The consumption of coffee is increasingly common and extremely popular in modern society and will not likely stop anytime soon. Almost every American over 16 drinks at least one cup of coffee in the morning to get the boost they need to face the day. Some people consume multiple cups of coffee throughout the day, especially if they have arduous tasks ahead.
Most people are unwilling to give up coffee due to the energy boost it provides. While coffee is generally considered safe for consumption, there are some concerns about how to factor it into your life without disrupting other dietary habits. This can be especially difficult for those using a specific diet for health reasons.
While coffee consumption has been prevalent for some time, current dietary fads are fairly new and slowly gaining traction. Most modern diets have been discussed by popular media outlets to circulate them, while others are still languishing in obscurity. One of the more successful diets in modern society is the popular keto diet that so many have begun using.
The keto diet is designed to help you lose weight and has shown a promising track record of accomplishing that goal. However, there is concern that drinking too much coffee while employing the keto diet might compromise the latter's success. This is why we have come here to determine how many cups of coffee you can drink while using the keto diet.
How Does Keto Work?
You might be curious about the details if you are unfamiliar with the keto diet or are only beginning to show interest in it. The keto diet is named for a biological process called ketosis, a metabolic state in which our bodies burn fat for energy instead of glucose. This metabolic state is caused by ketones, a naturally occurring chemical our livers produce. Through ketosis, our bodies can burn fat and repurpose it for energy, making weight loss significantly easier. Ordinarily, our bodies would store such fat content for situations where we cannot consume our normal intake of calories for energy.
The keto diet focuses on triggering ketosis by encouraging a high-fat diet with intermittent fasting to force our bodies to burn fat regularly. While our bodies were not originally designed to burn fat as a primary energy source, the keto diet lets us rewrite our body's functionality. This is not to say the keto diet gives us extensive control over our bodies but helps us promote fat loss.
The diet was first used by modern humans in 1921, though it was originally used as an anticonvulsant treatment by the Greeks in 400 B.C. By 1971 the diet was rendered obsolete once again but experienced a revival in 1994.
The keto diet is one of the most common diets in modern society and has persisted to the present day. While it is no longer used as a tool for treating seizures, it has claimed a place in the hearts of dieters worldwide. While the reason for its popularity has changed since its original implementation in Greece, the diet is one of the oldest in existence.
Keto requires users to follow a strict diet focusing on certain foods, primarily fatty proteins and dairy, increasing our fat intake. This fat intake gives our modified metabolism resources to convert to energy, and the body naturally removes the newly introduced fat before it gets stored.
The keto diet works by allocating eating days where we consume certain foods while others are dedicated to replenishing our carbohydrate levels. The modernized keto diet has created 3 variants that alter what kind of food we eat and how often we eat it:
- Standard Ketogenic Diet (SKD): The Standard Ketogenic Diet is 70% fat, 20% protein, and 10% carbohydrate.
- Cyclical Ketogenic Diet (CKD): The Cyclical Ketogenic Diet is 5 days of high-fat, low-carb foods followed by 2 days of carbohydrate replenishment.
- Targeted Ketogenic Diet (TKD): The Targeted Ketogenic Diet is a unique variant that allows you to introduce as many carbohydrates as you like. The caveat is that you must consume them within a short time before a designated workout.
While the keto diet is extremely popular, avid coffee drinkers might be concerned about where their favorite beverage stands insofar as the diet is concerned.
How Much Coffee on Keto?
When beginning a new diet, it is common to sacrifice certain foods and drinks you once enjoyed regularly. The keto diet, while popular, has some fairly stringent requirements that you must follow to yield positive results. For some people, this means surrendering junk food or alcohol in favor of healthier alternatives like fruit and water. To that end, some are concerned about what the keto diet means for their coffee intake.
Some people rely on their morning cup of coffee to face the day thanks to the caffeine boost, which makes giving it up a daunting concept. Fortunately, there is good news for coffee drinkers looking into the keto diet. Coffee is completely acceptable within the restrictions imposed by the keto diet and is often a beneficial tool for enhancing the effects.
The question is how much coffee is permitted and whether you will have to limit your normal intake. The answer to this question is slightly more complicated than you might expect. The primary force behind coffee is caffeine, a natural stimulant that has become a staple worldwide. This caffeine is what generates energy even when we are exhausted and lethargic.
Unfortunately, caffeine's nature as a stimulant means our bodies naturally begin adapting to it when more is introduced. The more often we drink coffee, the higher our caffeine tolerance becomes and the more we need to feel the effects.
Because tolerance levels are prone to change, drinking coffee while remaining within the bounds of the keto guidelines might be challenging. This is especially true since caffeine also seriously affects our metabolisms and increases our ability to burn fat. Studies have connected caffeine consumption to increases in our resting metabolic rate (RMR), which means the drink helps us burn fat.
These studies show that caffeine consumption can induce a 3-11% spike in RMR from a normal serving of caffeine. This effect is most pronounced in people with leaner builds and less pronounced in those with obesity. Specifically, leaner builds saw a 29% increase in their ability to burn fat, while obese subjects only had a 10% increase. Regardless, we cannot deny caffeine's effect on our metabolism.
All of this only reinforces the question of how much coffee we can drink while employing the keto diet. The general rule of thumb is 2 or 3 cups daily, but you might be able to have more depending on your caffeine tolerance. Aside from monitoring your caffeine tolerance, coffee is naturally keto-friendly and often employed as a supplementary tool for the diet in most circles.
Coffee has almost no calories, 5 at most, unless you add sugar, creamer, etc., but black coffee is negligible in calories and sugar content. Combined with its weight loss benefits, it could be the perfect companion for your keto journey.
Caffeine's effect on your metabolism, combined with the effects of the keto diet, will allow you to burn fat more rapidly. If you are the kind of person who cannot stomach black coffee, you might have trouble adjusting your coffee-drinking habits to accommodate the keto lifestyle. Fortunately, just because you should avoid sugar does not mean you have to drink your coffee black.
Keto-Friendly Coffee Additions
While several people need at least 1 cup of coffee in the morning to get energized for the day ahead, not everyone can stomach black coffee. Black coffee is particularly bitter, especially when using certain grinds. This bitterness appeals to a small percentage of the coffee-drinking population, while the rest need sugar or creamer to temper the flavor. While this might have been effective for daily life before the keto diet, sugar is considered taboo in keto and should be avoided.
The goal of the keto diet is to get your body to stop relying on burning glucose for energy, which is the fundamental component of sugar. While this might seem like a major flaw for coffee drinkers, there are keto-friendly alternatives you can use to moderate the flavor of your coffee.
Certain keto-friendly coffee additions can even compound the effects of the diet by adding extra fats and proteins to your daily intake. Your initial instinct might be to opt for milk, which is packed with healthy fats and a logical addition to coffee. Unfortunately, anything with high levels of lactose, like milk, also contains high sugar concentrations. Fortunately, there are low-fat dairy products you can use instead, including heavy cream. While heavy cream has sugar, it is low enough to have it in one or two cups of coffee you drink daily.
Alternatively, you could use coconut milk, which provides a similar flavor to regular milk but has far less sugar. Coconut milk will likely be your greatest ally when looking for dairy substitutes since coconut also has high levels of healthy fats that are perfect for enhancing the keto diet's effects. Coconut milk can be an acquired taste, so you might find an adjustment period if you use it as a dairy substitute. If dairy is not your preference, you can put other flavorful options in keto-friendly coffee.
If you are looking for a pure flavor enhancer, cinnamon is a viable alternative to sugar and produces several health benefits. Cinnamon is low in sugar, reduces blood pressure, and is an anti-inflammatory. Adding a pinch of cinnamon to your morning coffee can help keep it keto-friendly without sacrificing flavor. If you want more of a kick, you can use ginger to produce a unique flavor profile for your coffee. Ginger is an interesting mix of sweet and spicy that can give your taste buds a proverbial kick in the teeth. Adding dried ginger to your coffee keeps it within the keto diet's requirements while adding some extra flavor to otherwise bitter drinks.
If you are looking to double down on the health benefits and have no issue drinking black coffee, there is an option for that, too. Adding collagen supplements to your coffee will give your body an essential for restoring nails, skin, and hair while yielding the benefits coffee offers. Collagen supplements are readily available on the market and are easy to implement into your daily routine. Collagen is also 100% keto-friendly since it is a natural substance that our bodies produce and is essential to certain body parts.
Adding extras to your coffee while on the keto diet is still an option, and several might taste better than the ones you originally used. While finding coffee is hardly a challenge, finding a blend specifically designed to help with weight loss is a little more challenging. However, such products exist and can help you on your keto journey.
Keep it All Natural!
While not a new concept, the keto diet has become a major tool for modern dieting programs worldwide. The keto diet can be restrictive in some ways, preventing you from enjoying certain meals you might otherwise have eaten before. While initially jarring, these restrictions have benefits, as the keto diet has shown promising results when used properly.
Triggering a massive change in your metabolism should always be done with care, and you should consult your primary care physician before committing to the program. Fortunately, nothing in the keto diet restricts coffee consumption, so you can enjoy coffee as you always have. The trick is getting a coffee blend that will truly reinforce the keto diet's effects.
We at Bella All Natural have a tool to help you accomplish that while preserving the integrity of what makes coffee so beloved. Our Skinny Iced Coffee is a blend designed to maximize weight loss while providing a flavorful drink. We also offer collagen supplements that you can put in the coffee to enhance your overall health further. We encourage you to visit our website, browse our product catalog, and see if any appeal to you. Regardless of your choice, remember always to keep it All Natural!