Chromium and Fat Loss
Gaining a gym membership and working with a professional to discover both short and long-term goals is important.
However, the majority of amateur and serious gym goers very often opt for fitness goals that involves losing a few pounds of fat. Does Chromium and Fat Loss go together?
Even a modest fat loss of 5 to 10 % of your total body weight is more than likely to produce a range of health and wellbeing benefits. These benefits can include developments across lowering blood pressure, blood cholesterol and blood sugars.
Fat loss can also reduce your risk of certain conditions, such heart disease and type 2 diabetes, together with improving your total cholesterol levels. It also can relieve symptoms and prevent injuries related to being overweight.
Herbal Help
We can run fast and frantic lives, which makes hitting our fat loss goals difficult at times. Some herbal help can often be used to supplement our goals.
Chromium is a trace mineral and an essential part of something called Glucose Tolerance Factor (GTF). GTF is thought to bind the hormone insulin to cell receptors which helps to regulate glucose and blood sugar metabolism. This better explains chromium’s essential role in metabolising carbohydrate from the food we eat.
More simply put, chromium helps regulate blood sugar balance, thereby helping prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes, which is unfortunately becoming more prevalent in the UK. This may be due, in part, to the highly refined Western diet naturally containing less chromium.
There are people who work out and see little to no results. The workout plan may not be on point, but if your PT says it is, then you need to look elsewhere for the source of the problem.
One common problem is insulin resistance, this can lead to a prediabetic state and eventually type two diabetes, one of the major causes to this is the lack of chromium in the diet.
Out of Balance
Chromium and GTF are used to correct blood sugar when it’s out of balance. This function is key in preventing the onset of type 2 diabetes but also helping to control body weight.
Therefore, chromium’s role in weight loss is key; by increasing the body’s sensitivity to insulin and controlling blood sugar levels, effective fat burning can occur; chromium supplementation has been associated with increased lean body mass and fat loss.
Chromium and fat loss are also linked through sugar cravings. We all often have sugar cravings throughout certain points of the day, and if you have fat loss goals then this is counterproductive.
However, sugar cravings can be tackled by eating more foods containing chromium, together with supplementation, if further support is required.
To support weight loss goals further an 8-week study, 1,000 μg/day of chromium reduced food intake, hunger and cravings in healthy overweight women (1). It was found that the effects of chromium on the brain may have produced these effects.
Furthermore, supplementary research studied people with binge-eating disorder or depression, as these groups could potentially benefit the most from suppressing cravings or hunger, which will support fat loss.
An 8-week study assigned 113 people with depression to receive either 600 μg/day of chromium in the form of chromium picolinate or a placebo. The study found that appetite and cravings were reduced with chromium picolinate supplements, compared to the placebo (2). These findings can suggest that chromium as a herbal supplement can reduced cravings of a high sugar food and support weight loss goals, together with balancing bloody sugar levels and improving overall health and wellbeing.
