Very few individuals like to eat raw vegetables or perhaps just vegetables in general. And if you are one of them you are blessed.
However if you are like the regular crowd, you generally cringe at the sight of vegetables especially the leafy greens.
And then when someone tells you that these leafy greens are good for weight loss you just simply give up the plan of losing weight.
Leafy greens due to their water and fibre content as well as their taste have great appetite suppressing effects.
Eating something you don’t like generally does kill your appetite. This study examines how this leafy green extract can help in weight loss.
What happened in the study?
Overweight or obese female individuals were recruited for this study and assigned to either of the two groups.
One group received 5g of leafy green extract daily prior to breakfast while the other group received placebo.
The study lasted for 12 weeks.
Participants ate three meals a day with no in-between snacks and increased physical activity. Ratings for hunger, satiety and cravings were assessed post breakfast.
What was the outcome?
Those receiving leafy green extract lost significantly more body weight (5kg average) than place group (3.5kg average).
Improvement in cholesterol levels was also observed with consumption of extract.
Tests conducted on the first and the last day of the study revealed increase in satiety hormones and reduced urge for sweet and chocolate.
How did this occur?
The leafy green extract supplement contained green plant membranes.
Cells of green leaves contain a number of bioactive like chlorophyll, vitamins, proteins, and antioxidants.
Green plant membrane extract retards the activity of enzyme lipase which helps in digestion of fat.
Delayed digestion of fat leads to an increased level of satiety-related hormones.
Green plant membranes are proven to increase satiety in a response of high-fat meals as well as carbohydrate-rich meals.
Ingestion of these green plant membranes led to increased release of hormone GLP-1 which reduced the cravings for sweet and highly palatable foods.
What does this mean?
The study proves that the inclusion of leafy green extract once a day can aid in weight loss and appetite control.
These extracts don’t cause side effects such as rapid excretion of fat, unlike other fat blockers.
This makes me wonder whether leafy green juices would pose a similar effect and if that is true then it is safer and cheaper to consume this over green extracts.
Live a ‘healthy’ life to its fullest!
Read the paper here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666314003493