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Vitamin D And Weight Loss

Your daily intake of vitamin D and weight loss are two issues that are rarely mentioned in the same breath, if ever. Given that recent studies show that around 50% of the world’s population has vitamin D levels below the optimal range, and 20% suffer from a vitamin D deficiency, this may explain the current obesity epidemic that the world has been experiencing.

The question is, if vitamin D is so beneficial for weight loss, why are so few people keeping their vitamin D levels up, and even fewer people talking about its use in this area? The answer is simple: most people are just not aware of the benefits that vitamin D can offer when it comes to weight loss.

That is why we have decided to produce the following article that examines the relationship between vitamin D and weight loss in great depth. This should give you all of the information you need to understand exactly how vitamin D helps you lose weight and convince you to increase your own vitamin D intake to accelerate your weight loss journey.

Table of Contents

What Is Vitamin D?

Vitamin D is an essential, fat-soluble vitamin also called cholecalciferol or “the sunshine vitamin.” Vital for many important functions in the human body to occur, clinical research shows that an average person must consume at least 10 to 20 mcg of vitamin D per day in order to keep their body fully healthy and functioning at an optimal level (1).

You can up your daily vitamin D intake by consuming various foods, drinks, and supplements, and doing so offers a huge range of health benefits.

These health benefits include reducing inflammation and the risk of getting sick, improving bone, brain, heart, and immune system health and functions, boosting testosterone and energy levels and production, male sexual health, muscle strength, bone density, and blood sugar levels, and helping combat depression and many other mental and physical health issues.

In this article, we will solely focus on vitamin D’s ability to help you lose weight. However, if you are interested in learning more about any of the other health benefits vitamin D can offer, we have previously published two articles that cover them all in great depth, which you can read here and here.

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Vitamin D And Weight Loss: How Does Vitamin D Help You Lose Weight?

Improves Blood Sugar Levels

Vitamin D helps to regulate insulin, which is the hormone that controls your blood sugar level. It achieves this by increasing insulin sensitivity, preventing or combating insulin resistance, improving the production of the genes involved in glucose metabolism, and enhancing the production and function of pancreatic beta cells, which are responsible for producing insulin.

Better blood sugar levels can reduce fat storage and lower the risk of insulin resistance, which is linked to weight gain, especially belly fat storage. This also makes it particularly beneficial for type II diabetics who are dealing with weight issues (2).

Vitamin D and Diabetes

Modulates Fat Storage Hormones

Vitamin D influences hormones like leptin, which tells your brain when you’re full. Low vitamin D levels may lead to leptin resistance, making it harder to feel satisfied after meals and easier to overeat. Preventing this from occurring will therefore make it easier to stick to a calorie-controlled diet and lose weight.

Leptin, like insulin, and another hormone called adiponectin are also directly involved in body fat storage. By modulating the levels of both of these fat storage hormones that are present in your blood, vitamin D can keep the amount of fat stored from the food you do eat to a bare minimum, making it far easier to hit your weight loss goals (3).

Aids Recovery and Reduces Inflammation

Vitamin D has potent anti-inflammatory effects that help reduce inflammation. Obesity is often associated with chronic low-grade inflammation, as it disrupts fat metabolism in the fat cells. Vitamin D’s ability to combat this, therefore, helps to improve the metabolic health of overweight people and support weight loss.

It can then also improve recovery by enhancing all aspects of a person’s sleep cycle and reducing soreness after workouts. This will enable you to recover faster and more effectively, allowing for more frequent and intense training sessions, which will greatly accelerate calorie expenditure, fat burning, and weight loss (4).

Learn more about Vitamin D and Inflammation here

Boosts Mood & Energy Levels

Low vitamin D levels are linked to issues like fatigue and depression, which can make exercise and healthy eating harder.

Vitamin D boosts your energy levels through several pathways. This includes enhancing the function of the mitochondria, which are a vital part of the cells used for converting stored fat into energy, and also supporting a better hormonal balance (5). It then improves mood by enhancing brain health and functions, and the production of mood-regulating chemicals and neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine, and reducing inflammation (6).

By supporting optimal energy levels and improving your mood, vitamin D can help to reduce tiredness and prevent fatigue from setting in. This enables you to stay more active and consistent with a weight loss routine, and engage in longer, harder workouts that will accelerate your weight loss goals.

Influences Fat Metabolism

Some studies show that vitamin D might help directly reduce the formation of new fat cells (adipogenesis) and promote fat breakdown, which is ideal for weight loss. It does this through many pathways, the most prominent of which is its ability to inhibit the formation of new fat cells (a process called adipogenesis), which it does by downregulating PPARγ (Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma), a key gene involved in fat cell growth.

It then also promotes lipolysis (the breakdown of stored fat for energy) by improving insulin sensitivity and reducing inflammation, while the improved mitochondrial function it provides ensures that as much of the food you eat is converted to energy as possible, rather than being stored as fat (7)