How to lose belly fat naturally? Natural ways to lose belly fat beyond exercise and diet could be of great help. This post will go through scientific studies looking at 3 supplements that could help you lose fat! Instead of  taking more food away from yourself or increasing your exercise, you could try these!

What’s up by beautiful ladoo lovers (if you don’t know what a ladoo is, it’s South Asian dessert, it’s pretty good!).

I’ve been eating pretty good actually, so I don’t have any crazy eating adventures to report. Though, I just did order a pizza, I do that every other week. It worked out my legs today, so I was like, why not?!

Anywho, last week, I talked about natural ways to reduce belly fat by going over some habits; this week, we will talk about some supplements. These are great to add to your diet and exercise. You can only add so much cardiovascular activity (cardio) or decrease your calories so much.

A lot of people ask or look up things such as “how to lose belly fat over night easy trick”, “how to lose belly fat naturally in 1 week”, “how to get rid of belly fat quickly” or “how to lose belly fat in 4 days”. People need to stop being ridiculous. Losing fat takes time and patience if you want to be as less miserable as possible while losing the fat and keep it off for good.

That being said, this post will be all about how to lose belly fat naturally with 3 amazing supplements reviewed by a licensed and practicing pharmacist (that’s me!)!

3 Game Changing Supplements – How to Lose Belly Fat Naturally

Before jumping into the supplements, remember, they are called SUPPLEMENTS. They are not called REQUIREMENTS. If you are using these and eating above your maintenance calories, you will still gain weight. You NEED to be in a caloric deficit as well to lose weight.

You still need to exercise and be mindful of your diet. This doesn’t mean exercise all the time or be overly restrictive with your diet either.

My article Calculating Calories will tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about how many calories you need to maintain your weight and how to figure how many calories you need in order to lose weight.

Then, my article 4 Must Have Fitness Equipment/Tools That Will Make it Much Easier To Lose Stubborn Fat, goes through the tools I use to measure and record the food I am eating.

One other thing, YOU CANNOT TARGET BODY FAT. Your body will lose fat from where it wants, that is dependent on genetics. Doing abdominal exercises WILL NOT GIVE YOU A FLAT STOMACH. Yes, when you lose fat over your stomach, you’ll be able to see your abdominal muscles more easily.

1. Caffeine3,7,8,13

First up caffeine. I’m not talking about cappwhateveracchiatos full of sugar or cream or whatever stuff they put in those fancy drinks. This is going to be black coffee; of course you can use creamer and artificial sugar to sweeten your coffee. The creamer, as your calorie intake allows. You can actually have your fancy drinks too if you fit them into your calories, so calm down.

One very important thing to note before diving into this study is that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends not going over 400 mg of caffeine a day. They also pointed out, you can see toxic effects around 1,200 mg of caffeine a day.

I. Mechanism of Caffeine

I’ll keep it simple and short.

The body uses Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) for energy by breaking it down. One of it’s byproducts is adenosine. As you go throughout the day, you get more adenosine molecules as you are using ATP. Adenosine molecules binds to adenosine receptors which will make you tired.

What caffeine does is, it competes with adenosine to bind to those adenosine receptors, before adenosine can bind to them. So you don’t feel the fatigue.

That’s simply put. If you want more detail check out this great video below.

II. About the Study

A meta analysis was conducted by Hursel et-al. on the effects of caffeine and catechin rich teas had on energy expenditure and fat oxidation.

Energy expenditure is essentially how much energy the participant is putting forth, or how much more activity they are doing.

Fat oxidation is a process in which fats are broken down into smaller molecules such as free fatty acids or glycerol that can be used as energy.

The meta-analysis looked 6 different randomized controlled trials that had a total of 98 patients. All of the studies lasted between 23 to 24 hours.

The doses of caffeine ranged an anywhere from 150 mg to 1604 mg. The average dose of caffeine was less than 500 mg/day per study, according to the the meta-analysis.

How much energy expenditure and fat oxidation increased was measured using respiration chambers.

III. Study Results

I just ate an entire Little Caesers pizza, 8 Oreos and 5 pieces of crazy bread prior to writing this section. What is wrong with me. Also, I don’t think Little Caesers taste like cardboard .

One thing before getting into the results, for those who don’t know what a placebo group is, they are considered a control group. They are getting no caffeine in this instance.

Lets get into the results.

• Energy expenditure
  • The caffeine group burned 429.1 kilojoules (kJ)/day (~102 calories/day) . This was 4.8 % more of energy expenditure as opposed to the placebo group.
  • For each 1 mg increase in the caffeine dosage, energy expenditure was reported to increase by 0.44 kJ (0.10 calories)
  • For each 1 point increase in BMI, there is an estimated increase in energy expenditure by 344.1 kJ (82 calories)
• Fat oxidation
  • The caffeine group had a fat oxidation of 9.5 milligrams(mg). This was 12.4% more than the placebo group. Though, they study didn’t consider this significant.
  • For each 1 mg increase in the caffeine dosage, fat oxidation was reported to increase by 0.01 g
  • BMI had no influence on fat oxidation

IV. Discussion

As you can see, it’s pretty clear that caffeine help increase calories you may be burning. Even if it’s only a 100 calories, believe me, it can make a difference.

You’ll have more energy, so you’ll be more fidgety and likely to move around more; this will burn more calories. It means, you can workout harder as well as you will have more energy.

Caffeine also helps with appetite suppression, so you might not eat as much!

It would be nice if these studies were performed over a few months or years, to see what long terms results would be.

2. Catechin and Caffeine Combination (Green Tea)2,3,11,12,13

This was the same study as the one about caffeine, a meta analysis was conducted by Hursel et-al. on the effects of caffeine and catechin rich teas had on energy expenditure and fat oxidation.

However, lets look at catechin-caffeine this time around. The catechin-caffeine doses ranged from 135 to 600 mg. Most studies used 600 mg.

A study called, The safety of green tea and green tea extract consumption in adults – Results of a systematic review, concluded that safe doses of catechin are around 704 mg in beverage from and 338 mg in solid forms (tablets).

I. Mechanism of Catechin

Firstly, it inhibits an enzyme catechol-o-methyl transferase enzyme (COMT) which stops the degradation of the enzyme, norepinephrine (NE).

NE, along with adrenaline, raises your heart rate and blood pressure and stimulates your liver to produce more glucose for energy.

So, when you have more NE, you’ll have more energy expenditure and fat oxidation.

Catechins also increases thermogenesis, this when your body burns calories to produce heat.

II. Study Results

• Energy expenditure
  • The caffeine group had 428 kJ/day (~102 calories/day) . This was 4.7 % more of energy expenditure as opposed to the placebo group.
  • For each 1 mg increase in the caffeine dosage, energy expenditure was reported to increase by 0.53 kJ (0.12 calories)
  • For each 1 point increase in BMI, there is an estimated increase in energy expenditure by 344.1 kJ (82 calories) – they reported the same results for caffeine and catechin-caffeine groups
• Fat oxidation
  • The catechin-caffeine group had a fat oxidation of 12.2 mg. This was 16 % more than the placebo group. Unlike for the pure caffeine group, this was considered significant for the catechin-caffeine group
  • For each 1 mg increase in the caffeine dosage, fat oxidation was reported to increase by 0.02 g
  • BMI had no influence on fat oxidation just as with purely caffeine

III. Discussion

Just as with caffeine, the combination of catechin-caffeine if effective in increasing energy expenditure. Not only that, it increases fat oxidation as well!

This is a valuable if you are attempting to lose fat!

Many people search “how to lose fat without exercise” this could be for them along with a caloric deficit. Though, I would always personally include exercise. Being physically active has a TREMENDOUS amount of benefits.

One again though, it would be nice if this study was done over a few months or years to see long term results.

3. L-Carnitine1,4,5,6,9,10

I. What is L-carnitine?

Man, I’m so hungry. After I’m done writing this, I’m going to eat the one slice of pizza I have left over from yesterday. I’m so excited!

Anyways, l-carnitine is a naturally occurring amino acid and is made from the amino acids methionine and lysine. It can also be produced from the help of vitamin c and iron.

About 25% of it is synthesized by your body in the liver, kidneys and brain. The rest of the 75% is derived from your diet through meats and dairy

So, if it’s naturally occurring and you can get it through diet, what’s the point of using it as a supplement? Well, you can be deficient in it. If your diet doesn’t include enough meat or dairy, you can be deficient it. Also if you have low iron (anemia) or vitamin c deficiency, you can once again, be deficient in carnitine.

A great Youtuber that I follow, Thomas DeLauer, also cited that if you exercise vigorously, you can deplete up to 80% of the carnitine working out at 75% of your vo2 max. So that’s another thing to keep in mind if you are an individual that works out hard.

II. Mechanism of L-carnitine

If you don’t care about the mechanism, you can skip to the next section.

This is all simply put as well.

To start off, fatty acids (fats) are transported inside a cell and then need to get into the mitochondria (powerhouse of the cell) to be utilized as energy.

When inside the cell, the fatty acid combines with an enzyme, acetyl-coenzyme a (acetyl-coa) to from acyl-coa.

Then an enzyme called carnitine acyl transferase 1 (CAT1) attaches carnitine to the acyl-coa molecule to form acyl carnitine and allows it to be transported into the first layer of the mitochondria.

Afterwards, an enzyme called acyl carnitine transferase, transfer the acyl carnitine further into the mitochondria.

When there, the enzyme carnitine acyl transferase 2 (CAT) detaches the carnitine molecule from the acyl carnitine which turns the molecule back into acyl-coa. This is where it can be utilized for energy.

So as you can see, if you are deficient in carnitine, you might not be able to utilize fat for energy.

In the next section, we’ll get into a study.

II. About the Study

Talenzahand et.al conducted systematic review and meta-analysis, Effects of l-carnitine supplementation on weight loss and body composition: A systematic review and meta-analysis of 37 randomized controlled clinical trials with dose-response analysis.

The study included 37 randomized controlled trials which overall contained 2292 patients. The studies aim was to see how l-carnitine would effect body weight and composition.

Studies were anywhere from 3 to 48 weeks in length.

II. Study Results

Here are the results of the study. l-carnitine can decrease:

• Bodyweight by 1.21 kg (2.66 pounds)
• Body mass index (BMI) by 0.24 kg/m2
• Fat mass by 2.08 kg (4.58 pounds)

The reason why there is a fat mass and bodyweight category, different studies reported weight loss using different terminology.

They also reported that ingestion of 2000 mg/day of l-carnitine was the dose that provided the maximal weight loss.

It was reported that participants of more regular weight didn’t lose as much weight as overweight and obese patients.

III. Discussion

Not much to say here, it’s pretty straight forward. L-carnitine can definitely help you lose weight if you are deficient in it.

One thing could be done is, a study that sets a criteria for a strict diet and exercise along with taking l-carnitine can be conducted. It’s interesting that people with more average weights were not able to lose as much weight as overweight and obese patients.

Well, that a wrap! Next week, we’ll discuss a few more supplements to blast belly fat as this article is getting a bit long, so stay tuned! This article was all about how to lose belly fat naturally with supplements!

Disclaimer: I’m not your doctor. Please consult your doctor, nutritionist or any health care professional before making any changes in your own lifestyle. These blogs are just me sharing my knowledge for you reading entertainment purpose only. None of this is medical advice.

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