I’ve come across a number of success stories of people managing to lose weight with the help of kombucha. So I thought I’d do some research to how they were doing it and put together a helpful guide for anyone looking to do the same.
Before we jump in I want to make one thing clear. None of the success stories claimed kombucha was the sole factor in them losing weight. Rather, it was a helpful tool that was part of an overall process. In some cases, it was the first domino that started the chain reaction.
Some people consider kombucha a health panacea. This just isn’t the case. While it definitely has a lot of punch when it comes to health, it needs to be used in conjunction with other healthy living habits.
The fact remains that many people attribute their success to kombucha.
If you’re interested, I’ve outlined the popular kombucha challenge in the last section of the post!
Tips For Loosing Weight With Kombucha
Before I get into the different ways kombucha will help you loose weight I want to cover a few commonalities that I found when researching my case studies.
Drink Small Amounts Of Kombucha Regularily
The biggest thing that was the same in every case was people drank small amounts of kombucha everyday. Some people liked to drink it first thing in the morning on an empty stomach while others prefered to have some before every meal.
Either way, they were only consuming around 4-6 ounces of kombucha per serving.
No one found success through drinking a bottle of kombucha once or twice a week. The successful ones found a way to turn it into a habit. They described it as starting a cascading effect that rippled into other areas of their health.
Most of the successful people were drinking 4 oz at least 3 times a day. This way, your body’s digestive system can really hit the reset button with regular doses of health gut bacteria and nutrional yeast.
Use A Holistic Approach
Kombucha isn’t going to solve all of your problems. Instead, think of it as a way to hit the reset button. It resets your gut bacteria and helps flush out any unwanted toxins from your system. It resets your taste bubs from craving high sugar content to craving more nutritious food.
Focus on building a habit of kombucha and use that as a foundation to build a habit of health. I found that when I drank kombucha regularly, my sugar cravings decrease, I was less bloated, and I had more energy throughout the day.
It was the beginning of switching from processed food that was high in sugar to food with a higher nutritional content. You can do it too!
1.Cut Down On Your Sugar
One of the best uses for kombucha is managing your sugar cravings. If you’ve been paying attention to the lastest health recommendations you will have noticed the recent war on sugar. In fact, it’s now center stage against the fight against obesity.
Sugar has been shown to be incredibly addictive. It has also been shown to be directly correlated to weight gain. For this reason, any help in reducing your sugar intake is going to go a long way in helping you lose weight.
This is where kombucha comes in.
Kombucha can help with sugar cravings in a number of different ways. Firstly, kombucha does contain a small amount of sugar. Instead of trying to quit cold turkey, most people find it much easier to work with a substitude (at least initially.) The good news is the sugar content is much less then most other natural drinks and the sugar has already been processed by the yeast – making it easier for your body to handle.
Secondly, the natural acids and tannins in kombucha shock your tastebuds into reducing your cravings. Instead, you begin to crave the nutritious hit of kombucha instead of the high from the sugar.
Bottom Line: Try reaching for 4 oz. of kombucha the next time you have a sugar craving. After a number of days your cravings should decrease.
2. Boost Your Healthy Gut Bacteria
Modern health information is starting to realize how crucial your gut fauna is to your overall health. This infographic does a good job in explaining the importance of gut bacteria.
Improving your gut bacteria can have reverberating effects on many areas of your health – including your weight. A healthy population of bacteria is going to help you process the nutritional food while filtering out the waste that causes you to gain weight.
Because kombucha is so rich in probiotics, having small servings spaced throughout the day is going to help re-balance the bad bacteria with the good. I suggest sticking with 4 oz. at least 3 times a day. Ideally, you’ll have a drink before each of your major meals.
This way, the natural bacteria will be present to help you digest your latest meal!
3. Get Your Fiber
While the kombucha tea will do little for you fiber, there are actually ways we can use kombucha to boost our fiber intake (this tip applies to home brewers only.) I know it may sound disgusting, but it’s totally possible to eat your spare scoby.
Bare with me for a moment.
While it may look absolutely terrible, the scoby growing in your brewing vessel is actually very healthy for you. It’s made up of dense networks of cellulose that just happens to be a great source of insoluble fiber.
The western diet is notoriously low in insoluble fiber (particularly so if you eat lots of processed foods.) It’s this type of fiber that acts like a cleansing scrub moving through your digestive system. As it doesn’t change shape when mixed with water, the fiber carries out any undigested waste and other harmful chemicals that would otherwise sit in your G.I. track.
Fiber makes you feel full for longer and helps maintain blood sugar levels.
While this fiber doesn’t directly impact your weight, having a diet full in fiber makes you feel full for longer. And besides, scoby has virtually no calories!
4. Improve Your Digestion
One of the most common benefits of drinking kombucha is the improvement of digestion. Most people report feeling less bloated as well as a decrease in heartburn. What’s causing the improvement in digestion? Well, it’s two things:
- Kombucha is full of natural enzymes that help break up the food in your digestive track. These enzymes are produced by the yeast to help break down the nutrients into simpler forms for the bacteria to digest.The good news is we can use these natural enzymes as a dietary supplement. Our food is broken down easily, becoming easy to absorb.
- Kombucha is also packed with nutritional acids. These acids (acetic, benzoic, butyric, citric etc.) are produced as a defense mechanism against foreign intruders. Maintaining an acetic environment prevents the growth of mold and other parasites.However, it’s also good news for us. Our digestive system’s pH is sometimes out of balance. Having a daily dose of naturally produced acids is a great way to bring things back in check.
Making the switch from processed foods to natural foods can be hard on the digestive system. Make things a little easier by drinking a little kombucha throughout the day to keep things balanced.
5. Replace Alcohol and Coffee
Did you know that alcohol has the same calories per gram as fat?!
Even worse, these are empty calories that contain little to no nutritional value. Which is why cutting out alcohol is one of the single best things you can do if you’re trying to lose weight.
And surprise, surprise, kombucha can help here too. Remember how I mentioned the acids and tannins creating a unique flavoring? Well, it’s this flavoring that helps kombucha be a great replacement for alcohol and coffee. Our brains are triggered to release dopamine when we digest alcohol and coffee. You can trick your brain into thinking it’s about to get a nice shot of coffee by drinking kombucha instead.
While it won’t cut down on the cravings completely, it can be a great crutch to you while you get through the tough part. And to make things a little easier, kombucha contains both caffeine and alcohol (just in much lower levels.)
6. Replace Your Soda
The acidic flavor, as well as minimal sugar levels, makes it a perfect supplement for your soda cravings. Sugary drinks are an absolute disaster for losing weight. They are some of the most calorie dense food groups while adding no nutrition what-so-ever.
If there is one step you need to take to have a good chance of loosing weight it’s cutting out sugary drinks from your diet.
Instead, have a glass of kombucha when you’d regularly have a soda. You will still get the fizzy, acidic, sweet drink you’ve been craving. Only this time it will be full of nutrients instead of just empty calories. By slowly weening yourself off of soda you will cut significant calories from your diet.
7. Boost Your Energy and Metabolism
I don’t know about you, but if I don’t have energy, it’s impossible to motivate myself to be active. Before I started drinking kombucha, my energy would crash as soon as I arrived home from work. This prevented me from getting up and going to the gym to get some exercise.
After about 20 days of drinking regular kombucha I found my energy levels remained level throughout the day. I didn’t have the caffeine or sugar crash that was typical when I would drink caffeinated soda.
While this was a benefit on its own, it also allowed me to actually start hitting the gym on a regular basis.
Do you see what I mean when I talk about the cascading effect of kombucha? We are polluting our bodies with processed food that makes it hard for us to keep our energy levels up. Without energy, how are we supposed to get up and keep active?
While kombucha can’t fix all of your problems, it can make a few drastic changes that provides you the momentum you need to change your lifestyle.
Take The 30-Day Kombucha Challange
Want to really start moving things in the right direction health-wise? I highly recommend you take the kombucha challange. It only takes 30 days and has the potential to change your life.
While it definitely doesn’t work for everyone, I have read a few stories on how this challenge has been the catalyst of change people were looking for.
The kombucha test involves taking 4 oz. of kombucha 3 times per day – once as soon as you wake up, once before lunch, and once before you eat dinner. You can add extra kombucha throuhout the day if you like (just make sure you aren’t drinking too much.)
It’s usually difficult to notice the effects of kombucha until the second half of the test. However, most people report feeling an improvement on overall well-being usually around day 20. This usually leads them to incorporating kombucha into their daily schedule.
Some of the reported benefits are:
- A reduction in heartburn
- Reduced bloating after large meals
- Regular bowl movements
- An increase in energy
- A decrease in sugar cravings
This list is just a sampling of the reported health benefits. Of course, it’s going to different for everybody. The only way to know for sure is to try it out for yourself!
There really isn’t any risk involved with trying. I highly recommend you try pairing the kombucha challenge with reducing your overall sugar intake. I find these two challenges are very well suited for each other.
Let us know how it goes in the comment section below!