The Goji Berry is a natural product that has been used for hundreds and thousands of years in Chinese traditional medicine. It is also a product commonly sold at health food stores.
Both China and the certain regions in the Himalayas are where the goji berry is most commonly found and produced. The berries are very small in size, a vibrant red in their coloration, and are very delicate and sensitive to the touch. For this reason, the berries cannot be plucked or picked from their plant, but rather they must be gently shaken off of the goji plant until they simply fall off. Afterwards, they are placed in the sun and left to dry.
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.
This index is extremely important to look at when deciding what foods to eat. It tells us the rate at which food is converted or processed by our bodies into blood sugar, or glucose. The lower the glycemic index or GI, the slower the process for converting into blood sugar is. A major problem with a lot of the sugary and starchy foods that we like to eat is that they have very high glycemic indices, which means that they quickly become blood sugar. This can be problematic for weight loss, as blood sugar levels will spike high.
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!
The other side effect of this unstable blood sugar level is that you don’t feel energetic and so you will not feel up to performing regular exercise. As a result, you have the perfect storm for staying overweight: a high desire for fatty foods, and a low desire to exercise. This is a recipe for disaster.
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 contain a number of nutrients that aid in turning food into energy, and not allowing it to become stored body fat. These nutrients include: thiamin, calcium, copper, phosphorus, sodium and zinc.
When we are younger, our bodies are naturally producing growth hormones which help to keep us slim. As we age, our bodys become less efficient at generating growth hormone which leads to less muscle tissue being formed and the greater formation of body fat. Goji Berries contain amino acids and potassium, both of which help us to produce higher levels of growth hormone.
As great as the goji berry is, it is not the sole solution to diet and weight loss, and they do not claim to be. However they can be helpful when used in conjunction with a good diet and exercise plan including meal replacement plans like 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.
