Caffeine acts as an appetite suppressant. When coupled with an active lifestyle, this means that you’re spending less time thinking about food and more time using the caffeine powered energy rush to get your training done! Caffeine stimulates your metabolism. This means caffeine increases the rate at which your body burns calories to make heat and energy. Caffeine is also a diuretic, meaning you pass water more often. However, the flip side of this is that it makes you want to drink more water, keeping your body hydrated and be stopping it from storing water.

How Caffeine helps a diet

Caffeine increases alertness and mental focus. Caffeine also increases the body’s pain threshold. This might not be directly diet related, but in terms of fat loss, if your pain tolerance is higher, you can lift weight heavier and/or longer, giving you a better workout. Caffeine also works to increase the rate that your body uses fat deposits during aerobic activity. This increased reliance on fat as a fuel source means you’ll be shedding those pounds steadily as you train. You will find that your muscles are not nearly as sore, as the energy is expended from fat cells instead of muscle.

How Caffeine hinders a diet

Caffeine does have side effects for some users. At high doses (around 1g of caffeine, more than twice the recommended daily intake), caffeine can produce slowed heart rate, hypertension, nervousness, irritability, insomnia and gut problems. In addition to this, awareness of fluid intake needs to be maintained, as high levels of caffeine can dehydrate the body. However, to get to this level you would have to to take around 5 tablets a day, or over 10 cups of coffee! Know your limits!

Fat burners and Caffeine

Caffeine is one of the least marketed, but most effective “fat burners” available. Caffeine will not help you lose weight on its own, but taken before exercise can increase fat burning and help you exercise longer by delaying fatigue. Caffeine is highly used in pre-workout supplements found worldwide. In fact, I dare you to try to find an effective fat burner supplement that doesn’t include caffeine in the mix. Caffeine helps fat loss by sticking to fat cells to enhance the removal of fat and stop storage.

Expectations of fat loss with Caffeine

Caffeine alone will not make you lose weight. When coupled with an active lifestyle and healthy eating, caffeine can accelerate the results you are looking for and get you there quicker! Don’t expect caffeine to do the job for you. It doesn’t fix a problem, but it does get you to your goal faster!