Coconut Oil for Weight Loss

By Laura Ng

Is it true that you can eat coconut oil for weight loss? Many people thought that coconut oil (containing predominantly saturated fat) bears the same fatty chain structure as that of animal saturated fat.

Here's the difference — animal saturated fat molecules attach to one another in long chain which your body finds hard to break down and thus store it as fat very easily, whereas coconut oil's saturated fat molecules form medium chain structure and readily breaks down for energy use during digestion.

This in turn boosts your metabolism and burn fat off your fat stores. That explains why most people drop their pants size when they start eating coconut oil for weight loss.

To give you an even better picture on why the fat in coconut oil won't easily land in your fat tissues like any other vegetable or animal fats, here's the fact: Saturated fat in coconut oil, or commonly referred to as medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs), reacts differently from other dietary fats. MCFAs travel along the bloodstream straight to the liver, where they're immediately processed and converted into energy, just like carbohydrate. Hence, they won't get stored as fat so easily and cause weight gain.

Here's another big advantage of eating coconut oil for weight loss. Being smaller in size, MCFAs yield fewer calories than other dietary fats, causing the total energy count in coconut oil to be only 8.62 calories per gram. This means if you replace other oils (which carry 9.4 calories per gram) with coconut oil, you'll benefit from lower caloric intake.

Remember I said earlier that consuming coconut oil for weight loss can stimulate your metabolism? Imagine your metabolism speeds up, at the same time you're ingesting lower calories, you can expect to burn more calories off your excess fat stores. That's how you can lose weight effectively with this medium-chain fat-burning coconut oil.

How to Eat Coconut Oil for Weight Loss

But here's the kicker. No matter how fat-burning coconut oil is, like any other foods, when you consume excess of it which the level of your metabolism is not able to burn it off totally, any extra calorie that left unused will still get deposited as fat in your energy bank. Hence, consuming the right amount of coconut oil is the key to losing weight effectively with coconut oil.

When you're getting started with eating coconut oil for weight loss, because this fat-burning oil is extremely effective in stimulating bowel movement, you should take 1 tablespoon (1/2 in morning, 1/2 at night) first for at least 7 days to avoid triggering diarrhea-like condition.

Observe your body condition and if you feel it works well with you, up the intake to 2 and then progressively to 3 tablespoons later on. After several months when you feel you can ingest more, you can actually increase the intake up to 5 tablespoons spread out in a day. Adding it to your diet progressively is the key to good health and weight loss with coconut oil.

That's what you should do when eating coconut oil to lose weight. If you increase the amount too fast, the oil may give you a diarrhea effect. So, work with your body closely for maximum fat loss without risking your health. Any good food when eat in the wrong way can affect your health negatively. Bear in mind.


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