CBD Oil for Weight Loss: 5 Ways it Helps Burn Belly Fat

There are many ways that CBD oil helps with weight loss.

It’s a natural cannabis extract with some surprising abilities to help with burning belly fat.

More people are now using CBD products to help them:

• Reduce and control their appetite.
• Accelerate metabolism and fat-burning.
• Bolster exercise recovery.
• Lower overall stress levels to prevent overeating.

In combination, these effects help individuals shed even stubborn body fat more efficiently.

This is excellent news for the two-thirds of Australians who are overweight or obese.

Losing weight can be challenging.

CBD oil for weight loss can be an ideal natural way to support your journey.

Whether you’re trying to eat less, boost your metabolism, sleep better, or recover faster. Products containing CBD offer a range of powerful advantages for better weight control.

Combining them with the proper diet, exercise, and weight loss plan is the best way to unlock its potential to the greatest extent.

Does CBD oil help you lose weight? Let’s explore its benefits for reducing appetite, burning fat and helping with recovery to cut fat better. We’ll share some tips on using it for eliminating belly fat and trimming down, plus the potential risks involved.

How CBD Oil Helps with Weight Loss

CBD oil aids with weight loss through multiple different pathways.

These include:

• Helping to reduce appetite
• Keeping hormones balanced
• Lowering stress that contributes to weight gain
• Improving sleep
• Promoting better metabolism
• Accelerating fat browning.

But simply taking CBD alone won’t burn the fat for you.

You’ll still need to commit to reducing your overall caloric intake and increasing physical activity. Let’s examine the ways CBD oil supports these endeavours for lowering weight.

Reducing Overeating from Stress

The most crucial use of CBD oil for weight loss is in blocking the stresses that cause us to overeat.

An overactive stress response is a significant culprit for overeating.

It can mess with the hunger hormones, causing weight gain.

Stress causes hunger and cravings for unhealthy foods. Many people also ‘stress eat’, where eating in response to stressors is done to help manage the negative or anxious feelings they stimulate. In some cases, this can even lead to binge eating or eating disorders.

Over time, chronically stressed individuals overconsume food plus are likely to suffer from sleep problems and hormone imbalances. This all contributes to excess weight and fat gain. 

CBD oil helps with losing weight because it mitigates the effects of stress. It does so through the endocannabinoid system. Endocannabinoids produced in the brain’s CB1 receptors help to downregulate the stress response, enabling users to build resilience against stressors.

In many people, this helps prevent the overeating that stress can cause. This means taking CBD oil lets them lose weight more quickly.

By lowering overall stress, CBD products also help individuals to control cortisol release. Doing so helps prevent this disruptive stress hormone from degrading muscle mass and promoting fat gain.

Cortisol from stress directly influences the body’s metabolism and causes more calories to be stored as fat instead of being used for energy. Counteracting its effects is a potent way CBD oil can help with weight loss.

It enables individuals to shift their metabolism back into fat burning instead of fat storage.

Mitigating Anxiety & Depression

Anxiety and depression are linked to overeating and weight gain. By mitigating anxiousness, CBD oil assists with weight loss in people with anxiety.

Those who are depressed or anxious frequently seek out food to provide pleasure they are otherwise missing in their day-to-day lives. Food can become a ‘crutch’ for a better mood.

Neurotransmitter imbalances from these mental disorders additionally weaken our ability to resist hunger cravings and maintain self-control.

CBD Oil assists with weight loss in these situations by counteracting these conditions. It has anxiolytic or anxiety-reducing effects to stop anxiousness.

It also displays antidepressant qualities that make it well-suited to assisting those with mental distress. Notably, CBD products support users with mood, calmness and mental state via endocannabinoid activity. CBD can also act on serotonin and GABA receptors, which help promote calmness and mood stability. Normalising emotion and lowering anxiety correspondingly aid with appetite control.

By mitigating mood problems and anxiety, CBD oil helps people lose weight more quickly. It’s easier to control your appetite when feeling more grounded.

Metabolism & Fat Browing

CBD helps burn belly fat and stubborn areas, influencing how fat gets metabolised.

Studies show that CBD oil promotes weight loss more readily by converting white to brown fat cells.

A 2016 study concluded that the cannabinoid assisted in both promoting thermogenesis (fat burning) and simultaneously driving the suppression of new body fat creation (lipogenesis). This study revealed that CBD raised the expression of particular genes that accelerate fat browning in adipose tissue.

It altered their metabolic signalling through the endocannabinoid system. These effects helped users lose weight by taking CBD oil. The researchers highlighted that CBD had promise as a potential obesity-preventing product, but further investigation was warranted.

Clinical Evidence

A separate 2018 study on CBD products for weight loss repeated these results. It found CBD helped with obesity by triggering reduced food intake and appetite suppression. The cannabinoid-activated CB1 cannabinoid receptors in the brain do this. Activation of these receptors enabled endocannabinoid production in the brain. These endocannabinoids alter appetite by downregulating hunger hormone secretion from hypothalamus signals.

Additionally, the researchers saw CB2 cannabinoid receptor activity in the body. They observed increased fat burning from CBD and changes in metabolism. These changes boosted the conversion of white fat cells to ‘beige adipocytes’ or ‘transitional fat cells’. Such cells are far more accessible to burn than white fat. That’s because beige fat can turn into brown fat quickly, which is necessary to burn it.

Changing fat from brown to white means CBD oil supports better fat burning. Brown fat is much more readily ‘oxidised’ or burned off by activity and caloric deficits. The body stores white fat in ‘long-term’ fat stores. These are harder to access, which people experience as ‘stubborn fat’.

You’ve probably heard of the term ‘stubborn belly fat’ or people with thigh fat that won’t budge. White fat is the culprit of these frustrating areas where fat won’t seem to burn. Using CBD oil for belly fat and other stubborn areas could help here.

The research is backing this up. It helps lower caloric intake while boosting the body’s fat-burning efficiency.

Better Sleep & Recovery

It’s less intuitive, yet a fundamental way CBD oil helps weight loss is through sleep enhancement.

Sleep is critical for healthy hormone balance and in controlling overall body weight.

Poor sleep patterns can disrupt the endocrine system and cause our hormones to become imbalanced. This can cause problems with hunger hormones and insulin levels. Dysregulated hunger hormones will lead to:

• Heightened hunger.
• Overconsumption of calories.
• Extra body weight.
• Snacking and eating at the wrong times.

CBD oil is well known for its sleep-improving qualities. It’s able to assist in both improving sleep length and quality. It helps those who are stressed or anxious to sleep better by calming overactive minds and racing thoughts at night.

Research on Sleep

Evidence for this can be seen in a study done in 2019 on 72 adults. Each of these adults displayed symptoms of anxiety, which was impacting their sleep. They were given CBD oil daily to see how it might help.

Around two-thirds of the subjects saw substantial improvements in their sleep patterns and quality within a month of the study. During this time, they had sleep and anxiety scores regularly measured to assess changes in their symptoms. The group had marked improvements in these scores. It suggested that CBD oil helped boost their weight loss by bolstering sleep quality.

CBD was particularly useful in preventing the disruption of sleep patterns from stress or anxiousness. 

Better sleep correlates to improved hormone health, which reinforces weight loss.

But it also aids with recovering faster. This means you can exercise more often to boost overall caloric expenditure and fat loss.

Additionally, CBD reduces joint inflammation and muscle soreness after exercise, meaning. If you can recover better, you’ll be able to work out harder and raise your fat-burning rate.

Over time, you’ll get rid of more body fat using CBD oil this way. Plus, you might even see improved muscle mass. 

Appetite Suppression

There’s no doubt that CBD oil reduces appetite.

Cannabinoids such as CBD influence hunger hormone release and, therefore, your appetite.

This complements their abilities to reduce stress-related eating.

Feelings of hunger are stimulated by hormones known as ghrelin and leptin.

These are produced through a complex interconnection between your brain (hypothalamus), gut and pancreas. Notably, the endocannabinoid system in the body crosses each of these systems and helps to regulate them. As such, it has the ability to influence hunger signalling pathways.

CBD oil reduces overall appetite and hunger by modulating:

• The brain’s (hypothalamus) CB1 cannabinoid receptors
• CB2 receptors in the gut and intestines
• Cannabinoid receptors in the pancreas

An example of this was shown in a 2022 study exploring CBD oil as a novel treatment for obesity. It proved that CBD had notable anorexigenic (appetite-reducing) effects, supporting healthier body weight in subjects.

Researchers theorised some of these properties resulted from CBD’s serotonergic interactions or modulation of serotonin. Part of serotonin’s role in the brain is regulating mood and learning behaviours. By interacting with serotonin pathways, CBD may aid users in rewiring habits and unlearning behaviours such as stress eating or overconsumption of food for pleasure.

In addition, CBD helps the brain create leptin, a hormone that stimulates feelings of ‘fullness’ and helps avoid excessive food consumption.

Each of these effects makes CBD products helpful in losing weight by controlling hunger better.

Lipid & Insulin Balance

Better regulating insulin and lipids in the blood could be another area where CBD helps with fat loss.

Recent research has indicated that CBD and other cannabinoids can aid with:

• Insulin sensitivity and regulation
• Blood lipid balance
• Metabolic rate

These factors help lower cholesterol and keep body weight in check.

In a 2015 review, CBD and THCV (another cannabinoid) were shown to delay the development of insulin sensitivity and cardiovascular disease. Both displayed properties that enhanced lipid mobilisation, or the ability to use and burn fat.

Each additionally improved insulin regulation and mitochondrial activity (or metabolic rate). These positive results again provided evidence that supported using CBD as a natural treatment for obesity.

CBD oil is well-positioned to aid weight loss in overweight individuals by boosting overall metabolism and lowering appetite.

What is CBD?

Cannabinoids are compounds that are produced by the cannabis plant and have many different therapeutic benefits to the mind and body. Some cannabinoids like CBD can even benefit weight loss efforts.

CBD is one of hundreds of distinct cannabinoids. Most cannabinoids like CBD, CBN, CBG, and CBDA are non-psychoactive and can’t get you high.

THC, on the other hand, is a psychoactive cannabinoid and can cause intoxication. It is risky to use due to having the potential for addiction and causing psychosis.

CBD’s stress and inflammation-lowering properties have made it particularly attractive for those looking to lose fat or maintain a healthy weight range. Many now use it both for exercise recovery and for sleep support.

A core advantage of CBD is its safety. It can be used daily with minimal side effect risks. This is advantageous for losing weight as consistency of use means it provides sustainable fat loss benefits.

How Does CBD Help with Burning Belly Fat?

Stubborn belly fat is more easily burned when using CBD products.

When consumed, cannabinoids like CBD bind with cannabinoid receptors in the body known as the CB1 and CB2 receptors. Each can be found throughout the brain, body, and organs. These receptors contain binding sites that CBD can attach to.

Once bound to the receptors, the cannabinoid triggers the release of enzymes known as endocannabinoids. Examples of these include anandamide and 2-arachidonoyl glycerol (2-AG).

Endocannabinoids are anti-inflammatory compounds the body produces naturally. They are the main pathway by which CBD helps with weight loss. The endocannabinoid system secretes endocannabinoids. This system plays a regulatory role in the body, helping to normalise and support other bodily functions. Its role in regulating appetite, stress and metabolism is influential for those who want to lose belly fat.

Using CBD oil or other products containing the cannabinoid triggers the system. Activating it enhances fat oxidation and removal of stubborn fat regions.

What Causes Excess Body Weight?

Understanding why excess body fat occurs can be helpful if you’re thinking about using CBD oil for fat loss.

Weight gain can be caused by various factors, such as:

• Genetic makeup or predispositions
• Stress and anxiety (for instance, stress eating)
• Sedentary lifestyle
• Poor diet and overconsuming processed foods
• Underlying medical conditions like thyroid disorders.

What each of these affects is the overall energy balance in the body.

The determinant of weight loss or gain is energy balance. Excess calories will be stored as fat if you consume more calories than your body burns. Over time, too much of this storage leads to extra body weight.

Overconsuming calories (energy) is the underlying cause of all excess body fat. But why this happens can be complex. Let’s take a look at the significant risk factors.

Genes

Genetics plays a crucial role in body weight.

Genes can affect:

• Predispositions to gaining body fat.
• Metabolic rate or natural fat-burning ability.
• Hunger levels.
• Likelihood to overeat or binge eat.

Genetics can also influence the risk of depression and eating disorders, each of which can cause weight gain.

Although we cannot control our genes, we can mitigate their effects on our weight by following a disciplined diet, sleep and exercise approach.

Natural products like CBD gummies or oil also can support fat loss despite genetic disadvantages. It can help to counteract predispositions to overeat by lowering appetite.

Mental Disorders

A significant risk factor for weight gain is depression, anxiety and other mental disorders.

These problems cause mental distress, which is often self-treated through addictions to food.

The brain releases endorphins, the ‘feel good’ chemical when we eat.

For those who are chronically sad, stressed or anxious, these feelings can be a relief from their mental state, so much so that many with these mental conditions turn to eating as an outlet and subsequently gain fat through overeating.

Using CBD products helps here because they’re anxiolytic and combat anxiety. This means you’ll be less susceptible to overeating because of this disorder.

Sedentary Lifestyle

Sedentary people move less each day.

Less movement means their metabolism is slower, and the calories they burn daily are reduced.

Daily physical activity represents a significant proportion of people’s total energy expenditure. Therefore, sedentary people are at a higher risk of fat gain.

Exercise not only helps people avoid gaining fat, but it also increases metabolism to keep weight off. CBD oil can help those seeking to burn belly fat here. It promotes exercise recovery factors. Over time, baseline metabolism can be increased through better exercise levels. Elevated energy expenditure and fat loss from this will result.

Stress

Stress is the body’s ‘fight-or-flight’ response used for survival. Being stressed all the time isn’t standard and can contribute to excess body fat.

Another area CBD products help with fat loss is by blocking stress.

When stressed, the body releases cortisol, which is the stress hormone. Cortisol impacts metabolism.

Specifically, it makes it harder to lose weight and easier to gain it.

The reason for this is cortisol is inflammatory and disrupts:

• Hormone regulation
• Sleep patterns
• Immunity
• Muscle mass
• Insulin sensitivity
• Ability to feel ‘full’

Cortisol also causes cravings for sugary, fatty foods, leading to extra calories consumption.

In turn, chronically stressed individuals see their body become dysregulated and fat gain results.

Because CBD is anxiolytic and helps suppress stress, it’s great to prevent stress from causing weight gain. It offers a pathway to regain control of stress eating and avoid its triggers.

Hormone Imbalances

Hormones play a significant role in hunger, energy, mood and metabolism. For instance, the ghrelin and leptin hunger hormones are used to control appetite and how ‘full’ we feel.

This plays a massive part in how much we eat and, consequently, our weight.

Hormone dysfunction can happen for many reasons. Insomnia, for example, can impair hormone production and regulation. Sleep is critical for good hormone function.

Other issues like thyroid disorders, endocrine problems or underlying health conditions can equally disrupt our hormones, making us hungrier.

Getting great sleep and having holistic health are musts if weight loss is your goal.

This is again where taking CBD gummies or oils can be helpful. Try them before bed to improve sleep quality and boost recovery factors. The ability of CBD to activate endocannabinoid activity in the brain promotes sleep health and rejuvenates hormone glands. Over time, you’ll find weight becomes easier to keep off. Better hormone regulation also assists with better daily mental and physical energy.

Incorporating Diet and Exercise

The research on CBD oil’s benefits for supporting individuals in losing weight and boosting metabolism is robust. But this natural product shouldn’t overshadow the central importance of diet, caloric control and exercise in weight management.

In fact, the opposite is true.

CBD products for weight loss work much better when combined with weight loss measures like lifestyle changes. Let’s take a look at how this can be done.

CBD Isn’t a Weight Loss Cure

Firstly, let’s be clear. CBD won’t lose weight for you. It’s not a treatment for obesity or fat burner.

You’ll still need to put in the work.

Just as you wouldn’t expect to maintain weight loss through fad diets or gimmicky exercise programs, you shouldn’t expect to get immediate fat loss through CBD oil.

It’s better used as a supportive tool, assisting you in:

• Recovering faster from exercise
• Avoiding stress
• Sleeping better
• Boosting metabolism and hormone health
• Accelerating brown fat conversion

But you can’t take it and expect to start torching away fat.

Results can only be achieved with CBD for weight loss when combined with long-term, sustained shifts in your habits and lifestyle that bring about weight reduction.

Additionally, CBD oil can’t be viewed as a solution for obesity or other chronic conditions relating to excess body fat.

For those looking to find a ‘magic’ fix to help them solve their obesity, it won’t work. Starting to use CBD products and expecting results for fat loss with no other changes to your lifestyle is a recipe for disappointment.

Instead, you should develop a suitable weight loss plan with your Doctor first. You can then assess whether CBD oil could help later for added support.

Using CBD for Exercise Recovery

Using CBD products to bolster your exercise regime can substantially help with weight loss.

It’s already commonplace for athletes to use CBD gummies to help with exercise recovery. In particular, they value it to help with:

• Reducing muscle or tendon aches from training.
• Mitigating pain from exercise injuries.
• Recovering faster between workouts.
• Sleeping better.
• Calming exercise-related inflammation.

All facets of recovery can be supported through CBD’s anti-inflammatory, stress-reducing and calming properties.

Many use CBD creams to help alleviate aches in a particular muscle or joint region after heavy training. Using it to offset fatigue, exercise more, and recover better will help you gain faster weight loss results.  

Advantageously, CBD is very well tolerated and all-natural. It’s also a good option for vegans because it is entirely from plants and contains no animal products.

Risks in Use

Using CBD oil for fat reduction isn’t risk-free.

Like any bioactive health product, it can have side effects and risks among those looking to lose weight. Side effects are usually transient or passing. But they can occur, particularly in those with hemp allergies.

Is CBD Oil Safe for Weight Loss?

CBD itself as a compound is safe and has low side effect risks.

Most users never experience any issues using pure CBD. If they do, side effects will present mildly. For example:

• Dry mouth.
• Slight drowsiness.
• Upset stomach.
• Slight nausea.

Side effects from CBD itself are rarely a source of concern.

What is a much more significant potential problem is using CBD oil with other medications. If you’re overweight or obese, you may already be taking ozempic, blood pressure or heart medications, for instance.

Health risks can occur due to their interaction with CBD in the liver, where detoxification enzymes can become suppressed, which leads to build-ups of toxins.

Don’t mix medications you’re already taking with CBD products, as it can cause liver problems and toxicity. Speak to your doctor first to check whether this is safe. They can help you avoid usage risks and create a dosage plan that meets your health needs.

Avoiding Side Effects

If you experience side effects from CBD, like dizziness, dry mouth, diarrhea or lethargy, these should pass rapidly within hours.

But if they don’t, you may need to adjust your dose or look for a better product you aren’t intolerant to. Severe or persistent side effects could indicate a bigger problem that requires medical attention. Stop taking CBD products if this happens.

Check with your doctor if your side effects continue for an extended period.

Allergies

For people taking CBD oil for weight loss, allergies are very rare.

However, they can present where individuals are sensitive or intolerant to cannabinoids. Some people find they have reactions to CBD, which can mean a higher side effect risk.

To identify if you have allergies to CBD, it’s worth trying very low doses of CBD oil initially as a test for any issues.

Discovering you’re susceptible to side effects isn’t something you want to uncover when taking high dosages.

Carrier oils used in some products can also trigger allergies in many people.

Many CBD products use carriers such as olive oil, MCT, or coconut oil to help absorb CBD better. Sometimes, these can trigger allergies or gut insensitivities. Use a CBD isolate product without a carrier if this applies to you.

Allergies occur more frequently when low-quality CBD products are used. Often, these contain contaminants like pesticides, solvents or heavy metals, which are toxic.

Never buy CBD weight loss products that aren’t verified to be high purity. The seller should provide a certificate of analysis from an independent lab that assures this. It will give details on the product’s cannabinoid content, ingredients, purity and any carrier oils it contains.

Will CBD Increase My Appetite?

Some worry that taking CBD oil will actually increase their appetite instead of reducing it.

These worries aren’t entirely unfounded.

The THC cannabinoid from cannabis is known to trigger appetite increases and hunger. It is a psychoactive compound known for causing the ‘munchies’ that are associated with cannabis use.

In particular, it can cause the brain to trigger the release of hunger hormones such as ghrelin. It does this by activating CB1 receptors in the hypothalamus, the body’s primary appetite control mechanism.

Many confuse THC with CBD due to both being derived from the cannabis plant.

However, they’re entirely distinct.

CBD doesn’t have the same hunger-inducing properties. The opposite is true. It supports lower appetite and greater impulse control. In contrast to THC, CBD helps people lose weight.

The differences between these cannabinoids make it vital to source the right product that doesn’t contain THC.

Unfortunately, it’s often found in subpar CBD products or those which are mislabeled. Doing thorough background checks on what you’re buying and who from is vital.

Accidentally ingesting THC could mean your appetite increases, and you gain weight instead of losing it.

Takeaways

Using CBD oil for weight loss is a helpful way to reduce fat more quickly.

It has multiple potent properties that help with trimming down.

The most valuable of these are the abilities of CBD to:

• Lower stress and prevent stress eating.
• Counteract anxiety and depressive symptoms to reduce appetite.
• Boost metabolism and fat browning.
• Enhance feelings of ‘fullness’ to lower calorie intake.
• Supporting sleep health and hormone regulation.

It’s the ideal support for holistic well-being and achieving a healthier weight.

The research is increasingly supporting these benefits of CBD for fat loss.

Using it to recover better and exercise more is a fantastic way to improve fat burning. Many athletes already do this to achieve better training and performance outcomes.

Keep in mind that you shouldn’t combine CBD oil with weight loss medications or blood thinners. Taking it with other compounds needs to be assessed by a doctor first because of CBD’s liver effects.

Outside of this risk, the product is very safe and rarely has any side effects or allergy problems. You can take CBD gummies or oils daily to reinforce your weight reduction journey.

Don’t view CBD products as a treatment for obesity or body fat, though. Weight loss fundamentals like caloric restriction, exercise, avoiding alcohol and sleeping well must be prioritised. The best results are inevitably seen when CBD oil is taken as a complement to these activities, as opposed to a magic bullet solution.

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