Take a Multivitamin to Lose Weight

If you want to lose weight, you should be taking a multivitamin with minerals. This may be the most important component of your weight loss program.

Why?

A vitamin/mineral supplement can prime your body for weight loss by:

• Increasing metabolism
• Clearing out a fatty liver
• Processing protein to build muscle
• Fighting fatigue
• Preventing deficiencies that may arise from cutting calories
• Squelching free radicals generated by exercise
• Preserving health and preventing disease

Vitamins are necessary “coenzymes” in the thousands of metabolic processes constantly taking place in our bodies. Metabolism … even life itself … would shut down without vitamins.

Many minerals are also essential to the basic functions of each cell. They maintain nerve function, cell-to-cell communication, muscle contraction, and circulation. Sometimes, minerals act as cofactors of metabolism.

Even a mild deficiency of a crucial vitamin or mineral can slow down your metabolism. In order to speed up your metabolic rate, you need a full complement of nutrients at hand.

Just as an assembly line in a factory cannot run without all the needed component parts, your body cannot function at full efficiency if it is lacking even one vital nutrient.

Think you get enough vitamins and minerals from your diet? Think again! Even well-fed individuals can often have borderline vitamin deficiencies. Many Americans are deficient in calcium, folic acid and other B vitamins, vitamin D, zinc, magnesium, and vitamin C. These nutrients are needed by every cell in the body.

New research suggests that some of us have genetically higher needs than others when it comes to certain vitamins. We may need more than the Recommended Daily Allowance, sometimes a lot more.

Role of vitamins in metabolism

The B vitamins have essential roles in the Krebs cycle, turning food into energy. Other metabolic cycles also rely on the B’s. Thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3), pyridoxine (B6), folic acid … you can’t live without them. They are used in every cell in the body to burn glucose and fat. The B’s include vitamin B12, choline, and inositol which insure that your brain and nervous system function properly.

A lack of B vitamins leads to poor nerve function, fatigue, stress intolerance, fatty liver, and a sluggish metabolism.

Vitamin C is an important antioxidant. It is also needed to make l-carnitine which transports fats into the mitochondrial furnace. Recent research confirms that even a marginal vitamin C deficiency slows down metabolism and hampers weight loss.

Calcium is another nutrient that is often in short supply in our diets, yet vitally important to weight loss. Consuming less than 1000 mg/day of calcium (1200 mg for post-menopausal women) can impair fat burning and lead to bone loss.

Many of us are deficient in Vitamin D. If you are not getting enough sunlight on your skin, even in the winter, then you should be taking a supplement. Lack of vitamin D is now being blamed for an increase in certain forms of cancer, multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, and even high blood pressure and heart disease. Look for a multivitamin that contains D3, not D2, as the most effective form of the vitamin.

If you take a supplement that is formulated to contain all of the nutrients the body must have, then your body is primed for weight loss.

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