People have long said that coffee is one of the most healthy drinks that you can consume. You may have walked through the aisles of the supermarket or sat in a health bar and glance at the sheer variety of “healthy” coffee blends or “bulletproof” coffee blends and wonder if there’s any merit to these claims.

Of course, there’s quite a bit of marketing fluff here and there, but there is truth to the health benefits that people claim coffee to have.

But can it really have an effect on something so complicated as our body’s metabolism?

Coffee without many additives will boost your metabolism due to it being a potent source of the psychoactive stimulant caffeine.

Along with boosting your metabolic rate, the caffeine in coffee also supports our bodies’ ability to burn fat during exercise.

The stimulant effects of coffee have numerous positive health effects that have been recorded in numerous studies by clinical professionals and nutritional scientists.

Keep reading to find out more about how they and how coffee can help our bodies.

How Does Coffee Effect our Metabolism?

The main component in coffee that plays the biggest part in speeding up our metabolism is caffeine. Which is classified as a stimulant drug, meaning it stimulates our central nervous system and other functions in our bodies.

Caffeine boosts the speed at which we burn calories and turn them into energy, this is known as metabolic rate.

In a clinical trial, volunteers consumed coffee with around 200 mg of caffeine. In the span of three hours, their recorded metabolic rate went up around 4%.

Caffeine Informer estimates that this is around 2 and a half shots of espresso, or half a venti coffee that you would buy at Starbucks.

According to most, this can also be measured at about 2 cups of coffee. Which is still well within the safe amount of caffeine suggested by the experts of Mayo Clinic, which is 400 mg for generally healthy adults.

Coffee can Help Burn Body Fat and Lose Weight

One of the most well-known effects of coffee is how it makes you need to go to the bathroom. This is because coffee is a natural diuretic, diuretics like green tea and coffee are substances that cause us to lose weight by losing water waste.

This is a short-term weight loss solution, but thankfully coffee has much more long-lasting fat-burning effects.

How does Coffee Burn Fat?

Coffee also acts as a thermogenic which is a substance that produces heat. A study from 2018 shows that people were given 3 mg of caffeine per kilogram of bodyweight. They burned more body fat than carbs.

This study shows that around 100 mg of caffeine increased the daily calories burned in lean and obese people by 79-150 kcal.

However, Caffeine is not the only natural chemical in coffee that plays a part in the thermogenic effect.

Among a few others is Chlorogenic Acid, also known as CGA, which makes your body produce more heat and burn fat. This happens by activating a protein called Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor alpha (PPAR-alpha).

Coffee can Reduce Appetite

Many people say that coffee makes them feel less hungry for a while and thus helps them eat less. This is based on how coffee regulates the hormones that control hunger.

There are some studies that have said that coffee has been linked to reducing appetite in men, but possibly not women. There is still research needed to solidify this.

But it is still very much a possibility given that the studies were very limited in size.

Coffee and Its Effects on Exercise

Weight loss cannot happen without some form of exercise, being a stimulant, coffee has been used by many as a pre-workout drink for that kick of energy and the boost it gives to your central nervous system and muscles.

A meta-analysis by the National Library of Medicine shows that coffee temporarily boosts muscular strength and muscle endurance.

More research coming from the American Council on Exercise reports that a study done by McNaughton and colleagues observed that caffeine improved cyclists’ performance by around 4-5% when given 6 milligrams of caffeine per kilogram of bodyweight.

These performance-boosting effects aren’t limited to endurance athletes, however. For athletes focused on strength and power caffeine also gives a boost.

ACE also reports that in one study, researchers gave 5 mg per kilo of bodyweight to highly conditioned male athletes who were tested on exercises performed to failure.

The results show that there was a big increase in both strength and peak power.

Other Health Benefits of Coffee

Coffee is one of the biggest sources of antioxidants in the Western diet.

Aside from fruits, veggies, and supplements, coffee is rich in antioxidants that can provide benefits like reducing risk for heart disease, improving circulation, as stated in this study, helping to reduce the risk of diabetes according to this Japanese study.

In Summary

The caffeine in coffee can boost your metabolism as well as helping you lose bodyweight and burn fat thanks to its ability to stimulate the functions that regulate overall health.

To top it off, coffee without extra additives is very rich in antioxidants and has other positive benefits to offer.