Coffee is a vital part of a lot of our morning rituals. For a lot of people, they cannot start a day without having a cup of coffee. But is coffee really beneficial for your health? Can drinking coffee be bad for your health? Or can it help you in any way, like helping you with weight loss? In order to find an answer to this question, one has to examine the characteristics of coffee to understand more about it.
In this article, we will go through all the specifications of coffee. We will look into what the health benefits of coffee are, whether it helps with weight loss, and even examine the question, “Can coffee increase your metabolism?”.
The Health Benefits Of Coffee
Before looking at coffee increase your metabolism. Examine the positive impacts that coffee can offer on health and well-being.
1. Increases alertness
Caffeine one of the most important part of coffee is a strong stimulant that can make one alert and energetic. Caffeine manages to do this by blocking the function of a chemical, adenosine which makes one sleepy.
2. Improves brain function
The caffeine in coffee blocks adenosine and increases the release of signaling molecules like dopamine, norepinephrine, etc. This will increase the rate of brain messaging thereby increasing one’s mood and brain functions.
3. Protects against heart diseases
A moderate consumption of coffee seems to lead to a decrease in all kinds of cardiovascular diseases. It can help one to decrease the chances of contracting hypertension, cholesterol, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, etc.
4. Improves the mood
Coffee manages to increase the release of endorphins, a hormone that the body releases when it feels pain, stress, or pleasure. So, drinking coffee can improve one’s mood.
Now, as we have learned about some of the health benefits of drinking coffee let’s come back to the topic. So, Can coffee increase your metabolism?
Can Coffee Increase Your Metabolism?
So, what do you think? Can coffee increase your metabolism? The answer to this question is yes. The caffeine content in coffee can raise one’s RMR or resting metabolic rate. Apparently after 30 to 150 minutes of drinking coffee, the caffeine in coffee which is a stimulant, fires the neurons and increases one’s muscle tension.
It also effectively mobilizes the free fatty acids in one’s body, thereby reducing the fat content in one’s body.
Further, coffee also manages to increase the level of epinephrine or adrenaline in one’s blood. By increasing the level of epinephrine, coffee manages to boost one’s heart rate. It also increases the breakdown of glycogen energy sources in one’s body. By doing so, coffee will manage to increase one‘s metabolic rate increasing one’s energy expenditure.
Last but not least, coffee has the ability to induce thermogenesis in an individual. Thermogenesis refers to the biological mechanism of generating heat within organisms.
Thermogenesis takes place in the body either as a response to eating a meal or to a cold environment. During this process, the body also burns excessive amounts of calories to create heat. It therefore increases one’s innate metabolic rate.
So, then does coffee help with weight loss? Then how does coffee achieve to do this? Let’s see.
Does Coffee Help With Weight Loss?
So, we have already found coffee increases your metabolism. Now, let’s find out whether this increased metabolic rate can help with weight loss. In order to do that first we will have to look at how an increased metabolic rate will help with weight loss.
We have already found out that the components of coffee, especially caffeine, play a major role in increasing one’s RMR or resting metabolic rate.
Metabolism is a collective term that refers to a set of chemical reactions that occurs within all of our body cells which leads to energy production.
During metabolism, three actions take place in one’s body. Firstly, the food one ingests gets converted into energy. Secondly, the food gets converted to essential building blocks like proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, nucleic acids, etc.
Last but not least, the body gets rid of the metabolic wastes. So, in short, the process of metabolism decides how one body deals with the food we eat and therefore, the amount of food that gets stored as energy. So, it does play a huge role in one’s weight loss journey.
When one’s metabolic rate increases the body will start to convert more sources of energy like food and stored body aft etc. into energy. This will even continue when you rent actively working out, therefore contributing to passive calorie burning throughout the day.
Increased metabolic rate also decreases one’s physical sensations of hunger as the body will continue to provide energy. So, an increase in metabolic rate caused by coffee will help individuals in their weight loss journey.
Conclusion
So, based on the analysis, the answer to the question, “Can coffee increase your metabolism?” is evident. If used properly, without adding any extra sugar, cream, or other forms of sweeteners, coffee can act as an excellent form of stimulant. Coffee can increase your innate metabolism, thereby not only increasing your active metabolic rate but also your resting metabolic rate.
So, if used properly having a cup of coffee early in the morning can become one of the ways to lose weight easily. Now, will you add a cup of coffee to your morning ritual? Let me know in the comments below.
