Does The Goji Berry Aid In Weight Loss?

November 9, 2009 Filed Under: Dieting

The Goji Berry is a natural product that is used in the health food industry. It has also been used for centuries in Chinese traditional medicine.

Grown in both China and in certain areas of the Himalayas, the goji plant produces berries that are relatively small, are a vibrant red in color, and are extremely delicate to the touch. As a matter of fact, they are so extremely delicate that the berries are not plucked from the plant, but rather must be shaken off of the plant very gently. After they are taken from the plant, they are allowed to dry in the plentiful sunshine.

Most recently, the goji berry has been said to assist in the weight loss process; weight loss and medical experts believe that this is due to their low Glycemic index.

The Glycemic index describes that speed at which the foods that we eat are converted into blood sugar or glucose. The lower the Glycemic Index (GI) of a food, the slower the rate at which it converts into blood sugar. One of the big problems that most people encounter in relation to diet and weight control is the craving and urges to eat sugary, starchy foods that have a high GI index. What happens then, when we give in to the craving and indulge our desire, is that blood sugar levels soar or spike.

In order to combat high blood sugar levels, the body generates insulin with the help of the pancreas. The ultimate result is that the blood sugar level goes down very quickly. The bad news of course is that this causes the body to feel hungry again and make you crave more sugary and starchy foods, and the cycle begins again!

Along with the unstable level of blood sugar in the body, you get a feeling of tiredness and have a lack of energy which means that the body will not feel like exercising. Now you have the perfect conditions for being overweight: a low desire to exercise and a high desire to eat all the wrong foods.

Look back now at the goji berry, we can see that it compares favorably to healthy foods in terms of its glycemic index; its index is 29, apples are 38, and oranges, 42. In addition to a low GI, goji berries have other wonderful content that make them extremely healthy including fiber, which helps control blood sugar levels and chromium, which can do the same thing but also helps maintain muscle mass, even while the body is shedding pounds. Because muscles use up more calories than fat, this helps the body’s metabolism.

Goji berries also have a plethora of nutrients that assist in converting food into energy and riding the body of fat including thiamin, calcium, phosphorus, copper, zinc, and sodium.

While we are young, the body produces lots of growth hormones which help to keep us slender. However, as we grow older, our bodies stop growing and generate fewer growth hormones which results in small amounts of newly formed muscle tissue and greater amounts of newly created body fat. Goji berries contain amino acids and potassium, which help the body to create more growth hormones.

However, good as they may be, Goji Berries are not in themselves a diet, nor do they purport to be. But they can be very useful in the weight loss process if they are taken in conjunction with a genuine weight loss product such as Medifast.

Medifast is a leading weight loss and meal replacement program, and if used along with the goji berry should enhance the program’s affects for your body and stimulate more weight loss.

Goji berries alone will not cause you to lose a lot of weight. However, when used in their supplemental capacity, the results can be astonishing.

Dorthy Weatherbush is a leading expert in diet and weight loss for both men and women. She has used the Medifast diet plan in conjunction with the goji berry to help her customers achieve optimal results. In addition to Medifast , Dorthy utilizes lots of cardio activity and weight training to get her customers the bodies of their dreams.