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Drinking strong coffee before exercising increases fat-burning, new study finds
- mrfusion 6y agoFollow up question. Does intense exercise metabolize caffeine faster? I usually can’t sleep if I have caffeine after 2pm but if I drink it in the evening but before a big workout I don’t notice any trouble sleeping.
- baby 6y agoOr can give you a heart attack no?
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago> Subjects ingested 3 mg/kg of caffeine or a placebo at 8am and 5pm 3mg/kg is over 250mg of caffeine for an average weight man. Twice a day makes that 500mg. An 8.4oz can of Red Bull contains 80mg of caffeine. They were giving these people an amount of caffeine equivalent to 6 cans of Red Bull. Not a perfect comparison because Red Bull contains other ingredients, but that's still a lot of caffeine. For another point of reference, that's 2.5 shots of 5 hour energy (200mg caffeine per bottle). To top it off, the subjects were caffeine-naive, so they had no caffeine tolerance. They must have been feeling extremely energetic. No wonder they burned more fat. I'm not sure this is going to translate to your casual coffee drinker or someone with a high caffeine tolerance.
- watwut 6y agoYet another question is, whether or is even healthy. It might just be that not burning that fat more quickly can be healthier then drinking so much coffein.
- snarfy 6y ago3mg/kg for an average weight man is about 3 cups of coffee.
- themolecularman 6y agoInterestingly I've heard about a strong relationship between heart attacks and consumption of energy drinks like Monster/Red-Bull. I used to drink a lot of Red Bull and stopped as a result. But I sometimes think one of the reasons I haven't put on weight despite my lifestyle is because of my caffeine habits.
- SkyPuncher 6y agoMost energy drinks include other energy additives, which I think is where the dangers come from. I can no longer drink red bull because it gives me really bad heart palpitations. Meanwhile, I can pretty much drink coffee all day without issue.
- retrac 6y agoCaffeine, at least in large doses, is somewhat stressful on the heart by itself. It increases respiration and blood pressure and heart rate. A strong cup of coffee can give me minor palpitations.
- SkyMarshal 6y agoBack in the late 00’s I discovered Redbull really helped me overcome after-lunch food-coma. I’d drink one right after lunch to help me get back to work and focus for the rest of the day. After about 6 months of this, one day I was sitting at my desk having just finished my afternoon Redbull, and felt my heart skip a beat, literally. Like a little mini-heart attack. Scared the shit out of me, and I quit Redbull cold turkey that day. At the time I was really into cycling, riding about 100 miles per week (50 on the weekend plus daily bike commute). I was in tip-top shape, with no family history of heart problems, and an otherwise normal, low-sugar, whole food diet. Never experienced that since, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are studies that find a link between super-high caffeine energy drinks and heart or other health problems.
- dbsmith83 6y agoAh, this is called an ectopic heart-beat (usually harmless). Back when I drank too much coffee and didn't sleep in my last year of college, I got a few of these. Now I'm a one-cup-a-day kind of guy, and it hasn't happened much anymore.
- lmilcin 6y agoI am pretty sure that not sleeping at all also increases fat burning as body uses less energy when asleep The fat burning might be from reaction of organism that is not used to a lot of daily caffeine ingestion. For example, when I don't use caffeine for a long time my heart rate increases when I increase amount of coffee I drink. But then goes back after some time (presumably when my body gets accustomed to it again). Also, this kind of research must be read with a little bit of scientific background. It is easy to get an impression author wanted to establish causation, but in reality this research only shows correlation, and correlation does not prove causation.
- sjg007 6y agoPoor sleep is associated with weight gain.
- umanwizard 6y agoI wonder if that’s because sleepiness is associated with poor impulse control. I know when I’m super tired I tend to eat whatever I want the next day.
- luxuryballs 6y agoThat and you may be having an extra meal whereas you otherwise would have been asleep.
- toyg 6y agoThere is that and there is the “enforced fasting interval” that sleep is.
- moron4hire 6y agoThe first meal after sleeping through the night is called "break-fast", after all.
- readme 6y agoit's because sleep regulates the hormones that control your appetite if you mean poor control of your body's natural drive to eat which is imperative to our survival, then sure very few people can consistently control this "impulse" -- the best way to control it is to get adequate sleep and regulate your hormones
- raverbashing 6y agoYeah one can is my limit (let's say, for a 4h period). I can't imagine what would feel taking the equivalent of taking that amount all at once. Probably the usual effects (headache and severe dizziness) That being said, caffeine is a good pre-workout.
- perrylaj 6y agoSeems like a lot when put in terms of Redbull, but isn't really in the context of athletes and performance. 5mg/kg is a common number as a pre-event dose for endurance athletes, and science seems to be mixed on ideal due to large individual variation in tolerance, response, and metabolics[1]. There are many 'thermogenic' fat loss supplements that have 150mg+ per dose taken multiple times a day. Cyclists I know commonly take 400mg before a race to training session, and often top up over the course of the event if it's more than a couple hours. So I don't think the numbers reported are high, unless casual coffee is your basis comparison. But in the context of caffeine for fat loss, where supplements have high amounts, the numbers seem in line with common use. 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5752738/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5752738/
- PragmaticPulp 6y agoThe subjects were caffeine-naive non-athletes. They had zero caffeine tolerance. 500mg is a huge amount for a caffeine-naive person, no matter how you look at it. No one goes from drinking zero caffeine to 6 Red Bulls per day without experiencing abnormally high stimulation.
- BurningFrog 6y agoI'm not sure you two are disagreeing?
- Balgair 6y agoAs someone that quit caffeine over quarantine, I cannot even imagine slurping half a gram of pure caffeine. I probably wouldn't sleep for a few days and I'm certain my teeth would chatter my filings out. I know it's an experiment and the people were consented, but man, that seems a bit ... mean. There's no way I can see having that much caffeine nowadays and not be a total wreck.
- SkyPuncher 6y ago> Seems like a lot when put in terms of Redbull, Redbull doesn't actually have that much caffeine. A typically, 8oz cup of coffee has more caffeine than a redbull. In fact, most "energy drinks" don't have that much caffeine. They have other ingredients that also provide energy.
- bluedino 6y ago240mg is pretty common for the canned energy drinks
- carbocation 6y agoExtrapolating from your comment, I guess we'd kind of want a blocked design that is placebo-vs-caffeine and exercise-vs-none. That would tell us whether there is just an additive effect of high-dose caffeine and exercise, or if somehow the caffeine is interactive with exercise (i.e., has a bigger effect in the exercise group than in the rest group).
- sinsterizme 6y agoA tall (smallest size) pyke roast from Starbucks is 235 mg of caffeine. A venti (what I normally get) is 410 mg.
- dragonwriter 6y agoThe smallest size at Starbucks is “short”, it's just not listed on the menu.
- noobrunner 6y agoHaha, I just learned this recently. It's on the menu in their app. I always order short now when I am in a mood for "unhealthy" drink
- Godel_unicode 6y agoA grande (16oz) drip coffee from starbucks is over 300mg of caffeine. The problem with Red Bull is the sugar.
- thinkingemote 6y agoHow about sugar free energy drinks?
- bserge 6y agoJust use caffeine pills.
- ApolloFortyNine 6y agoIt's odd they didn't speak of caffeine itself as a supplement, and instead mentioned coffee. Caffeine is a pretty common ingredient in any pre-workout, and you can get 200mg pills online cheaply.
- thinkingemote 6y agoNot that odd if you consider science writing should appeal to as many as possible. The study itself used these workout pills you mention which were made from green coffee beans: https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-020-00400-6#Sec2 https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-020-...
- yellowapple 6y agoIt's also relevantly the "C" in the ECA stack (ephedrine, caffeine, aspirin), which is a well-known supplement mix for bodybuilding - one specifically intended for fat burn.
- hombre_fatal 6y agoAlmost seems like you're trying to sensationalize it by changing it to Red Bull, something that's actually pretty low in caffeine once you put marketing aside. How about comparing it to Starbucks' regular hot coffee sizes? - Short - 180 mg - Tall - 260 mg - Grande - 330 mg - Venti - 415 mg Is drinking a 12oz Tall at Starbucks really dropping your jaw?
- have_faith 6y agoIt drops my jaw that anyone drinks that regularly.
- arcticbull 6y agoWell, this massive million drinker meta-analysis of coffee consumption (high levels, 5 cups a day) shows it significantly improves cardiovascular health. [1] > A nonlinear association between coffee consumption and CVD risk was observed in this meta-analysis. Moderate coffee consumption was inversely significantly associated with CVD risk, with the lowest CVD risk at 3 to 5 cups per day, and heavy coffee consumption was not associated with elevated CVD risk. [1] https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/circulationaha.113.005925 https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/circulationaha....
- nwienert 6y agoWhat does it do to every other disease? Doesn't say much if it looks at a single factor outcome.
- toxik 6y agoSuffice to say, if there were meaningful risks from drinking normal amounts of coffee, it would be known by now. Its main drawback is that it makes people nervous and jittery if taken in excess.
- ThrowawayP 6y ago
- bosswipe 6y agomg/kg is a really weird unit to use without saying how many kg were consumed.
- carbocation 6y agoIt's usually a unit of mg consumed per kg of body weight. (Hopefully 0 kg of which are being consumed.)
- detaro 6y agoWhen used in contexts like this, it's mg of substance per kilogram of body weight. (with the assumption that the effect on metabolism etc somewhat scales with body weight, at least for people that are otherwise similar)
- bosswipe 6y agoOh. Thank you that makes more sense.
- erickhill 6y agoIf they truly had no caffeine tolerance, iirc back when I first started ingesting more than I was used to it would make me a bit sick to my stomach.
- yellowapple 6y ago> They must have been feeling extremely energetic. Perhaps even uncomfortably so: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qRuNxHqwazs https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qRuNxHqwazs
- enominezerum 6y agoI quickly got addicted to Monster Energy drinks working at a Lowe's Hardware store across the street from a gas station; always been a caffeind. When the coffee ones came out I would do a 2 for and drink two during a break. Anyway, at 21 I decided to use Jack3d, back when it was damn near Meth, it had DMAA in it. I didn't know this but being the 250lb 6' guy I was, slinging grills and landscaping stuff all day, I bucked up and took the "max dose" of it the first time. Shit, I hit the gym, did extreme cardio on an elliptical for over an hour, lifted weights with some random ripped bros, and when my girlfriend came after work I stayed and ran further on the treadmill than her and her friend. Just the readouts from the elliptical and treadmill were almost 2200 calories. Even afterwards when we went home I couldn't wait for us to shower before laying into her I still was so wired. A year later she was talking about that night... Yea, I bet like hell someone that hasn't ever messed with stimulants can be turned sideways by them.
- dbsmith83 6y agoThe article title is misleading since the participants didn't actually drink coffee. I know, they said they ingested caffeine 'equivalent to', but it's a little misleading. There are other compounds in coffee which could increase or decrease the effects of just caffeine so it's best to not just assume it would be the same.
- _0qft 6y agoanti depressants also makes you quite sensitive to caffeine
- oatmale 6y agoKind of old news at this point right? It’s been touted as a “life hack” for at least a decade. I remember reading about this in the four hour body book. That was published in 2010. It was also based on prior studies.
- bArray 6y agoI believe this is the paper: https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s12970-020-00400-6.pdf https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s12970-020... Seems as though we're talking about MFO (maximal fat oxidization) of 10.7% in the morning and 29% in the afternoon. Interestingly you see an increase in VO2max as well - which I believe is essentially blood oxygen. A few things I'll point out though: 1. This is just 15 men, aged 32 +/- 7 years. Doesn't quite seem like enough people to definitively draw a conclusion. 2. They are described as 'caffeine-naïve' (which I assume means they do not normally consume caffeine) - so it's unclear if this effect would be the same to somebody who already regularly drinks caffeine.
- maxrev17 6y agoBe interested to see a percentage increase in fat burning (I.e. is it worth nailing a coffee or not if you are a big fat coder looking to shift a few pounds)
- jonnycomputer 6y agoFrom paper's abstract: >Compared to the placebo, caffeine increased mean MFO by 10.7% https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-020-00400-6 https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-020-...
- kec 6y agoExercise is great for general fitness and can give you a slight edge in a calorie deficit but has little impact on weight loss in general. If you want to lose weight by far the easiest and most effective thing you can do is to get your diet under control.
- watwut 6y agoHowever, exercise is very important ingredient if your goal is health rather then aesthetic.
- umanwizard 6y agoIt’s probably important in either case.
- watwut 6y agoYes, especially if you have passive lifestyle. But it is not all that much how many calories you burn, but about what it does to your body in general.
- randlet 6y ago> If you want to lose weight by far the easiest and most effective thing you can do is to get your diet under control. Easy is the wrong word. Getting your diet under control is the hardest part of losing weight. Most effective, absolutely. Simple, yes, easy, no.
- softwaredoug 6y agoI’ve always avoided caffeine before exercise because I’ve worried about overexerting myself and getting an injury from going all out. I wonder if there’s research on this factor?
- bluedino 6y agoCaffeine is the main ingredient in most pre-workout drinks
- dbsmith83 6y agoI do too for the most part. It seems too risky and I am not a professional athlete, so there is no need to push it too hard. https://aaptiv.com/magazine/pre-workout-drinks https://aaptiv.com/magazine/pre-workout-drinks "Are Pre-Workout Drinks Healthy or Harmful?" > The caffeine and creatine that most of these drinks contain can also have harmful effects on the body. “Excessive caffeine can increase your heart rate and blood pressure, causing cardiac issues,” Woeckener notes.
- melolife 6y agoThis is the last thing I'd be worried about. It's coffee, not some kind of anabolic steroid/cocaine mixture. I know a lot of people who spend way too much time trying to optimize supplements and other tiny details instead of throwing down and getting on with your life. Edit: after reading other comments yours makes more sense, but I'd still be more worried about what's actually in a pre-work out beverage than over-exertion.
- notsuoh 6y agoI'm objectively very high performing at aerobic exercise, since high school and have kept it up. I have seen quantitatively higher performance when taking 3-5 mg/kg of caffeine before exercise and regularly during. This includes anything high intensity aerobic, from swimming to running to cycling. This is the best collection of research I have seen on the topic and where I arrived at my 3-5 number above many years ago, perhaps it will be useful and seems to speak to the broader topic at hand: https://fellrnr.com/wiki/Caffeine https://fellrnr.com/wiki/Caffeine
- klyrs 6y ago
- TwoBit 6y agoI haven't read this study, but I read about this from other studies 20 years ago.
- webmaven 6y ago> I haven't read this study, but I read about this from other studies 20 years ago. A few years ago I saw an EMEA advertising campaign promoting Turkish coffee as a pre-exercise boost.
- jonnycomputer 6y ago"15 caffeine-naive men" mean age 32 years. Now we know why the N is so low. /s
- jebeng 6y agoI believe it was in Montreal that there was a study attempted for something like a Human Sexuality postgrad study, that needed to collect a certain sample size of males who had never consumed internet pornography(or something to that effect), that had to be abandoned due to complete failure to find subjects who met the criteria. I'd imagine it would be not quite as hard to find caffeine naive subjects for a caffeine study, but not by much.
- jonnycomputer 6y agoAnd if you did find them, one had to wonder how representative they are of the general population.
- beforeolives 6y agoThis has been known for a long time and it's fairly well studied. I suppose the more interesting part for them was studying the daily variation in fat burning.
- ve55 6y agoMy favorite thing about 'study finds' articles on HN is that I get to read the comments and see people instantly tell me why the article (or sometimes paper as well) is terrible. I mean this sincerely too, since it's a very low-effort and quick way to find what is often some pretty critical flaws in the presented conclusions.
- kevinyun 6y agoI appreciate this on the S1 filing threads where you can get some deep anecdotal insights on companies that you would have otherwise never been able to find through research.
- SkyMarshal 6y agoSame. Also, even studies without obvious flaws need to be reproduced with same results multiple times before we can start accepting the conclusion. A single study is at best suggestive.
- chiefalchemist 6y agoPerhaps. But in this case, 15 ppl is not a "study". Furthermore, this had no control group. This is not the type of information we come to HN for.
- pizza 6y agoWait a little longer and you'll almost surely get comments pointing out why the top comments are bad as well lol :)
- say_it_as_it_is 6y agoIf the study was about covid vaccinations, would you decide not to get a shot based on what an anonymous person on HN thought? The diffusion of expert opinions here makes it hard to take seriously.
- rubyn00bie 6y agoThis is not surprising to anyone who has ever walked into a GNC, or other health food store... is it even news? They’ve been selling shit like “redline” for many years to do exactly this. Power fat burner: caffeine + blood thinner. That’s most of what things like redline do. Is it going to work if you don’t exercise? Nope, but it sure as hell does help if you are exercising. I’d really only recommend it to people focused on losing a lot of weight. If you’re trying to lose 10lbs it’ll never make a difference. If you’re trying to lose 100lbs though, then yeah, 6-12 months worth of slightly increased metabolic rate will probs have a net positive affect.
- robbintt 6y agoWhat is the blood thinner for? Edit: found this ingredient list but not sure if it is the same formulation or what I am looking for: https://www.heb.com/product-detail/vpx-redline-xtreme-triple-berry-ultimate-energy-rush-drink/1057535 https://www.heb.com/product-detail/vpx-redline-xtreme-triple...
- nullify88 6y agoBlood thinners reduce blood viscosity increasing flow. Aspirin is commonly used together with ephedrine and caffeine to form an ECA stack. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECA_stack https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECA_stack
- bserge 6y agoCan't buy ephedrine anymore. Or pseudoephedrine, which was shit anyway. They've been replaced with synephrine and other stuff, which is just bad.
- cheezerman 6y agoEphedrine is still available over the counter, in the US, at least.
- yellowapple 6y ago
- amelius 6y agoBut coffee induces stomach acid reflux, which is definitely not what you want during exercise, so catch-22 here.
- dbsmith83 6y agoThis from the study was very interesting to me: > In athletes, it is known that endurance performance is poorer early in the morning and late at night compared with the afternoon [6], and that MFO and Fatmax are higher in the afternoon compared to the morning whether in non-athlete male students [7], in untrained normal-weight and obese individuals [8], or in endurance-trained athletes [9]. The difference has been explained by the higher body temperature, the enhanced neural activation and contractile properties of the skeletal muscle, and the higher plasma catecholamine concentrations found in response to exercise in the afternoon compared to the morning and evening [10, 11]. So it seems like regardless of if you had caffeine or not, it is better to work out in the afternoon vs. in the morning
- mean_gene_1976 6y agoIs this really a eureka moment? I mean this has been pretty obvious.
- jniedrauer 6y agoWe've known that caffeine increases aerobic capacity for half a century now. I don't see what new information this study is bringing to the table. If you take caffeine and your aerobic capacity increases, then you will either do more work, or perform at a lower percentage of your lactate threshold. In both cases, you metabolize more fat.
- fabatka 6y ago... in mice.
- valleyjo 6y ago>15 men participated in the study This is no where near the number of participants that would be needed to make such a broad claim
- waynecochran 6y agoAs soon as a saw N = 15 then I realized this is pathetic empirical evidence. How does this even get published?
- seaman1921 6y agowell as long as you have a heading.. Experiments have been conducted this way since forever - just 3 days ago I was reading richard feynman's book where he talks about this issue as well - basically the people who try to run experiment properly take longer and are pushed away and never get published or cited, whereas the poorly conducted experiments which show results aligned with what would make headlines get all the attention. This is why I take any studies, experiments, trials results with a big grain of salt.
- benmaraschino 6y agoCounterpoint: the investigators used a crossover design, where each participant acts as their own control. Since within-subject variation <<< between-subject variation, this makes the effective sample size much, much higher than it would seem at first. In terms of efficiency, their design’s potentially equivalent to a vanilla parallel-arm trial with close to 100 subjects (or more) in each arm. So, you definitely can obtain solid evidence from N=15 (or less), if your study is carefully designed. Sample size is only a very small part of the overall methodological picture—design matters too.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- SkyPuncher 6y agoFrom the study: > This began with the same warm-up protocol, followed by increments of 50 W every minute until self-reported exhaustion Am I wrong to think that this is simply "caffeine gives you energy to push yourself harder"? They controlled calorie intake, so simple CICO would suggest a longer exercise period needs to dig into fat reserves. Based on my personal anecdote, drinking caffeine before athletic activities gives me the energy to more consistently work at the edge of my physical limits. When I'm sleepy, I just don't care to push myself as hard.
- thinkingemote 6y agoI suppose you would need to ask, scientifically, what do you mean by "give you energy". Do you mean purely a kind of psychological energy, a will, motivation?
- dbsmith83 6y agoThere's many things at play with caffeine. You have increased heart rate and bp, increased concentration/focus, appetite suppression, etc.. I don't think you can point to one effect and say 'this is the one that makes the difference' in a cause and effect kind of way. They are all too related. I personally don't think it matters in this study. You would need another study to pinpoint factors down even more I suppose.
- pdimitar 6y agoIf I drink a full cup of good coffee before exercise I'll likely die of heart attack. My heart is starting to literally ache after I get 3 normal gulps of coffee and wait for 15 minutes. Other anti-oxidizing drinks like green tea do help a lot though. It really depends on the person. I was a former coffee addict and even though I mostly have quit coffee for full 10 years now I still can't get back to regularly consuming it. It's either half a cup once two weeks or a very shitty 2-3 days after.
- Felger 6y agoDid you have to stop coffee because of those heart like symptoms ?
- pdimitar 6y agoI have never seen a doctor about it. By the time I stopped coffee I already had some slight arrhythmia so I was quite scared and never pursued any more detailed info. But yes, I stopped and got better almost instantly.
- jmmcd 6y agoI think a doctor would recommend to see a doctor, here.
- pdimitar 6y agoWhat can I say? Life was hectic and hugely stressful. Stress and depression have the tendency to rob you of your self-preservation instincts. I finally started recouping, some 10-12 years after I started having health problems, but what can you do. Better late than never.
- bserge 6y agoInteresting. I had a similar experience, but recently I started taking levothyroxine and now coffee works exactly as it did 10-15 years ago. You should check your thyroid gland/thyroxine/TSH level sometime.
- pengaru 6y agoThis past year I've been doing a lot of heavy manual labor; excavating large areas using a pick axe and shovel, hauling it away in a wheel barrow. And moving large ~200lb granite boulders in a wheel barrow ~1/3rd a mile up a slight grade from a nearby mountain. At the same time I started drinking a strong pot of Earl Gray tea every morning to try get my butt in gear and outside in the dirt quicker. Normally I'm not a caffeine user. For the first week of this, my teeth would chatter and hands shake after finishing the pot of tea, it was very reminiscent of a cocaine bump. And it certainly worked well for motivating me to get busy. But something I learned was my endurance went to shit on the caffeine. I was super impatient and wanting to do everything as fast as possible, while doing fundamentally slow long-haul heavy-mode operations. It turned out I got less done with the caffeine than without. I'd quickly burn myself out inadvertently trying to move everything faster than they were ever going to move with just my manpower. It was like the stimulant tricked me into operating deep in the realm of diminishing returns where I'm putting in 200% effort for 10% faster movement, while making myself frustrated with how long it's taking. Now I don't think caffeine is particularly useful for anything physical that doesn't resemble a sprint, at least not for me. The psychological effects just increase the likelihood of burnout by mistreating an endurance task as a sprint.
- fc373745 6y agoAlright, caffiene = vasoconstriction and exercise means high bpm. Wouldn't this be a recipe for cardiac arrest?
- JeremyNT 6y agoRegardless of this study's merits this makes some intuitive sense, since caffeine is a stimulant and a moderately performance enhancing drug. In my marathon training I consume caffeinated food as a quick "pick me up" after the first 90 minutes or so of exertion. If you are able to run faster... well guess what... you'll also consume more calories!
- dhimes 6y agoI no longer give much attention to nutrition or sports performance studies that test a handful of people for a few weeks. It's simply not enough people, not a long enough study, and probably not controlled enough. My guess is that there are or will be (a) study(ies) with pretty much the opposite outcome. Years ago "studies showed" that caffeine had an anabolic effect that aided muscle growth. Now it seems that the opposite is "thought" to be true. [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28177708/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28177708/]
- goostavos 6y ago>probably not controlled enough This is the most frustrating part of any exercise science related literature. There are just so many studies that have absolutely preposterous designs. There is no shortage of papers drawing sweeping generalizations while using a sample size of 10 untrained individuals, over the course of 3 weeks, and with no regulation of diet. Then there's the general meaninglessness of "volitional failure" as a measurement -- Gah! It's maddening!
- airhead969 6y agoCaffeine is performance-enhancing, raises metabolism (temporarily), and suppresses hunger. Unfortunately, it's readily-apparent that you can never outrun your fork, so forget about "burning calories" through cardio. The goal of fitness to lose weight ought to be weightlifting to gain as much muscle mass as possible to raise one's BMR. Passive metabolism is about the only way to do it without enrolling in BUD/S. In general, gymrattery and endless treadmill running are wasted effort. https://youtu.be/mTABw0EyIWY https://youtu.be/mTABw0EyIWY
- qeternity 6y agoThe additional fat loss due to increased lean muscle mass is minimal, comparatively. All of these things like “afterburn” effect (EPOC), etc are all to give people the illusion that there are easier ways to lose weight than eating less. I’m not a keto maximalist, do whatever works for you. But most people looking to lose weight would do wonderfully on 1,250 calories per day of high protein, medium fat, with the odd day of fasting and plenty of water and coffee. Refeed every couple of weeks to keep leptin in check.
- dhimes 6y agoI agree. From what I understand, a pound of muscle burns 6 Cals/day (that’s kCals, but in the US we just use Cals capitalized). A pound of fats burns 2-3 Cals/day. A 25 year old amateur non- drug- enhanced male can put on maybe 10 lbs of muscle in a year with a oot of hard work. So the idea of putting on muscle to increase metabolism in order to get lean won’t pay off for most of us.
- qeternity 6y agoPrecisely. I'm a big lifter, who used to be pretty chunky. I did a full recomp years ago and it definitely wasn't the added muscle/increased BMR that let me cut. It was my diet. Muscle makes you look good with clothes on. Diet makes you look good with clothes off.
- airhead969 6y ago
- poundofshrimp 6y ago> A total of 15 men (mean age, 32) participated in the research A sample size of 15. Seriously?
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoit is of course good to get confirmation that taking a stimulant that is also a diuretic increases fat-burning - as I believe most people would suspect - but I don't think that confirmation is headline level good.
- poundofshrimp 6y agoIf they approached me, I would have been a happy 16th participant.
- raarts 6y agoIf my calculations are correct taking a strong cup of coffee (very strong actually), will burn 6 grams more fat per sustained hour of training. And still we don't know if total energy output was the same, because coffee can be a stimulant so may drive you to work harder.
- whereis 6y agocaffeine, aspirin, and ephedra - while ephedra is banned, this combo has been long known for fat burning properties. it is unsuprising that strong coffee also works.
- gumby 6y agoThere was not a caffeine without exercise arm. Clearly sponsored by Big Exercise.
- thesz 6y ago[1] https://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/25/2/364 https://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/25/2/364 In [1], it is shown that caffeine decreases insulin sensitivity in cells. E.g., muscle cells use less insulin. [2] https://academic.oup.com/endo/article/142/6/2702/2989741 https://academic.oup.com/endo/article/142/6/2702/2989741 In [2], it is shown that insulin inhibits mitochondrial oxidation of fatty acids. These two findings support the finding in OP - if muscle cells use less insulin due to higher caffeine levels, they use more fatty acids oxidation.
- desktopninja 6y agoPrisoners have known this for decades!
- giardini 6y agoThis has been known for years, if not decades. I fail to see it as "news".
- mastrsushi 6y agoIf you are old and/or have a heart condition, you probably don't want to consume a lot of caffeine before working out. Not having a heart attack is a lot healthier than fat loss, just saying.