How to lose belly fat naturally, the third and final…for now! This is the second article on supplements though, so if you haven’t checked out the one from last week, give it a read!

As previously stated, losing fat can be hard enough with just diet and exercise. These supplements can potentially help make the process easier. 

So many people are off for the rest of the year for the holidays, not me though! That’s what happens when you work in healthcare! Weekends, holidays or whenever, patient’s need care. It’s an honor and privilege to be able to care for others.

Anyways, I love food so much. I want to just eat pizza, cake and…oh wait, sorry, wrong post haha. I don’t have an unhealthy relationship with food, I promise.

We’ll start off by stating a lot of the none sense terms people search for, “how to lose belly fat in a week”, “how to reduce belly fat in 7 days”, “how to lose belly fat in 4 days” or the best one, “how to lose belly fat overnight”. Nothing natural can help you with these.

These supplements will help you lose weight along with diet and exercise!

Let’s take about some natural ways to burn belly fat!

3 Supplements – How To Lose Belly Fat Naturally

Let’s start of with the exact some set of point as the previous article. They need to be said because people don’t seem to understand them

Before jumping into how to lose belly fat naturally with 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. Just keep losing weight overall and you’ll lose belly fat too.

1. Apple Cider Vinegar2

Apple cider vinegar, I used to take shot of this in the morning, let me tell you, it burns. I’ve never drank any sort of alcohol, but maybe that’s how it feels?

II. About the Study

Vinegar has acetic acid in it, which is thought to suppress body fat accumulation. Kondo et al., did a study in 2009 to put vinegar to the test.

Their aim was to assess how vinegar would affect body weight, body fat mass and serum triglycerides.

It was double blind placebo-controlled trial that contained 3 groups and was conducted over a period of 3 weeks. Each group received a 500 ml drink which they drank half after breakfast and half after dinner daily over 12 weeks. Each group’s drink had a different amount of vinegar in it as follows

• Group 1 (low dose group): 15 ml of vinegar (750 mg of acetic acid)
• Group 2 (high dose group): 30 ml of vinegar (1500 mg of acetic acid)
• Group 3 (control group): 0 ml of vinegar

III. Study Results

I put the results of this study in a table to make them easier to read. The results are 12 weeks into when the study was conducted and 4 weeks post-study follow-up.

	12 Weeks		4 Weeks Post-Study Follow
	Low Dose Group	High Dose Group	Low Dose Group	High Dose Group
Body Weight Loss (kg)	1.2	1.9	0	0.4
BMI Decrease (points)	0.5	0.7	0	0.2
Waist Circumference Decrease (cm)	1.4	1.9	0.7	0.7
Hip (cm)	0.9	1.4	0.5	0.7
Body fat ratio Decrease (%)	0.7	0.9	0.1	0.4
Triglycerides Decrease (mmol/l)	0.31	0.47	0.24	0
Total Cholesterol Decrease (mmol/l)	0.32	0.33	0.2	0.05

So as you can see there definitely was a difference. There were no significant changes reported for the placebo (control) group so I didn’t even report them.

The one factor that only changed for the high dose group was hip to waist ratio, it decreased by around 0.006.

IV. Discussion

So, as we can see, apple cider vinegar can definitely help shed fat. Especially the higher dose of it. Now, it must be noted you have to continue taking it. It seems at the 4 week post-study period, a lot of patients had gained weight back.

What’s interesting though is, the triglycerides and total cholesterol remained lower in the low-dose group. That should definitely have follow-up studies that are done over a few year.

Apple cider vinegar is definitely worth trying as we can see from the study!

I’ve used apple cider vinegar in the past along with diet and exercise; definitely lost weight. Never measured how much I was using though.

2. Protein1,3,6,7,9

Protein is one of the main macronutrients along with carbohydrates and fats. You don’t necessarily have to take it in the form of a supplement, but can get it through your diet as well.

Some people have trouble getting in their daily intake of protein, in that case, protein powder can definitely help!

Mayo Clinic recommends 10 to 35% of your daily calories be from protein. Harvard University recommended 0.36 per pound(lb) [0.16 per kg] of bodyweight. So, there is some differentiation.

In the fitness community, you should be getting at least 1 g/lb (2.2 g/kg) of bodyweight to build muscle.

Now, the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn by just existing, so that’s one way protein can help you lose fat overtime.

Secondly, it takes protein 20-30% of it’s own calories to be digested. That’s taking a lot of energy to just digest the protein you are eating. For comparison, it only takes 5-10% of carbohydrate calories to be digested 0-3% for fats.

Your body just works harder to burn protein!

Protein also increases satiety, so you’ll be less likely to feel hungry

I won’t dive into any literature on this as this is pretty well known fact.

From my own experience, I can also tell you this is absolutely true. On days I don’t eat enough protein, I’m constantly feeling hungry. Protein will really help you feel more full and potentially eat less calories.

3. Medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) Oil4,5,8,10

I’m a little skeptical about this one, if you go out and buy 100% MCT oil, these contain calories themselves. One serving has about 130 calories. So, if you’re taking a few servings a day, the calories could add up.

Also, both studies that I looked at for MCT, weren’t the best. They were the more recently conducted ones that I saw though. Ok, lets get into it.

MCTs could counteract fat deposition in adipocytes by increasing satiety and thermogenesis (heat production that burns calories).

MCTs are more easily absorbed as compared to long-chain triglycerides. This allows them to be more rapidly metabolized.

The fast metabolism of MCTs produces ketones. Ketones can suppress ghrelin, a hunger hormone; they act on Cholecystokinin (CCK) as well, a hormone that suppresses your appetite while food is digesting.

Ketones also act on the hormone leptin, a hormone that lets your brain know you’re full.

So, MCTs may induce satiety.

Study 1

I. About the Study

A study by Mumme et al from 2015, Effects of medium-chain triglycerides on weight loss and body composition: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials, conduced a meta-analysis. They attempted to investigate the effects of MCTs against LCTs.

The study included 13 different randomized controlled trials which totaled 589 (239 in the MCT group and 250 in the LCT group) participants for the final analysis.

Length of the studies ranged from 27 days to 16 weeks.

Total calories ingested of MCT ranged anywhere from <1% to 24% of their total caloric intake.

II. Results

It was reported that the MCT group lost 0.51 kilograms (kg) (1.12 pounds) more than the LCT group. This was not considered significant. They however did report that comparing studies that were run over more than 12 weeks compared to less than 12 week, the groups that took MCTs lost significantly more weight. How much more weight you may be asking? It was not reported. A bit shady.

The study also reported more weight loss with studies in which MCTs comprised of more than 16% of the participants calories as opposes to < 8%. Once again, no numbers were reported of how much the weight loss was.

They reported waist circumference decreased by 1.46 cm (0.57 inches) and hip circumference by 0.46 cm (0.18 inches) in the MCT overall for the MCT groups

Total body fat, total subcutaneous fat and visceral fat were all reported to decrease, but it wasn’t reported by how much.

III. Discussion

There was way too much variability between the studies. Doses of MCT were all over the place and results were not appropriately reported. I included this study as it was one of the most recent meta-analysis on MCT. I’m not saying they don’t work, but this study isn’t very reassuring.

Larger studies need to be done over a longer period of time. Participants should also adhere to diet and exercise regimen for us to get good results.

Study 2

I. About the Study

This study by St-Onge et.al from 2014, Impact of medium and long chain triglycerides consumption on appetite and food intake in overweight men, contained two randomized controlled trials

The first study contained 10 overweight men (BMI of anywhere from 25 to 29.9) who consumed either 20 mg of MCT or corn oil (LCT) along with breakfast. Labs were drawn prior to breakfast and at certain times up to 3 hours after for hormone and metabolite measurements. They were also served lunch after the 3 hours.

The second study contained 7 patients. The were given 10 g of either MCT or LCT 3 hours after breakfast. Then, one hour after taking their oil, they were served lunch.

These were the hormones measured in the studies

• Insulin – transports glucose from blood to the liver, fat and skeletal muscles. The glucose is then turned into either triglycerides or glucagon
• Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) – cause insulin secretion. Also decreases gastric emptying, so you don’t get hungry as fast
• Ghrelin – hunger hormone. Tells your brain that you are hungry
• Leptin – the hormone that tell your brain that you are full (opposite of ghrelin)
• Peptide YY (PYY) – reduces appetite
• Triglycerides

II. Results

In study one (I’m not talking about the study one earlier in my post, but study one in this study lol, want to keep things straight), there was no significant difference reported in the amount of calories ate at lunch between the MCT and LCT groups after consuming their respective oil with breakfast.

For study two, the mean calories consumed at lunch for the MCT group was 532 calories +/- 389 calories. It was 804 calories +/- 486 calories for the LCT group. So, lower for the MCT group

For combined analysis of both studies, there was significant time change in glucose between the MCT and LCT groups; this was in favor of the MCT groups. In other words, it took longer to see an glucose spike for the MCT group. No graph was provided for this in the study.

The amount that glucose (graph 1), insulin (graph 2) and triglycerides (graph 3)  rose was less only in study when comparing the MCT and LCT groups for study 2.

A combined analysis of both studies showed MCT oil resulted in a greater increase in leptin (the hormone that signals to your brain that you are full) as opposed to the LCT group. No graph provided for this data.

The combined analysis also reported, ghrelin (the hunger hormone) was decreased “to a lesser extent” in the MCT group compared to the LCT group. No graph provided for this data.

When looking at study 2 alone,  leptin remained higher (graph 4) and PYY rose more post-meal (graph 5) after the consumption of MCT compared to LCT.

III. Discussion

As you can see from the results, more benefits were derived from the second randomized controlled trial, the one in which they took MCT one hour before lunch.

That goes to show that MCT acts very fast, so taking it about an hour before your meal, can decrease your appetite.

The study could not conclude the decrease in appetite being from hormones because GLP-1 did not increase and ghrelin did not decrease as much in the MCT group as the LCT group. Though leptin and PYY did increase, so maybe those could have caused the decrease in appetite by themselves.

MCT also caused decreased glucose to be released, that in turn, caused less insulin to be released. The insulin would take the glucose and potentially store it in the fat, which we don’t want.

Triglycerides also decreased the MCT group.

This study needs to be redone with much more participants. It should also be conducted for more than a day.

So, there is potential for MCTs to be useful in helping you lose weight. You can try them out. I personally, would rather not taken in the extra calories from MCT and just eat food instead.

Remember it’s all about being in a caloric deficit.

Let me know your thoughts on these supplements and which other ones you would like me to talk about

This post 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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