Can Drinking Coffee Help You Lose Weight?

Can You Lose Weight Drinking Coffee?

Many of us already consider coffee a weight loss tool and this is partly why black coffee is included as a ‘free’ drink on many diet plans. But, the relationship between coffee and weight loss isn’t always clear.

Nevertheless, when you start to look at the research, it turns out that coffee can actually help with weight loss. This outcome seems to be connected to the coffee itself and also to the caffeine.

Caffeine and Weight Loss

Caffeine itself is a stimulant and it is thought to help boost the metabolism in some ways. It isn’t clear how strong this effect is but there is evidence that caffeine itself can help people to lose weight.

For example, one fairly recent study looked at the differences in caffeinated drink consumption between a population that successfully maintained weight loss and one that didn’t.

The outcomes of the research looked like this:

Now, this difference isn’t huge and there were some limitations in the overall design of the study. Nevertheless, it is one piece of evidence suggesting that caffeine and weight loss are connected.

Other studies have also found similar connections. For example, one piece of research found that increases in caffeine consumption may decrease weight gain in the long-term (1). Some research has also found that high caffeine intake was associated with weight loss (2) and with weight loss maintenance (3).

This association has been connected with processes of fat oxidation, thermogenesis and suppression of leptin (4).

At the same time, there are many mechanisms behind caffeine’s impact on weight, including the ability of caffeine to alter hormone levels and to help break down fat cells (5,6,7,8), along with potentially increasing metabolism (9,10).

Nevertheless, it is worth noting that people become accustomed to the effects of caffeine over time. As such, the ability of caffeine to promote fat burning and metabolism may not remain consistent and may be relevant for short-term rather than long-term weight loss.

The benefits of coffee for weight loss aren’t all connected with caffeine itself.

Instead, there is also research suggesting that coffee can help you lose weight.

For example, observational studies show that people who drink coffee regularly are less likely to be overweight than those who only drink it rarely (11).

Now, observational research does not prove cause and effect but it still offers key insight into the actions of coffee.

Some researchers also argue that the polyphenols that you find in coffee can help to boost the metabolism and decrease fat accumulation (12,13), actions that may be especially relevant for weight loss.

The Connection Between Coffee and Weight Loss

The above research offers key evidence that it truly is possible to lose weight from caffeine itself and also from coffee. Indeed, you’ll also find that many individuals have similar experiences. In other cases, people may get weight loss benefits from coffee without even realizing it.

But, what is it that makes coffee so powerful?

Well, as the research suggests, metabolism is one area of impact. So, coffee may make your metabolism function a little better, meaning that you burn more fat. There are also other areas to consider, ones that are related to behavior.

In many people, coffee tends to suppress the appetite to some degree. One of the studies that I mentioned also showed this, indicating that caffeine could suppress leptin, which is commonly known as the ‘hunger hormone’ (14).

For that matter, many people do rely on coffee between meals as a way to stave off hunger. It’s likely that there are various reasons for this effect, including caffeine and other compounds in coffee.

At the same time, coffee is a hot drink that takes time to consume. That alone can potentially have some impact on hunger, especially as water itself can help to satiate people (15).

In many cases, the process can also help to take your mind off food, another practice that is beneficial for weight management.

Suppressing appetite is an appealing goal. Doing so can easily lead to decreased food consumption and, in turn, weight loss (16,17).

This may also make some diet or lifestyle approaches easier to follow. For example, one powerful way of losing weight is intermittent fasting. This is a type of autophagy diet and can be effective for weight loss. Yet, this can be a difficult approach at first, because the underlying concept means that you are hungry more often than many people like.

As such, relying on coffee early on may make the diet easier to adjust to and can improve your weight loss overall.

At the same time, coffee has an effect on behavior. For example, many people may drink coffee instead of a snack. Additionally, the fact that coffee is hot means that it takes a while to drink. That alone may be enough to take your mind off other food – or at least reduce the chance that you’ll eat.

On a side note, coffee has also been associated with improving mood and decreasing depression risk (18,19,20,21). This outcome isn’t directly related to weight loss but it is still relevant.

In particular, people often make poor nutrition decisions when they are upset or depressed and may often turn to high-calorie food in order to feel better. As such, the potential for coffee to improve mood means that it may decrease the likelihood of poor decisions.

Effectively Losing Weight with Coffee

On its own, coffee isn’t a miracle drink that is going to help you dramatically shed weight. After all, so many people already drink coffee daily and may still struggle with being overweight or obese.

However, coffee can potentially help – particularly as it has some impact on the metabolism, along with hunger and our behavior. But, you have to make good decisions to make the most of this influence.

Black Coffee Benefits Weight Loss

Needless to say, the way that you prepare your coffee is going to have a dramatic impact on your weight loss. In most cases, people will include some of the following: sugar, cream, milk, creamer, syrup, sweetener or honey in their coffee.

Another thing to consider is behavioral associations. By this, I mean the way that people often tend to connect one behavior with another. For example, some people tend to have a snack every time they have a hot drink.

As such, you need to pay close attention to your behaviors when you drink coffee. In particular, a tendency to snack or have a treat along with a coffee is likely to undermine any benefit that the coffee may have.

Now, many people actually drink coffee instead of a snack or are unlikely to have food with it. But, not everybody. Instead, some people tend to strongly associate food with coffee.

This is particularly true in social situations.

Coffee has become an extremely social drink, to the point that friends specifically meet up to have a coffee and talk.

Yet, it’s easy to see how you might have a sweet treat at the same time. For that matter, you have less knowledge and control over what goes in your coffee when you’re not making it yourself.

Going out for coffee isn’t necessarily a bad thing – it’s just that you need to be very aware of your associated behavior if you want to lose weight.

Weight Loss with Decaffeinated Coffee

Research suggests that the weight loss benefits of coffee are partly connected to caffeine and partly to other components of coffee. Likewise, the behavioral impacts of coffee are likely to be associated with coffee, rather than caffeine.

As such, there is still the potential to lose weight with decaffeinated coffee.

This may be particularly relevant for people who need to cut out or limit caffeine intake for whatever reason.

Losing Weight Successfully

At the start of this post, I asked: Can you lose weight drinking coffee?