Maintaining a healthy weight is one of the biggest factors in having good overall health. Here are several reasons for Vitamin A for Weight Loss.
Being overweight or underweight can lead to many unfortunate and even life-threatening conditions or diseases.
Despite best efforts, it can sometimes be difficult to maintain a healthy weight, especially in a modern society where eating processed and fast food is the norm.
Many processed and fast foods have little nutritional value, meaning that they lack the essential vitamins and minerals that help keep our systems in balance.
When this system breaks down, it starts to cause a chain reaction of problems that can lead to unsightly and unhealthy weight gain.
For example, fatigue is a side effect of eating a lot of food with no nutritional value. Fatigue can lead to less physical activity and lack of physical activity can lead to weight gain. For this reason, taking the right amount of vitamins is very important for weight loss.
One vitamin, in particular, vitamin A, is usually not thought of when it comes to regulating our weight. Vitamin A is usually used for a variety of more aesthetic reasons.
In this guide, we'll tell you why vitamin A is important for maintaining a healthy weight, how vitamin A can help you lose weight if you're overweight, and how you can ensure that you're getting the recommended daily amount of vitamin A.
How Does Vitamin A Affect Weight Loss?
Vitamin A is not a specific weight loss agent. With vitamin A, you don't have to burn fat, get a caffeine boost and take pills.
It is more of an indirect related effect in helping a person lose weight. Vitamin A provides a lot of cellular support to the organs which can help your body at a metabolic rate.
You can compare Vitamin A to a pit crew in a race – the driver and car do all the work but sometimes they have to stop and fix their car. If there were no pit crew, they could still walk—for a while—but eventually, they would run out of fuel and the car would break down.
This is how Vitamin A helps you with weight loss. It is a support system that helps you reach the finish line of weight loss. In the next section, we'll give you three reasons to consider vitamin A in your weight loss plan.
1. Vitamin A as Antioxidant
You may often hear about antioxidants. Many people know that antioxidants are good for their bodies, but have no idea what they are or what they do.
Antioxidants help to clean up harmful waste in our digestive system, especially free radicals. Free radicals are substances that come from external sources, but can also be generated internally.
Free radicals are able to bind to your cells and damage them. They can even cause serious conditions like cancer.
So how can scavenging free radicals help you with your weight loss journey? Although there is no direct link between antioxidants and weight loss, foods that supply antioxidants are healthy and low in calories, and also contain a good supply of other vitamins[5]. If you make sure that you have a good supply of antioxidants in your body from your eating habits, you will automatically eat foods that are great for weight loss.
2. Vitamin A for Heart Health
Having a healthy heart is important for weight loss. First, your body is going through radical changes when you lose weight so your heart must be strong enough to deal with it. Another consideration is that you will most likely be exercising on your weight loss journey, so you need your heart to be in top shape for that.
Like antioxidants, vitamin A doesn't directly keep your heart in shape for weight loss and exercise, but it has been shown to help prevent certain conditions that will affect your ability to lose weight and/or exercise safely.
Hypertrophy is one of these conditions. Hypertrophy is an enlargement of the heart. More specifically, it is a response to certain internal or external stimuli such as hypertension. It can also be caused by and/or exacerbated by mutations in the sarcomere gene. Hypertrophy is rarely (very rarely) a good thing – it can sometimes normalize wall tension, but in general, it is very bad and can lead to death.
Research has shown that retinoic acid, a vitamin A derivative, can suppress sarcomere gene mutations. With suppression of the gene mutation, a person has a much less chance of developing hypertrophy which means they can safely exercise and meet their weight loss goals.
3. Vitamin A and Overall Health
Losing weight is difficult when you are not feeling well. If your body is not running at its best, efficiency can be compromised and all the exercise you do may be less efficient than you think. It would be a waste of time and effort.
Vitamin A has a major impact on the immune system. It helps fight infection which is especially important when you are working out in the gym because people spread a lot of germs. You also need a strong immune system to help your muscles recover from heavyweight training.
Being able to recover from exercise helps you with your weight loss because you can keep going. In a sense, vitamin A is what keeps your weight loss going.
How Can I Get Enough Vitamin A Every Day?
Vitamin A is abundant in many healthy foods, especially colorful vegetables. It is one of the most abundant vitamins you can find in a healthy diet. If you're focused on losing weight, you're probably already eating a lot of these foods so you won't have to change much to get your recommended daily dose. Foods rich in vitamin A tend to be very rich in vitamin A. It can have more than 100 percent of the daily recommended amount.