Turmeric has been part of the Ayurveda Indian healing culture for thousands of years. Just recently, however, experiments have begun to discover what people in the East have known all along - that turmeric will support your health in a number of ways.
The best-known benefit of turmeric is its potential to improve digestive and liver health. It also helps with inflammation and can help with certain diseases of the skin.
But what about turmeric for weight loss? Will this ancient Indian spice help you shed your extra pounds?
Here's the thing about turmeric - it doesn't directly boost your metabolism. Instead, it encourages weight loss by reducing the level of inflammation within your body.
Less inflammation = quicker fat loss, healthy joints, and better lean body composition.
Sounds too good to be real, huh?
Well, it's not! Not in this scenario, at least. The idea that inflammation can induce a wide variety of health problems - including unwanted weight gain - has been well studied for some time now.
Essentially, the cells don't act properly when your body is inflamed. Inflammation is related to fat gain, and when the body's (unhealthy) mass grows, so does inflammation.
This is causing a vicious circle. Your inflammation is growing, and you're getting more fat, and it's almost hard to burn your current body fat. This inflammatory reaction by the body does not only affect your fat cells, muscles, joints but can also impair your immune system.
Turmeric makes you feel more energized, and it also helps your fat-burning ability due to many components in turmeric that suppress inflammatory pathways.
Although it's stupid to expect turmeric's potent compounds to do all the heavy lifting on their own. When combined with a clean diet, it has been found that the body's thermogenic system is actually ramping up, making you melt your pounds quicker.
Furthermore, animal studies indicate that curcumin, the main active compound of turmeric, allows the body to transform white fat muscle, which is considered toxic, to more metabolically active brown fat. Brown fat actually makes the metabolism quicker, and it has a greater amount of mitochondria compared to other cells, such as white fat cells.
Note that turmeric acts as a supportive supplement to boost the health of the body. It's not supposed to be used as any sort of overnight gimmick to easily lose pounds. Those that wish to include exercise as part of a fitness regimen also need to take the steps required to reduce weight, such as lowering their calorie consumption and increasing their level of exercise.
