in belly fat after four weeks consumption of high-oleic acid canola oil a day.

Professor Kris-Etherton said:

“As a general rule, you can’t target weight loss to specific body regions.

But monounsaturated fatty acids seem to specifically target abdominal fat.”

Canola oil is extracted from rapeseed and there is a concern about rapeseed oil.

Rapeseed contains erucic acid which is toxic to humans when consumed in large amounts.

However, if canola oil contains less than 2 percent erucic acid, it is generally recognized as safe.

The study was published in the journal Obesity (Liu et al., 2016).

Around half the world’s population is deficient in this vitamin.

Supplementation with vitamin D could help promote weight loss, a study suggests.

Taking the supplement is linked to weight loss, lower body fat and better cholesterol readings.

Around half the world’s population is deficient in vitamin D.

One reason for the beneficial effect of vitamin D may be its link to the neurotransmitter serotonin.

Serotonin can affect everything from sleep to mood.

High levels of vitamin D may also suppress the storage of fat.

In contrast, having low levels of vitamin D in the body is linked to the storing of fat.

Foods that are rich in vitamin D include oily fish and eggs, but most people get their vitamin D from the action of sunlight on the skin.

For the study, 232 obese young people were followed over one year.

Half of them were given a vitamin D supplement.

They took a high level for six weeks and then continued on a lower maintenance dose for the rest of the year.

The typical level of vitamin D supplementation for an adult is around 10 micrograms per day.

The results showed that those given vitamin D supplementation had less body fat, lower cholesterol and a lower body mass index after one year.

Professor Evangelia Charmandari, study author, said:

“These findings suggest that simple vitamin D supplementation may reduce the risk of overweight and obese children developing serious heart and metabolic complications in later life.”

Professor Charmandari recommends considering a vitamin D test:

“Although these initial findings indicate that vitamin D could be used in the treatment of obesity, there remains a lack of evidence on the safety and long-term effects of supplementation, particularly if there is no vitamin D deficiency.

However, if your child is overweight or obese I recommend that you consult your primary care physician for advice, and consider having their vitamin D levels tested.”

The study was presented at the 57th Annual European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology.

This technique helps people double their weight loss if combined with diet and exercise.

People who weigh themselves regularly lose weight without making other changes to diet or lifestyle, research finds.

Self-weighing is also effective for maintaining weight loss, studies have found.

Those trying to lose weight can even double their weight loss by simply noting down the details of their diet and exercise regime, some studies have found.

The latest study was carried out on 296 college-age women who were tracked over two years.

None of the women were enrolled in any kind of weight loss program.

The results showed that women who had at least one period of daily self-weighing experienced weight loss.

Dr Diane Rosenbaum, the study’s first author, said:

“The losses in BMI and body fat percentage were modest, but still significant, especially keeping in mind that these women were not part of a weight loss program.

We did not expect that, in the absence of a weight loss intervention, folks would be losing weight.”

This study does not necessarily show that self-weighing causes weight loss, the study’s authors write:

“It is possible that the relation between self-weighing and weight might be driven by scale avoidance among those who experienced weight gain.”

However, other studies have repeatedly linked self-weighing to weight loss.

One study has found that weighing oneself daily is linked to losing 10 percent of body weight over the year (Pacanowski & Levitsky, 2015).

Dr Meghan Butryn, study co-author, said:

“Regularly weighing yourself can motivate you to engage in healthy eating and exercise behaviors, because it provides you with evidence that these behaviors are effective in helping you lose weight or prevent weight gain.

Similarly, if you see weight gain on the scale, that information can motivate you to make a change.”

The study was published in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine (Rosenbaum et al., 2017).

There is evidence that higher levels of this vitamin leads to weight loss.

Higher levels of vitamin D in the body are linked to weight loss, studies find.

People lose more weight and belly fat when their vitamin D intake is higher.

A study has shown that people drinking more milk can even double weight loss.

Milk contains both calcium and vitamin D, which have both been linked to weight loss by multiple studies.

Another study has found that people with high vitamin D levels lose 20 pounds more when they are dieting than those with lower levels.

Up to 50 percent of the world’s population may be deficient in vitamin D.

People get much of the vitamin D they require from its production in the skin, which is carried out in response to sunlight.

Diet can also provide vitamin D — it is found in high levels in foods like eggs and oily fish.

Studies in rats have found that they burn more calories when they are given large doses of vitamin D.

One analysis of around 165,000 people has found that a 10 percent rise in body weight is linked to a 4 percent drop in vitamin D levels.

The study suggests that the increase in weight leads to a drop in vitamin D levels.

There was evidence that higher vitamin D levels lead to weight loss, although the effect may be small.

Nevertheless, a drop in vitamin D levels in obese people puts them at an additional health risk.

Dr Elina Hypponen, study co-author, said:

“Vitamin D deficiency is an active health concern around the world.

While many health messages have focused on a lack of sun exposure or excessive use of suncreams, we should not forget that vitamin D deficiency is also caused by obesity.

Our study highlights the importance of monitoring and treating vitamin D deficiency in people who are overweight or obese, in order to alleviate adverse health effects caused by a lack of vitamin D.”

The study was published in the journal PLOS Medicine (Vimaleswaran et al., 2013).

Weekly injection of this anti-obesity medication could lead to a weight loss of 37 lb (17 kg).

Semaglutide, sold under the brand name Ozempic, could be an effective weight loss medication.

It has been sold in the U.S as an anti-diabetic medication, but the drug appears to have a remarkable weight loss effect when combined with intensive behavioral therapy (IBT) and a low-calorie diet.

A 68 week weight loss trial found that injection of 2.4 mg of semaglutide per week along with a low-calorie diet for the first 8 weeks and 30 sessions of IBT led to obese patients losing 16 percent of their weight.

This is a phase 3 clinical trial confirming the large weight loss effect by semaglutide when given as an anti-obesity medication to patients.

In a previous trial, participants who were obese or overweight received a 2.4 mg dose of semaglutide once-weekly alongside a low-calorie diet and increased physical activity.

Participants, on average, lost over 15 kg and more than 30 percent of people lost one-fifth of their weight — an equivalent of 20 percent.

With obesity approaching 50 percent of the U.S. adult population, these findings on weight management could improve many people’s lives if followed correctly by the health care system.

For the recent study, 611 obese adults with an average weight of 233 pounds (106 kg) and a body mass index (BMI) of 38 took a 68-week weight loss treatment.

At the end of the study period, participants who received weekly a 2.4 mg dose of semaglutide along with a low-calorie diet plus IBT lost 17 kg while those who received a low-calorie diet plus IBT but no drug lost only 6 kg.

The low-calorie diet plan consisted of meal-replacement foods (shakes, bars, and prepared meals) providing 1,000 to 1,200 kcal a day.

Professor Thomas Wadden, the study’s first author, said:

“We wanted to induce a large weight loss with rigorous behavioral therapy and see how much additional weight loss semaglutide could add.

These are remarkable weight losses, particularly the one third of participants who lost 20 percent of baseline weight, a reduction that approaches that achieved with sleeve gastrectomy, a widely used bariatric surgery procedure.”

The semaglutide group who had greater weight loss also saw more improvement in their cardiometabolic health, such as reduced blood pressure, triglycerides, blood sugar levels, and waist circumference.

Professor Timothy Garvey, study co-author, said:

“These metabolic benefits and marked improvements in risk factors hold great promise for the prevention and treatment of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

The unprecedented degree of weight loss is also sufficient to prevent and treat other complications of obesity including osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.”

The higher dose of semaglutide at 2.4 mg seems to influence the brain’s appetite centre by reducing hunger and increasing the feeling of fullness consequently leading to eating less and so weight loss.

The study was published in the JAMA (Wadden et al., 2021).

It may be effective because it helps to regulate glucose levels.

A few cups of green tea each day is linked to weight loss, research finds.

Four cups of green tea was linked to 5.5 pounds of weight loss in eight weeks by one study.

Even two cups per day can be enough to shed a few pounds.

People lose weight drinking green tea in these studies without making other changes to their diet or exercise.

Restricting calories and/or adding more exercise will help to boost weight loss even more.

Green tea may be effective because it helps to regulate glucose levels.

The active ingredient is a type of flavonoid called gallated catechins, also known as EGCG.

Green tea can also help slow down weight gain, researchers have found.

One recent study on mice being fed a high-fat diet also gave them 2 percent green tea.

The results showed they put on 20 percent less weight in comparison to those not fed the green tea extract.

Professor Richard Bruno, study co-author, said:

“This study provides evidence that green tea encourages the growth of good gut bacteria, and that leads to a series of benefits that significantly lower the risk of obesity.”

The mice given the green tea extract also had better gut health and lower insulin resistance.

Professor Bruno said:

“The results of studies looking at obesity management so far have been a real mixed bag.

Some seem to support green tea for weight loss, but a lot of other research has shown no effect, likely due to the complexity of the diet relative to a number of lifestyle factors.”

Drinking green tea could help people lose weight, said Professor Bruno said:

“Two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese, and we know that just telling people to eat less and exercise more isn’t working.

It’s important to establish complementary health-promoting approaches that can prevent obesity and related problems,”

The study was published in the The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry (Chung et al., 2019).

This technique also helps people keep weight off.

A 14-day break from dieting helps increase weight loss by 50 percent, research finds.

People who take a break from dieting for a couple of weeks also find it easier to maintain their weight loss over the long term.

Having a break from a weight loss diet is beneficial because the body naturally gets used to lower levels of calories during dieting.

This causes a slowing of the metabolism.

However, taking a break brings the metabolism up to the normal rate again, increasing the rate at which calories are burned.

Professor Nuala Byrne, the study’s first author, explained:

“When we reduce our energy (food) intake during dieting, resting metabolism decreases to a greater extent than expected; a phenomenon termed ‘adaptive thermogenesis’ — making weight loss harder to achieve.

This ‘famine reaction’, a survival mechanism which helped humans to survive as a species when food supply was inconsistent in millennia past, is now contributing to our growing waistlines when the food supply is readily available.”

The study included 51 men who were either dieting continually or who took two-week breaks.

The research was set up in such a way that both groups dieted the same amount in total.

At the end of the study, men taking a two-week break had lost 30 pounds in comparison to 20 pounds in the continuous dieting group.

Intermittent dieting also enabled men to maintain 18 pounds more weight loss than those who dieted continuously.

Professor Byrne said that shorter breaks from dieting, though, are not as effective:

“There is a growing body of research which has shown that diets which use one to seven day periods of complete or partial fasting alternated with ad libitum food intake, are not more effective for weight loss than conventional continuous dieting.

It seems that the ‘breaks’ from dieting we have used in this study may be critical to the success of this approach.

While further investigations are needed around this intermittent dieting approach, findings from this study provide preliminary support for the model as a superior alternative to continuous dieting for weight loss.”

The study was published in the International Journal of Obesity (Byrne et al., 2018).

Stop food cravings with these ten simple tips based on the psychological research.

1. Tap your forehead

Anything that will distract you from thinking about food cravings will work.

One study has even found that tapping your forehead with your index finger can do the trick.

Just don’t let the tapping turn into punching — you’re not supposed to draw blood, no matter how strong the cravings get!

2. Change how you think

A slightly deeper psychological approach is to start thinking differently.

Take a moment to consider the long-term consequences of eating the wrong foods.

Dr Kathryn Demos, one of the authors of a study which tested this approach on food cravings, explained:

“We found that simply thinking in a different way affects how the brain responds to tempting food cues in individuals with obesity.

Through the MRI scans we identified that thinking about the long-term negative impact of eating unhealthy foods increased activity in a region of the brain involved in inhibitory control and self-regulation.

Our results show the promising possibility that focusing on the long-term consequences of consuming unhealthy foods could help diminish cravings and, as a result, potentially enhance weight-loss efforts.”

3. Play Tetris to stop food cravings

Just three minutes of playing Tetris can reduce cravings for food, cigarettes and alcohol, according to a study published in the journal Appetite.

The psychologists concluded that Tetris, a retro tile-matching puzzle game, may provide a visual distraction which helps people control their cravings.

4. Use your imagination

Try thinking about how a rainbow looks or the smell of eucalyptus.

Or even stare at a random pattern of dots — the kind you get if you pull the aerial out of the TV.

All have been found to reduce the vividness of food cravings.

That study’s authors explain that:

“…engaging in a simple visual task seems to hold real promise as a method for curbing food cravings.

…real-world implementations could incorporate the dynamic visual noise display into existing accessible technologies, such as the smart phone and other mobile, hand-held computing devices.”

Your imagination can be a powerful ally in the fight against food cravings.

5. Look at loads of pictures of food

It’s the most unlikely weight-loss trick ever: looking at endless pictures of foods can make them less enjoyable to eat, a recent study has found.

While a few photos might enhance the appetite, contrary to what you’d expect, people are actually put off the taste by looking at loads of pictures of food.

6. Go for a walk to stop food cravings

A 15-minute walk is enough to stop food cravings brought on by stressful situations, a study has found.

The authors concluded:

“Short bouts of physical activity may reduce the craving for sugary snacks in overweight people.

When snacking has become habitual and poorly regulated by overweight people, the promotion of short bouts of physical activity could be valuable for reducing the urge to consume at times when the person may be particularly vulnerable, such as during stress and when snack foods are available.”

7. Protein-rich breakfast

Research shows that eating a good breakfast — particularly one rich in protein — boosts a critical neurotransmitter, which may lower food cravings later in the day.

Dr. Heather Leidy, an assistant professor of nutrition and exercise physiology who led the study, said:

“Our research showed that people experience a dramatic decline in cravings for sweet foods when they eat breakfast.

However, breakfasts that are high in protein also reduced cravings for savory — or high-fat — foods.

On the other hand, if breakfast is skipped, these cravings continue to rise throughout the day.”

8. Stop food cravings with chewing gum

It’s an old trick, but one that can work.

It may not look good chewing gum, but some studies suggest it can reduce the intake of snacks.

Dr. Paula J Geiselman who has conducted a study on this, explained that her research…

“…demonstrates the potential role chewing gum can play in appetite control, reduction of snack cravings and weight management.

Even small changes in calories can have an impact in the long term.

And, this research supports the role of chewing gum as an easy, practical tool for managing snack, especially sweet snack, intake and cravings.”

9. Less food cravings from sleeping well

People who are short of sleep find it difficult to resist temptations, one study has found.

Matthew Walker, one of its authors, explained:

“What we have discovered is that high-level brain regions required for complex judgments and decisions become blunted by a lack of sleep, while more primal brain structures that control motivation and desire are amplified.”

In other words, being short of sleep = desire for sugary snacks.

10. Pay attention to your emotions

Tuning in to your emotions is an important step in managing food cravings.

One study has found that people lose more weight when they learn to get in touch with their feelings about food.

That study’s authors concluded:

“With a better understanding of how they feel and how to use emotions to make better decisions, people will not only eat better, they will also likely be happier and healthier because they relate better to others and are more concerned with their overall well-being.”

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