The Role of Cinnamon in Fat Loss

Since I last wrote I have been researching the amazing properties of a spice that we probably all have on our pantry shelves – cinnamon! Who knew it could help us manage our weight and even be more healthy?

If you are a reader of Lifetime Fat Loss and/or you’ve been struggling with your weight a long time you are probably quite familiar with the need to control your blood sugar to have true, sustained fat loss. You can lose weight quickly on lots of different diets by greatly reducing calories, but unless you are eating a healthy diet primarily made up of low glycemic foods you will experience weight gain “rebound.”

What I have learned about cinnamon is that it is a natural and safe way to control your blood sugar and help your body metabolize fat efficiently!

While fat storage is a complex process of hormones and enzyme mechanisms a simple strategy to follow is to eat foods that do not cause your blood sugar to spike quickly, the low glycemic foods that metabolize slowly.

You want your cells to be sensitive to the hormone insulin that regulates your blood sugar and is part of the fat storage process. Cinnamon makes fat cells more responsive to insulin!

What can go wrong when you are fat?

When you get too heavy and you have chronically high blood sugar, the insulin will be telling your body to store it as fat. Eventually your blood sugar and insulin will be too high all of the time and then you have what is called an insulin resistance problem and type 2 diabetes. All sorts of complicated health problems can occur. Cinnamon can help you to prevent this condition or reverse it!

Scientists searching for a natural, safe way to keep blood sugar levels normal discovered that cinnamon made fat cells much more responsive to insulin which controls the levels of glucose in the blood. They have concluded that cinnamon may be important in the prevention of metabolic syndrome, type diabetes and cardiovascular and related diseases. They say "may be" because you need to step up your game as well!

In addition to it’s many health benefits including inhibiting bacteria, viruses, relieving diarrhea and nausea; it enhances digestion and fat metabolism and lowers blood sugar. It even lowers cholesterol and triglycerides. I am always amazed at the many health benefits of natural herbs and foods. Scientists agree that cinnamon could be extremely useful for weight loss and diabetes along with a healthy lifestyle.

After reading a study on cinnamon published in 2004 and conducted by researcher Richard Anderson, PhD with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, I telephoned him to ask him him about a term I had come across called phosphorylation.

Richard has studied the antidiabetic effects of cinnamon for 20 years, along with more than 50 other products. Because I had read that supposedly phosphorylation could make you healthier and thinner, that really got my attention!

Richard explained that phosphorylation is the chemical process that makes insulin work inside a cell, in other words what creates insulin sensitivity. The better your phosphorylation, the more sensitive you are to insulin and thus the healthier and more slender you can be.

It allows for cells to be nourished by all nutrients in the blood by allowing the insulin to bind to the cell’s insulin receptor. Richard described the process by saying that it activates the cell, brings it to life and makes it more efficient.

Cinnamon makes fat cells more sensitive to insulin by enabling the phosphorylation process. More insulin sensitivity is the key to fat loss! And I might add the key to balanced hormone activity and greatly improved health.

So how to use it?

Scientists recommend using water extracted cinnamon. What this means is you can take as little as 1/2 teaspoon and put it in your tea or a half glass of water and drink it before 2 different meals a day. Stir it up and you will see the cinnamon sediment at the body of your glass. You just need to drink the water.

Richard Anderson told me that to be effective it needs to be taken at least twice a day. He actually did a study that significantly, demonstrated that cinnamon did increase lean body mass over a 3 month period. When you are controlling blood sugar you can release body fat.

Is this the whole answer? No, of course not. But if you are also exercising regularly and eating mostly a low glycemic diet you could have spectacular results eating cinnamon on a regular basis! The approach to take to your fat loss is improving your health by increasing your insulin sensitivity.

Researchers recommend eating a traditional Mediterranean diet of foods that don’t raise your blood sugar. Stay away from WHITE foods (that includes sugar) as much as possible!

You need to eat your biggest meals at breakfast and lunch and your lightest meal at night. Add 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon to your tea or water twice a day with your meals. And get out and do some type of regular exercise every day! You will be reversing type 2 diabetes symptoms and you will also be on your way to being a much healthier you.

You DO want to be healthier and thinner, right?

* I have heard from readers who check their blood sugar levels who say they have brought them down further just adding cinnamon to their diets.

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