Coconut & Weight Loss

Known for its weight loss abilities and ability to speed up metabolism, coconut oil has become a popular strategy for losing weight. The coconut oil diet involves adding several teaspoons of pure coconut oil to your diet every day. Although certain health benefits exist from a coconut oil diet, it is still important to maintain a well-balanced and nutritious diet.

• Coconut Tree

Healthy Substitute

• Coconut oil claims to be a healthy alternative to the highly refined and harmful trans fatty acids. Although some people think consuming any type of fat is bad for weight loss, the body needs a balance of healthy fats to survive. Promoters of the coconut diet suggest substituting coconut oil for the more unhealthy oils: partially hydrogenated vegetable oil or hydrogenated vegetable oil. Coconut oil consists mainly of medium-chain fatty acids, which are easily digested and converted to energy. Vegetable oils, on the other hand, consist of long-chain fatty acids, which are difficult for the body to digest and often stored directly as fat.

Faster Metabolism

• Because of its medium-chain fatty acid structure, coconut oil is an effective way of speeding up the body's metabolism. The body's metabolism is a network of hormones and enzymes that convert food into fuel and determine how the body burns that fuel. Essentially, metabolism establishes the speed at which we burn calories and determines how quickly we gain weight or how easily we lose weight. When the metabolism is sped up, as it is with coconut oil, the body is quicker to burn calories, often resulting in weight loss.

Slows Digestion

• Coconut oil is also known to slow down the digestion of food, helping you to feel full for a longer period after a meal. Two of the most common diet mistakes people make are overeating and snacking too often between meals. These habits often develop because we are unable to tell when we are truly "full." However, adding coconut oil helps you to feel full. With this feeling of fullness, your body will feel satisfied, and you will not be tempted to overindulge.

Internal Benefits

• The fatty acids that make up coconut oil also work to destroy candida, which is a condition of yeast overgrowth in the body. This yeast triggers the body to gain weight, crave carbohydrates and feel fatigued. Coconut oil also helps to detoxify the body, cleansing it of wastes and toxic materials. Detoxification helps to balance the digestive tract and restore health, ultimately laying the foundation for effective weight loss.

Considerations

• As with any diet strategy, coconut oil might not prove to an effective weight loss tool for some people. In fact, some people might find that taking coconut oil causes them to gain weight. The Mayo Clinic has noted that just one tablespoon of coconut oil contains almost 120 calories and more than 13 grams of fat. When comparing grams to grams, coconut oil has 10 times more unhealthy saturated fat than olive oil.