Discover the benefits of lemon for weight loss! Sunny yellow, fresh, with a characteristic intense and sour taste: lemon(citrus lemon) belongs to the Rutaceae family and has oriental origins, mainly in the distant Indian and Chinese lands.
Arrived in Italy after the Arab domination in Sicily, it became known and appreciated throughout the peninsula, entering, over time, in our kitchens. Lemon is rich in minerals such as calcium, phosphorus, potassium, copper, zinc, as well as vitamins, including vitamin C, a powerful antioxidant with an important anti-anemic function, as it favors the absorption of iron from the diet, vitamins A, E and B. It has lutein and zeolite.
It has lutein and zeaxanthin, for the welfare of the eyes and sight in general; it favors the fluidity of the blood, preventing the phenomena of atherosclerosis; helps eliminate kidney stones and gallstones, thanks to the action of citric acid; strengthens blood vessels; facilitates digestion, purifies and, properly integrated into the diet daily, is a valuable aid to promote weight loss: let us now explore this last property, let's discover together how lemon to lose weight and how to take it to benefit from it.
Lemon for weight loss: because lemon slimming
Now let's see in detail how and why lemon makes you lose weight and how much to take to benefit from all its virtues. Despite their low calorie content (about 29 kcal per 100 g of product), lemons have a high percentage of pectin, which is mainly concentrated in the peel and to a lesser extent in the pulp.
Pectin is a polysaccharide that is not absorbed by the human intestine and provides important benefits for slimming purposes: once it enters the digestive process, pectin acquires a gelatinous consistency that reduces intestinal absorption of both sugars and fats ingested with food. It also facilitates intestinal motility by preventing constipation and bloating.
But that's not all: pectin gives prolonged satiety that limits the feeling of hunger overtime, containing the need to eat more than necessary and thus avoiding the often useless calorie intake, often dictated only by the need to indulge in a momentary sin of gluttony. In this way, the continuous production of insulin, responsible in the long term for the production of inflammatory prostaglandins that activate the storage of fat in body deposits, is avoided.
One of the most important problems that can be caused by slowing metabolism is the accumulation of toxins and waste substances in the body. If the cells live in a "drunk" environment, it is more difficult to assimilate good substances and burn fat, which facilitates the appearance of overweight and cellulite, due to the stagnation of liquids.
Lemon comes to our aid in this regard, thanks to its purifying and draining properties: its juice, in fact, stimulates the liver and gallbladder, excretory organs, to work more and better. Lemon acts on the liver thanks to the action of citric acid, able both to reduce the formation and elimination of toxins from the liver, and to stimulate the organ itself to do so.
The toxins are therefore definitively eliminated from the organism thanks to the urine, on the formation of which the citric acid acts by stimulating diuresis. The gallbladder, for its part, is responsible for collecting the bile produced by the liver, whose function is to facilitate the digestion of fats and carbohydrates.
Thanks to that, lemon manages to offer slimming benefits, balancing and activating the metabolism, especially with regard to digestive functions, preventing abdominal bloating, gas accumulation, stimulating digestion and contributing considerably to important organs being cleaner and healthier.
How to include lemon in your diet for slimming benefits
There are different variations of so-called lemon weight loss diets around, some of which recommend ingesting the juice of up to 15 lemons.
Avoid such exaggerations, in the context of a varied and balanced diet and some daily activity is enough to drink in the morning, on an empty stomach, a full glass of warm water with juice from a whole organic lemon squeezed to take full advantage of all its benefits, including those slimming. It is preferable not to add sugar, at most a touch of organic honey to adjust the taste.
The water temperature has a very important value: the cold would not have the same detoxifying effectiveness and could give unpleasant consequences by thermal shock, too hot would decrease the amount of vitamin C available.
The hot water and lemon drink obtained in this way, is taken in sips with a straw (to avoid damaging and damaging the tooth enamel) and wait at least a quarter of an hour before breakfast. During the day you can drink a cup of green tea with the addition of half a squeezed lemon, to have a handful of polyphenols and more antioxidants.
