Starting the morning off with a fresh cup of coffee is undeniably one of the simple pleasures of life. Not only can caffeine help to kickstart your day with a boost of much needed energy, but drinking your cup of coffee black can also provide a host of weight loss benefits, enhancing your metabolism and making it easier to burn through fat at rest. However, while it has been highly debated the best way to prepare your coffee for weight loss (the answer: as little sugar as possible), it’s not as often discussed what time you should be drinking your coffee to optimize your health.
Believe it or not there is one particular time you should be drinking your coffee each morning that will be most effective at improving your metabolism and providing an increase in your energy and mood which will set you on the right track for the rest of the day. While a balanced diet and exercise routine is still the primary factor in allowing you to achieve healthy weight loss, your morning cup of coffee is a great next step.
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There are a number of healthy habits you can include in your morning routine, but drinking coffee within 30 minutes of waking up may be one of the best for your metabolism and body as a whole. Although hydration is essential for kickstarting digestion and you should be leading your morning with a glass of water, moving to coffee in under an hour after waking can have some substantial benefits over time.
“I recommend coffee on an empty stomach 30 mins after a glass of lemon water for weight loss,” says Certified Clinical Nutritionist and Founder of Hudson Valley Nutrition, Christina Towle. “The lemon water hydrates and provides an alkaline environment for future consumption.” Black coffee is still the way to go if you’re hoping to get the most out of your morning coffee, but starting your day off with coffee before food can help to naturally limit overeating while kicking fat burn into overdrive.
Drinking coffee within 30 minutes of waking will act as a natural appetite suppressant that will allow you to eat your first meal without the ravenous hunger that sometimes overtakes us in the morning. Not to be used as a tool to support undereating, instead, coffee to kickstart your day can merely accompany your meal and temper any gorging that you may be tempted to engage in first thing in the morning.
“Drinking your coffee on an empty stomach or along with the first meal of the day can prevent overeating and ultimately weight loss,” says nutritionist Lisa Richards. However, once again a black coffee or low-sugar option will be best to temper unhealthy cravings as well as avoid contributing to the calorie count of your day. Ultimately you want to eat your calories through solid food to provide your body with the most nutrients, and highly sweetened coffee will instead only offer empty calories.
The metabolism boost that you will glean from your morning coffee will not have long-lasting effects, so it’s important to ensure that you’re still consuming a nutrient dense breakfast complete with healthy carbs, protein, and fat to fuel your body with energy as well. That being said, coffee can temporarily turn your body into a fat burning machine ideal for weight loss.
“Morning coffee can also help to burn more calories from your breakfast by increasing the thermogenic effect of food (TEF), which is the amount of calories the body burns after eating or drinking,” says registered dietitian Trista Best. That is not an excuse to eat a calorie dense breakfast with little nutritional value, but drinking coffee 30 minutes after waking up can certainly help to kick your body into overdrive by burning through your breakfast effectively, particularly if your breakfast also gives you energy.
At the end of the day, so long as the preparation is health conscious there truly is no bad time to have your coffee in the morning for some added energy as you make it through the tasks of your day. However, if you’re looking for some extra assistance in improving your health and reaching your weight loss goals it can be useful to drink your coffee within a half hour of awakening in order to prime your metabolism to burn through your breakfast while ensuring your appetite doesn’t run rampant in the morning.
Black coffee is one of the best drinks to have each day to support your digestion, and drinking a mug within 30 minutes of waking is a great trick to help promote weight loss along with a balanced diet.
