In this blog post, we’ll take a look at how HCAs work and how their appetite suppression and fat synthesis inhibition actually work to help you lose weight.
It’s a lazy afternoon, and you’ve turned on the TV with a bag of chips in your arms. A girl group is dancing beautifully, each with a slim, toned body. Suddenly, I look down at my stomach. Ugh… I need to lose weight. Summer is coming, and I’m going to be in trouble if I keep this up. I know it. I know I’m not the only one who worries about this. All winter long, we’ve been able to hide our weight under thick layers of clothing, but the clothes are getting thinner and thinner, and the hidden flab is slowly peeking out.
Every year at this time, I go through the same struggle. As summer approaches, I always sigh in front of the mirror and promise myself, “This time, I’m going to be different.” I always wonder why it’s so hard for me to take care of myself, and how other people seem to be so determined to exercise and stick to their diets. This is where home shopping channels come in, promoting diet foods. The commercials on TV say.
“Eat and you won’t gain weight. Lose weight while you eat!”
Eating food with calories and not gaining weight? Believe it or not, this is possible. With HCAs. HCAs are amazingly able to keep you from gaining weight while you eat. You’re probably very curious about how this is possible, but before we explain the process, let’s take a look at how we gain weight.
We get our main energy from carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are made up of a single molecule of sugar, the smallest type of monosaccharide (glucose), with a large number of linked sugars. This makes them very large and difficult to absorb into the body. In order to reach the small cells that produce energy in our bodies, these carbohydrates must be broken down into smaller glucose molecules. The glucose is then transported to cell organelles called mitochondria, where it is used to make energy. (Wait, let’s not forget our purpose in reading this!) It’s the extra glucose that we need to keep an eye on. It’s common knowledge that when we gain weight, it’s because we eat more than we need!
One of the things we know is that our bodies don’t immediately consume all the energy we take in. This is for just in case. Once in a while, the body tries to store extra glucose on the assumption that ‘tomorrow we might not be able to eat as much as we did today’. Not all glucose produces energy. After producing as much energy as your body needs, your body converts some glucose into a more manageable form and stores it in your liver, which is your body’s warehouse. This altered form of glucose is called glycogen in science, if you’re unfamiliar with the word. But if the warehouse is full, there’s a problem. We’re left with nutrients, but nowhere to put them. This is when we start to gain weight.
With nowhere else to go, glucose prepares to become fat. Fat produces a lot of energy, around 9 kcal per gram, so when your body receives more nutrients than it needs, it tries to store them as fat. The breakdown of carbohydrates into glucose stops as soon as the body realizes that it can”t store any more. The product of this less-degraded state is called citric acid. This citric acid is split into two products, acetyl CoA and oxaloacetic acid, by an enzyme called ATP-citrate lyase. It’s the acetyl CoA that we’re interested in. This is important because acetyl CoA plays an important role in the synthesis of fatty acids. When this breakdown product of citric acid, acetyl CoA, is produced, fat is synthesized, and as a result, our belly fat becomes even thicker.
Now we can explain why you can eat a lot and not gain weight. The short answer is that it doesn’t make you fat. HCA is very similar in shape to citric acid and protein. Enzymes, like puzzle pieces, can only bind and react with substrates that have a specific shape to them, and when their three-dimensional structures are as similar as HCA and citric acid, problems can arise. This is because the enzyme is more likely to bind the wrong partner. If HCA is present when citric acid is supposed to bind to ATP-citrate lyase, the enzyme that breaks down citric acid to produce acetyl-CoA, then HCA will bind to ATP-citrate lyase and prevent acetyl-CoA from being produced, thus preventing fat from being made.
However, if citric acid is not broken down, it will continue to be broken down into glucose, which is then converted into glycogen and stored in the liver. This excess glycogen buildup signals to the brain that the body has enough nutrients to meet its needs, and the brain tells the body to stop eating, resulting in appetite suppression.
Traditional diet pills are notorious for their side effects, such as depression. Many people abandoned their diets because of these side effects. However, it’s hard not to be intrigued by the idea of a food that doesn’t have any side effects, burns no calories, and suppresses your appetite. But then I realized I was missing something. What I was eating wasn’t being converted into fat, but it wasn’t disappearing. This means that in order to really lose weight, I need to get rid of all that glucose somehow. So, it’s safe to say that exercise is a requirement of this HCA diet.
It sounds complicated, but at its core, the principle of HCA is to prevent glucose from being converted into fat. In fact, many people would argue that this mechanism is a result of human greed against the laws of nature. However, HCA is a natural compound found in the fruit of the garcinia tree, which makes it an interesting ingredient that“s much more reliable than other diet pills. If you”ve decided to lose those extra pounds that are getting in the way of your clothes, you should consider using HCA to help you do it. Of course, you shouldn”t forget that you should also exercise to stay healthy!
