How calcium massacres fat (and how to get it).
March 24, 2016 Ashley 0 Comments
Sure, it fortifies your framework.
And sure, it strengthens your smile.
But did you know calcium’s also a ninja level fat blaster? Hiding out in your cells, encouraging the burn of fat? This is actually something I didn’t learn until more recently. (I have the “where do you get your…” anti-vegan folk to thank for that, actually.) When people who definitely don’t take care of themselves started wondering where the eff vegan me gets my calcium, I kinda did too. Not cuzza the quality of my hair or nails or teeth, mind you. The latter two are awesome and the former only sucks cuz I bleach my mop like it’s a murder scene (which it is, technically, because of all the bleaching.). I’m basically a blonde Beowulf. Wolverine nails, teeth like a Rottweiler, and scarecrow mop that’d be awesome if I stopped molesting it with chemicals. Thus, my question wasn’t “where should I go for protein because my claws, chompers, and ossein are suffering?” It was more like, “How am I still rocking acromegalic talons, Chuck Norris level teeth, and keeping my weight down if everyone says I’ve gotta get my calcium from dairy? Especially when the dairy drinkers are plumper than I am?”
(“Maybe we can butter his sides up?”
“Thanks, but I’m trying to quit dairy. That’s what got me into this mess in the first place.”)
Well, that may be because calcium does make you lose weight.
Often if you don’t get it from dairy.
See, a study was done on calcium and weight loss recently. Michael Zemel (who’s got a PhD and is the director of The Nutrition Institute at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville) tested it out on both dudes and lab rodents. And, in both the studies, Zemel and homies showed that, indeed, calcium’s crucial to fat eradicating. That is, calcium stored in fat cells. How? It regulates the way fat gets processed and packed away by your body. In short, the more calcium you’ve got in your fat cells, the more fat that cell will torch. Boom. Fat blastery. Boom weight loss.
Per WebMD:
The mouse evidence: In one study, Zemel used mice that were specially bred to be obese. He fed the mice a high-fat, high-sugar diet for six weeks. All had a 27% increase in body fat. He then put the mice on a restricted-calorie diet, and gave calcium to two groups of them. The calcium made a big difference. Mice that didn’t get any calcium had an 8% loss of body fat. Mice getting calcium supplements had a 42% decrease in body fat.
How? ’cause calcium gives you this boost in thermogenesis (that just means your body’s core temp).
By doing that, the idea’s that your whole metabolism revs up, prompting your bod to burn fat off.
Awesome. So where can we get calcium?
Well, while the dairy industry will try to sway the results of studies to make it seem like their calcium has some sorcery over other sources, you don’t need to buy into that mess. When I was at my leanest with the meanest, Elvira level nails and a grill that could chew through prison bars – I wasn’t drinking milk products. It was all about a broccoli and kale heavy diet, peppered with tastily souffled tofu. When that got boring, I’d mix it up. Soy beans. Collard greens. Pumpkin seeds. Avocado. Then, sometimes, for a fun snack – a stack of okra’d slowly make it’s way into my belly throughout the day if I was on the run.
But for fun, here’s a plethora’ve yes-ands:
And for a boost of that vitamin D they claim you’ve gotta prize from bovines?
Here are some other au natch noms, high in D:
That might seem slightly off topic, but it’s not really when you hafta put up with follow up question’s like, “Where do you get the D if you’re not drinking miiiilk?”. Plus, I’d be doing you a disservice if I neglected it. Point is: there are plenty’ve options. And you don’t need to buy into the funded-by dairy messages desperate to convince your wallet otherwise. The same studies that tell you subjects lost more weight with dairy calcium and to get it from whole fat milk, are saying you only lose said weight if you calorie restrict otherwise. Also, they aren’t comparing dairy eaters to non dairy eaters (just those who have less of the dairy.) The thing is this: if you’re having whole fat milk, sure, you might lose more weight than those having a lower dairy content. But it’s only because whole fat is filling. Thus, the low dairy drinkers are drinking more of the stuff to fill up, duh. You get fatter ’cause you’re packing in more fat calories while tryn’a feel full.
You don’t hafta do that on a juicy diet of high-water-content veg and greens and fiber. You feel full far sooner. Also, they also don’t tell you the weight of everyone in the study. (Probably ’cause they’re all tubby – just some less than others.) What I’d like to see (which they’ll never do), is a research effort comparing all’a these guys with peeps who defer udder juice entirely in favor of leafy greens and cruciferous bite sized trees.
So, my loves, if you’re sitting here as dumbfounded as anyone else, saying, “Um… I do drink milk. Plenty. And my azz still fat”, then it may be time to look at new options. Because we’ve milked that Krafty cow as much as we can. And it’s come up with naught but numbers rising on the bathroom scale. That’s why it’s time to get your sexy back by cutting the crap (AKA dairy) when it comes to calcium.
’cause all they want’s your moo-la.