Apologies if you’ve ended up here thinking vitamin C is the key to your weight loss goals! It’s not, the only way to lose weight is if your overall caloric intake is lower than the number of calories you burn throughout the day.
However, if you’ve started a new exercise regime to help you lose weight, vitamin C can be an ideal source of nutrition that doesn’t contain additional calories. Eating vitamin C-rich, high fibre fresh fruit and vegetables helps to fill you up without any extra calories and is a healthy way of increasing your intake.
Fruits and vegetables that are rich in vitamin C include oranges, broccoli, strawberries, peppers, spinach, blackcurrants and potatoes. The variety of foods containing vitamin C mean it should be fairly simple to add more into your daily diets, however, some people choose to take vitamin C as a supplement in order to ensure they are getting a sufficient amount per day.
How Vitamin C as a Supplement Can Help
Taking vitamin C as a supplement can make it easier for people to be sure they are getting the daily recommended amount. Vitamin C has a number of different properties that can make it a useful supplement to take while you are trying to lose weight through exercise and lower calorie consumption.
The faster your metabolism is, the quicker you will be able to burn calories.After you have worked out, vitamin C can help to replenish your body after exercise-induced oxidative stress due to its high level of antioxidant properties.
Vitamin C is water soluble, which means you’ll sweat it out whilst you’re exercising. Therefore, you’ll need to replenish what you lose. Because vitamin C can’t be stored in the body, you need to ensure you are replenishing your levels regularly. Supplements such as One Nutrition Revive & Go Immunity can help keep your vitamin C levels topped up.
Another factor that can help is that vitamin C supports iron in the body. Iron is needed to carry oxygen in the blood to muscles, and vitamin C helps our body absorb more iron. This is significant, as iron helps your body create energy from nutrients, which allows your muscles to work more efficiently and burn more fat.
It’s also been found that individuals with depleted vitamin C levels may be more resistant to fat mass loss. This is because vitamin C acts as a catalyst for fat molecules to generate energy, so not getting enough can increase fat reserves. More specifically, vitamin C helps to synthesise carnitine, a molecule which is required for fat oxidation. It can be useful for people who have a vitamin C deficiency to use a supplement, as this will help to ensure they are obtaining the necessary amount of vitamin C in their daily lives and will help to combat the fat loss resistance brought on by a lack of ascorbic acid.
It’s important to remember that vitamin C won’t work as a magic cure for weight loss, however, using it as a supplement may help you to achieve your weight loss goals alongside regular exercise and a healthy diet. If you are aiming to lose weight, you need to be burning more calories than you are taking in per day. Vitamin C can help you obtain nutrients without consuming extra calories, but you need to actively exercise and follow an appropriate diet.