Kick your New Year Resolutions into high gear with honey! Check out these amazing Benefits of Wild Honey for Weight Loss and overall health and wellbeing!
As we enter the New Year, it’s time to re-evaluate our lifestyles so that we’re living a life in line with our goals. It truly is a wonderful time to make the changes to ensure you’re living your best life ever!
Of course, this begins with making the right resolutions. And it won’t be surprising to learn that the most common New Year resolution is ‘lose weight’ or ‘get in shape’. That also explains why January sees the most new gym memberships in the year – 12%, compared to just 8.3% for the remaining months of the year.
Weight loss is such an important goal for so many people that they’ll try anything and everything to achieve it. But few of us realize that like most other things, the solution for this is available in Nature – in the form of pure, raw wild honey!
Yes, raw honey is the miracle elixir that can aid weight loss, due to its many amazing benefits. Here is a look at some of the top benefits of wild honey that’ll truly get you going on your weight loss journey.
7 Amazing Benefits of Wild Honey for Weight loss
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Improves Digestion
On its own, honey is easily digestible, but it also works to improve your overall digestion, aiding weight loss in the process.
If your digestive system is not up to the mark, your metabolism slows down and it takes longer to break down food particles. All that accumulated waste can also cause weight gain.
That’s where honey comes to the rescue. For generations, honey has been used to treat digestive issues like ulcers and diarrhea. Honey possesses laxative effects that encourage proper elimination and also ensures that all that excess, putrefied fecal matter and undigested material is thrown out of your body, leaving you feeling light.
Besides these, honey maintains good gut health, thanks to its prebiotic and probiotic properties. These also work to improve digestion and metabolism.
Also Read: Raw Honey vs Commercial Honey – Which one’s better?
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Improves Metabolism
Metabolism is the rate at which your body burns calories. A faster metabolism means you burn calories faster and don’t gain weight. A sluggish metabolism leads to slow calorie burning and weight gain.
Honey is one of those wonder foods that contain the amino acids and nutrients that help boost the body’s natural metabolism, helping to burn calories faster. This effect in honey is so pronounced that there is even a special diet based on this, called the hibernation diet. This diet works on the principle that on consuming honey, your body continues to burn calories even while at rest.
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Detoxes the Body
Our modern lifestyles end up stuffing our bodies with all kinds of unwanted things, through our food, personal care products and even the air we breathe. The accumulation of these toxins take a toll on our health, slowing down our systems and reducing our energy.
That’s when you know that your body is in dire need of a detox and there’s nothing like wild honey to do the job! With anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, anti-toxin, antimicrobial, antipyretic and antioxidant properties, honey will ensure that you’re squeaky clean inside out. From clearing out the liver to the respiratory system to your gut, honey is just what you need to clear your body of the accumulated toxins and kick start the weight loss process.
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Acts as a good Substitute for Refined Sugar
It’s common knowledge that refined sugar or white sugar is one of the main causes for obesity in today’s world, along with other lifestyle diseases. But avoiding sugar is also one of the most difficult things for people trying to lose weight.
That’s why honey is an excellent alternative. While honey also contains sugar, it is higher in fructose than glucose. This means that honey is sweeter than refined sugar, and you need only a little honey instead of a whole spoon of sugar. What’s more, honey also contains valuable antioxidants like flavonoids.
Besides, honey contains zero fat and is also easier to digest than sugar. Using raw honey or wild honey is better, since you need an even smaller amount, saving on overall calories without sacrificing sweetness.
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Reduces Cravings
We’ve seen that the higher fructose content in honey makes it sweeter which means you can consume fewer calories for the same amount of sweetness. But another benefit of this is that when you consume pure, raw honey, you automatically crave sweets much less, and there is an overall decrease in the tendency to overeat.
Honey also plays a role where ‘hunger hormones’ are concerned. Leptin is a “satiety hormone” that reduces appetite, but when leptin level in the blood is abnormal, the brain gets the message that it is starving, and makes you want to eat. Two main causes for this happening are increased insulin levels and inflammation – both of which are tackled with honey.
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Improves Sleep
Several studies have shown that lack of sleep has a direct correlation to weight gain. In fact, bad sleep impairs our decision making much like being drunk does! So that explains why waking up after a bad night makes you crave unhealthy foods and throws your appetite control out of whack.
However, when you have raw honey, this is no longer a problem. Honey is a great cure for insomnia and bad sleep, thanks to serotonin. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that is converted to melatonin, the compound that controls our quality of sleep. Honey releases serotonin and induces a good sleep, which in turn supports all your weight loss efforts.
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Improves Athletic Performance
The basic tenets of any weight loss program are healthy eating, sufficient activity and good rest. We’ve already seen how honey supports a good diet and good sleep, but did you know that it can boost your activity too?
Honey contains natural sugars that prevent fatigue, and the glucose is more easily absorbed by the body. This means that honey gives the body a good energy boost, that doesn’t drop suddenly. In fact, early Olympic athletes used to eat honey and figs as part of their high-performance diet!
How to have Honey for Weight Loss
The best way to get all these benefits is by having your honey on an empty stomach. Mix a teaspoon of wild honey in a glass of warm water and watch those benefits start to take effect!
According to Ayurvedic experts, honey is an excellent Yogavahi, which means you can add other beneficial ingredients to it without changing its own properties. In Ayurveda, honey is often combined with Tirkatu or Triphala to aid weight loss. Some common ingredients usually combined with honey are:
Cinnamon – Cinnamon has antimicrobial, antioxidant and antiparasitic effects. Make sure you use Ceylon cinnamon and not cassia.
Lemon – Lemons are rich in Vitamin C which cleanses the liver and improves metabolism.
You’ve probably heard of people trying out the honey-warm water routine religiously every morning and not seeing any change. The explanation for this is quite simple – the honey you use has to be absolutely pure and raw. Regular supermarket honey that is diluted with other substances will not offer these benefits since most of them are due to the antioxidants and plant compounds in unprocessed, unpasteurized honey.
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