It’s no secret that many people want to lose weight. According to an analysis put together by the nutrition company Maxinutrition, the top two most Googled fitness-related searches were both about ways to lose weight. With all the talk about how cannabidiol (CBD) can help your body, you may be wondering, how can CBD help me lose weight?
Natural Weight Loss Methods
Research shows that eating a healthy diet, rich in vegetables and high-protein foods, without a lot of sugar or processed foods, is a good way for most people to lose weight or maintain their weight. All bodies are different, and some people may do better with low-carb diets or high fiber diets. Other dietary tricks that help include drinking more water, eating spicier food, eating more coconut oil, and using probiotics.
Some non-dietary things you can do to help lose weight is exercising more, specifically cardio and resistance training seem to do more for helping with weight loss. If you do plan to exercise more, you should definitely consider raising your protein intake to get the maximal benefit out of your exercise. In addition to exercise, getting enough sleep can be a major component in losing weight.
Benefits of Hemp Oil for Weight Loss
As we have discussed in other blogs, there is hemp oil and there is CBD oil, and they are not the same thing. Hemp oil is made from the oil of hemp seeds, often called hempseed oil, and contains no cannabinoids. CBD oil, or full spectrum hemp oil if it contains more than just CBD, is made from the buds or flowers, not the seeds, and contains cannabinoids like CBD. While hempseed oil does not contain CBD and other cannabinoids, it does contain a large amount of Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids, two healthy unsaturated fats which contain amino acids.
Research has shown that Omega 6 can have major benefits for people trying to lose weight, especially if consumed with the right balance of Omega 3, and it just happens that hemp has the perfect 3:1 ratio. Since hempseed oil and CBD/full spectrum hemp oil are different ingredients made from different parts of the hemp plant, it is possible for a product to include both.
CBD Benefits for Weight Loss
So if those were the benefits of hemp oil, what are the benefits of CBD oil for weight loss? CBD doesn’t interact with the CB1 or CB2 receptor in a strong way like THC does, instead CBD interacts with other receptor sites around the body, one of those is the TrpV1 capsaicin receptor. As capsaicin is what is in spicy foods and is responsible for spicy food reducing appetite and increased burning of calories, it is possible CBD could have similar benefits due to its interaction with that capsaicin receptor. Research on CBD has shown that it can boost metabolism in animals, while the mechanism is not clearly understood, it may be related to the TrpV1 receptor.
In addition to boosting metabolism, it appears that CBD can lead to a “browning” of fat. There are two types of fat in our bodies, white fat cells and brown fat cells. While white fat cells are most associated with chronic illness, brown fat cells are the healthy fat. People who are overweight tend to have more white fat cells than those who have a healthy weight.
While this is not specific to CBD, cannabis consumers tend to weigh less than those who do not use cannabis. It seems, despite all the stereotypes of hungry stoners, that cannabis actually is more of a benefit for weight loss than something to be avoided. It is believed that the full spectrum of cannabinoids, including CBD, contributes to these effects on weight. Paradoxically, while many studies show CBD can have benefits for weight loss, CBD has also been shown in other studies to contribute to an increase in appetite. This could be a dose dependent effect, similar to CBD’s effects on sleep, which differ dramatically depending on how much CBD is consumed.
Aside from direct benefits for weight loss, CBD can help with post-workout recovery after you exercise to help you lose weight. CBD also can promote sleep if consumed at the right dose (in short, it seems like lower doses can be more alerting and higher doses tend to be more sedating). If you are looking for a way to start using CBD, Ojai Energetics’ CBD Starter Kit has everything you need to add CBD to your daily wellness routine.
Other Cannabinoids for Weight Loss
While CBD tends to be what most people focus on these days, when it comes to weight loss, there is a better cannabinoid to look to, and that is tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCv). THCv is a cannabinoid related to THC, but rather than giving you the munchies, it gives you the anti-munchies. Sometimes called the “sports car” of cannabinoids and other times called “diet weed,” THCv has powerful appetite suppressing effects and may cause you to feel “high” like THC, but research on that is mixed.
Those appetite suppressing effects are so notable that THCv has been studied by GW Pharmaceuticals who has a patent on it, partially due to its use as an appetite suppressant. THCv can be sourced from hemp plants, and it appears that THCv from hemp plants is legal. Given that THCv from hemp is legal, if you want a truly powerful hemp product for weight loss, you should look for a full spectrum hemp product that includes some THCv.
Water Soluble CBD for Weight Loss
While CBD oil or any other cannabinoids added to weight loss products will give them more benefits than those without cannabinoids, their potential benefits are still limited due to their bioavailability. Our bodies are not perfect for processing CBD and other things, and bioavailability is what amount of something, like CBD, is actually available to your body after you ingest it. A big way to increase the bioavailability and the speed at which CBD and other cannabinoids take effect is by using water soluble CBD with nano-encapsulation technology. The patented water soluble colloid delivery in the products in Ojai Energetics’ CBD Starter Kit allow for people to reach an effective dosage of cannabinoids using significantly less oil. Beyond CBD and cannabinoids, colloidal technology improves terpene delivery and allows for ingestible products that actually feel like strains.
