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Understanding some of the key ingredients in our Diet Hack.

Chromium…Taking supplemental chromium has been shown repeatedly to improve insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance, even to the point of reversing type II diabetes in many people (1). Thus, as my old clinical nutrition professor pointed out, apparently a chromium deficiency can actually lead to type II diabetes. In fact, chromium is so synonymous with insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance that some actually refer to dietary chromium as Glucose Tolerance Factor (GTF).

Vanadium…You will likely store more muscle glycogen as a result of taking vanadium, due to an improvement in my insulin sensitivity.

Magnesium… Is vital to have energy and stamina when starting your intermittent fasting journey. For a surprisingly large amount of people, feeling like you’re run-down could point to a magnesium deficiency. Feeling run down and tired is not a normal part of life and taking enough magnesium helps ensure against feeling rundown. Magnesium makes you feel good and plays a key role in getting restful sleep. It will also play a key role in helping avoid muscle cramping.

Potassium… There’s something in the body called the sodium-potassium pump. It’s built into a little protein, attached to an enzyme on the surface of your cells. You have 800,000 to 30 million of these in your body. They’re little generators that allow things to enter into the cells and they take a lot of energy to work. One-third of all the food you eat goes to running those pumps. You also have another pump in the stomach called the hydrogen-potassium ATP-and it’s a pump to help you create stomach acid to help you digest foods. These pumps are in various places in the body including the muscles and the nervous system. In fact, the ones in your nervous system take up 60% of your body’s caloric intake of energy.

So, these pumps are critically important in exchanging nutrition, glucose, amino acids, and other minerals to allow them to transport in and out of the cell. Potassium is essential for building the pumps that control these functions:

• Potassium is arguably one of the most important things you need to supplement while intermittent fasting.
• Potassium gives you energy.
• Potassium helps the muscles to contract or relax by controlling the transport of calcium.
• Potassium is also critical to avoid Muscle cramps.

Green Coffee Bean… called chlorogenic acid which seems to have beneficial effects on metabolism for weight loss. Dr. Oz publicized green coffee bean extract when he featured it on his show and called it “a miracle pill” that “can burn fat fast for anyone who wants to lose weight.” The most popular study used to market green coffee bean extract is published in 2012 in the scholarly journal “Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity: Targets and Therapy”.

The study showed the green coffee bean extract supplementation resulted in decreases in body weight, body mass index, body fat percent, and even small decreases in heart rate. There were no significant changes in the diet or exercise of the subjects and the changes happened when the subjects were taking green coffee bean extract.

The possible weight-loss factor behind green coffee bean extract and the chlorogenic acid it contains may have to do with chlorogenic acid effects on sugar absorption from starch and on fat synthesis in the body. In a study published in 2007 in “The Journal of International Medical Research”, researchers found that when human subjects consumed instant coffee enriched with chlorogenic acid, they lost weight due to decreased absorption of glucose sugar. There are many studies on mice or rats, such as the study published in “Biochemical Pharmacology” in 2013, showing that chlorogenic acid decreases fat synthesis and improves cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

Guarana…According to Web MD taking a specific combination product containing guarana, ephedra, and 17 other vitamins, minerals, and supplements helps reduce weight by approximately 2.7 kg over 8 weeks when used with a low-fat diet and exercise.

Green Tea…Green tea can help you lose weight. Several studies have suggested that the flavonoids and caffeine in green tea can help elevate metabolic rate, increase fat oxidation and even improve insulin activity. One study showed that those who consumed green tea and caffeine lost an average of 2.9 pounds during a 12-week period while sticking to their regular diet. Another study suggested the increase in calorie output was equal to about 100 calories over a 24-hour period. You don’t need to drink a lot of green tea to help you lose weight. While weight loss benefits vary based on different dynamics, they have been found by drinking as little as 2.5 cups of green tea per day.