Coffee brings a host of different health benefits for us. The most obvious one being the short-term boost in alertness and concentration – thanks to the caffeine! However, not many would be aware of the fact that coffee helps lower the risk of type 2 diabetes and liver problems in us. As if that wasn’t enough – black coffee can actually help you lose weight.
Now hang on a minute! Before you start downing four to five cups of black coffee every day, make sure you have the complete information. First things first, anything taken in excess without moderation is harmful for your overall health – that obviously includes coffee too. Secondly, when we say black coffee we mean without sugar!
How Does Black Coffee Help Weight Loss?
Black coffee in itself contains zero calories. It is the sugar and cream you add to it that trickle down into the pounds you pack. Just two teaspoons of sugar in a cup of black coffee makes the calorie chart jump from zero to 69, just like that. So, if on an average you are drinking 3 cups of black coffee with sugar every day – that’s around 207 calories you’re adding to your daily diet.
Now consider making a small lifestyle change: eliminate the sugar and cream from your coffee. Continue so for a year and you can avoid the intake of over 75,500 calories. That sums up to about 22 pounds of fat that you wouldn’t have!
That’s not all that coffee does.
We all know that coffee is rich in caffeine. This caffeine can triggering the process of burning calories that may help you slim down. Studies conducted in 2009 and 2012 revealed that the caffeine from coffee promotes thermogenesis. Thermogenesis is the process that allows your body to burn additional calories.
However, there was another study conducted in 2010 which said that the thermogenesis compounds found in caffeine are not equally effective for everyone. So, while there is a chance that coffee can help you lose weight, you can’t and shouldn’t rely on that alone to slim you down.
The journey of weight loss is not about shedding big pounds quickly. It’s about making small sustainable changes to your everyday lifestyle that form into healthy habits in the long run. Making small changes helps you adopt a healthier way of life and keep the pounds you shed during the process off for a longer time.
So how many of you would be taking your coffee black – that too without sugar and cream – from now on?