You’ve probably read a lot of different ideas on herbs, phytonutrients, vitamins, and minerals. If you want to lose weight, you have to eat fewer calories than you burn. That being said, some supplements make your body function more efficiently, which helps you lose weight faster. They won’t do the hard work of cutting calories or increasing the amount of exercise you get, but they do improve your chances of weight loss and aid in boosting the results.
Vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin, helps your immune system and your weight loss efforts.
Massachusetts is too far north for adequate sun to produce enough vitamin D year-round for your body. Vitamin D must come from food or supplements, at least for half the year. Vitamin D can help prevent depression. That can potentially prevent overeating. Scientists also found that obese people often have deficient vitamin D. The question is, does the vitamin D deficit cause obesity, or does the obesity cause the vitamin D deficit? Another study compared two groups of obese individuals, one taking vitamin D and calcium supplements and not taking them. Those taking the supplements lost more belly fat than those who didn’t.
If you’re short on B vitamins, it might make weight loss more difficult.
Vitamin B isn’t just one vitamin. There are several. B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, and B-12. B vitamins are necessary for proper metabolism functioning. They are vital for metabolizing protein, carbs, and fats, and necessary for directing the use of stored energy from food. If you don’t have adequate vitamin B, it impedes your metabolism and that makes it harder to lose weight.
You also need minerals for your body to maximize calories burned.
Consider adding spinach and beans to your diet. It will increase your consumption of both iron and magnesium. If you don’t have any magnesium in your diet or take supplements, it affects energy production. Magnesium helps you control your blood sugar and blood pressure. It improves nervous system functioning and helps produce over 300 enzymes. Iron carries oxygen to all parts of the body. It helps the muscles, allowing them to burn fat. If you’re low on iron, you’ll be tired and burn fewer calories.
- Change what you drink to lose weight. Switch to green tea. Green tea contains catechins and other potent phytonutrients. They’re powerful anti-inflammatories. Inflammation can increase the risk of obesity and obesity increases the risk of chronic inflammation. Break the cycle with green tea.
- Boost your iron supply by eating food high in vitamin C. Vitamin C from foods like tomatoes or strawberries improves iron absorption.
- Eat food higher in fiber to help your weight loss program. Fiber isn’t a vitamin or mineral. It’s a carbohydrate. It fills you up and feeds beneficial gut microbes that aid with weight loss.
- It’s difficult for people who eat a plant-based diet to get adequate vitamin B-12. That can lead to weight gain. Vitamin B-12 is necessary for your body to metabolize fat in the liver.
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