Coffee And Weight Loss - Is It Good Or Bad ?

Caffeine can be found on the ingredient list of energy drinks, in energy bars, gels, and diet aids. 

Many weight loss plans emphasize that morning cup of coffee. But what does the metabolism say about this?

What Does Caffeine Do To The Energy Balance?

Coffee activates the sympathetic nervous system, our fight-or-flight system. It wakes you up, drives your heart rate and blood pressure up. So it stands to reason that it has an influence on the energy balance. But first: You can't dope with coffee. Performance remains the same whether you drink a triple espresso before exercise or not. However, caffeine likely has an impact on how much sore muscles you get afterwards.

 Because coffee changes the metabolism a bit: It lowers the so-called anaerobic threshold, i.e. the performance from which your muscles no longer burn their sugar with oxygen to form CO2, but instead carry out lactic acid fermentation. This leaves lactate in the muscle, which later probably contributes to muscle soreness.

And What Does That Mean For Energy Consumption?

With lactic acid fermentation, the body extracts significantly less energy from the same amount of sugar than with aerobic combustion. Once you're above the lowered anaerobic threshold, you'll use more sugar for the same performance. If you exercise - but only then - coffee will make your metabolism less efficient and you'll shed your calories faster.

However, only the sugar, not the fat. And training above the anaerobic threshold is more likely to exhaust you than usual. The bottom line is that you will therefore burn just as many calories per training session as you would without the coffee, just in less time and with more sore muscles. And for endurance athletes, caffeine in energy bars tends to be counterproductive because – after the brief stimulant effect – it makes them tire more quickly.

Incidentally, it only depends on the amount of caffeine: bean coffee or instant coffee changes the metabolism just like the same amount of caffeine in tea or some powder.