Why Would Calcium + Vitamin C Supplement Make Me Lose A Lot Of Weight?

[success23]

Hello.
Recently i bought and took a supplement that contained 250 mg of calcium carbonate and 500 mg of ascorbic acid in effervescent tablet.
I took two effervescent tablets on empty stomach for about a week. I dropped around 3 kilograms with no change in my diet. A lot of my collegues noticed it.

Any idea why this is happening? Maybe because of better calcium:phosphorous balance?

 

[rob]

Hello.
Recently i bought and took a supplement that contained 250 mg of calcium carbonate and 500 mg of ascorbic acid in effervescent tablet.
I took two effervescent tablets on empty stomach for about a week. I dropped around 3 kilograms with no change in my diet. A lot of my collegues noticed it.

Any idea why this is happening? Maybe because of better calcium:phosphorous balance?

Well on the calcium supplemention, Ca precipitates fatty acids and bile thus decreasing fat absorption and increasing its excretion.

 

[redsun]

Hello.
Recently i bought and took a supplement that contained 250 mg of calcium carbonate and 500 mg of ascorbic acid in effervescent tablet.
I took two effervescent tablets on empty stomach for about a week. I dropped around 3 kilograms with no change in my diet. A lot of my collegues noticed it.

Any idea why this is happening? Maybe because of better calcium:phosphorous balance?

Top 4 Calcium benefits. #2 Helps with fat loss

I dont think the calcium change is enough to significantly affect it though calcium may increase how many calories you burn. 1g a week of vitamin C may be enough though. Vitamin C is needed in carnitine synthesis and carnitine carries fat into mitochondria to be burned so that's probably the most likely explanation why.

 

[rob]

Yep, as redsun alluded to, extra vitamin C will significantly improve fat oxidation if you had low levels.

 

[success23]

I was taking in the the morning and had my first meal at lunch.
I have been taking ALCAR in the past with no results.

 

[redsun]

I was taking in the the morning and had my first meal at lunch.
I have been taking ALCAR in the past with no results.

Making carnitine internally beats supplementing it. Such is the case with everything basically.

 

[success23]

Guess i will have to try seperate experimentation with both calcium and vitamin c

 

[redsun]

Guess i will have to try seperate experimentation with both calcium and vitamin c

Just a word of caution: be wary and dont too crazy with vitamin C intake. More is not automatically better. It may be better initally but eventually you will deplete other cofactors if you aren't aware of them. Carnitine needs methionine, lysine, vitamin C, iron, B6, zinc off the top of my head.

 

[lampofred]

Dr. Peat says calcium is the "single most important thing for losing weight." It stimulates metabolism and turns off fatty acid synthase.

 

[Rafael Lao Wai]

Dr. Peat says calcium is the "single most important thing for losing weight." It stimulates metabolism and turns off fatty acid synthase.

Haidut said that calcium carbonate stimulates metabolism a lot. Maybe the carbonate part played a significant role too, in conjunction with the calcium.

 

[foodandtheworld]

I just came across an older post describing similar weight loss effects from Vitamin C:

I read an article where high doses of vitamin C administered intravenously over a few weeks caused loss of fat tissue in a couple of bodybuilders, which is obviously a positive effect. The oral and intravenous modes of administration differ because oral vitamin C increases the absorption of iron. If there is pure vitamin C free of heavy metals, which I'm not sure is available at this point, and it's administered by IV in a hospital, I think it would be clearly beneficial. However, hospitals don't do this (hopefully just "yet"), and vitamin C is highly contaminated today.

I tried to quickly search for the article but didn't find it.

Another forum member noticed a similar effect of vitamin C:
Gallbladder
"I also noticed that when I am taking Vitamin C my weight loss does pick up a bit."

 

[success23]

Sadly taking the supplement again failed to produce any weightloss

 

[Amazoniac]

- Second meal effects of dietary calcium and vitamin D

"We have recently documented that an acute increase in dietary calcium (both dairy and elemental) resulted in a significantly lesser suppression of circulating non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA) (Cummings et al., 2006). This was accompanied by greater whole body fat oxidation following calcium. In the present study, we sought to understand whether increases in calcium and vitamin D at breakfast, could modify the response to a standard lunch (SL)."

Spoiler: Meal compositions

"Calcium and vitamin D were increased through the use of specially formulated UHT (ultra-heat treatment) milks."

Spoiler

"Change between fasting and fed states for the breakfast meals was calculated as the percentage change from fasting value over 4 h. As the intervals of measurement in the postprandial period were equal, this summary statistic was analogous to determining the incremental area under the curve (Mathews et al., 1990). All metabolic end points following breakfast had returned to baseline values by 4th hours, except serum ionized calcium (iCa2+) and intact parathyroid hormone (iPTH). The postprandial change following lunch hence utilized the breakfast 4th hour value as baseline."

Spoiler: Changes in blood markers

They were colored this way because there are factors (such as meal composition and timing) that make a comparison of same meals (low and high killcium days) more reliable than previous and next meals.

"At 4 h following each breakfast, iCa2+ was still elevated, and iPTH was still significantly suppressed; suggesting that absorption of calcium from breakfast was not complete. This is supported by the observations that the fractional absorption of calcium at 3 and 7 h after a load is about 80 and 95%, respectively (Barger-Lux et al., 1989). Second meal effects, in part, may be due to spillover of calcium from breakfast to lunch."

"While NEFA was significantly suppressed following both breakfasts, the magnitude of the suppression was lesser following HCB and was significantly carried over to lunch (Table 3, Figure 3). The pattern of change in glycerol mimicked that of NEFA (Spearman’s r=0.52, P=0.04) but did not achieve statistical significance because of the small sample (Figures 3 and 4). Overall, they confirm our earlier observations that a high calcium breakfast meal produced a lesser suppression of NEFA without affecting insulinaemia (Cummings et al., 2006). In addition, they provide newer evidence to suggest that dietary calcium and vitamin D may also contribute to second meal effects (Figures 3 and 4)."

Spoiler: Free fatty acids and glycerol changes

Spoiler: Variations in dextrose and insulin levels

"Ingestion of calcium is expected to lower intracellular calcium and a reduction in intracellular calcium concentrations has been shown to stimulate lipolysis in human adipocytes (Xue et al., 1999). We acknowledge that systemic NEFA and glycerol concentrations are not the best quantitative indices of adipose tissue lipolysis (Coppack et al., 1994). However, higher postprandial NEFA (Cummings et al., 2004) and higher glycerol following calcium (Zemel et al., 2005a, b) are emerging as consistent findings in humans."​

 

[success23]

- Second meal effects of dietary calcium and vitamin D

"We have recently documented that an acute increase in dietary calcium (both dairy and elemental) resulted in a significantly lesser suppression of circulating non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA) (Cummings et al., 2006). This was accompanied by greater whole body fat oxidation following calcium. In the present study, we sought to understand whether increases in calcium and vitamin D at breakfast, could modify the response to a standard lunch (SL)."

Spoiler: Meal compositions

"Calcium and vitamin D were increased through the use of specially formulated UHT (ultra-heat treatment) milks."

View attachment 16707

Spoiler

View attachment 16708

"Change between fasting and fed states for the breakfast meals was calculated as the percentage change from fasting value over 4 h. As the intervals of measurement in the postprandial period were equal, this summary statistic was analogous to determining the incremental area under the curve (Mathews et al., 1990). All metabolic end points following breakfast had returned to baseline values by 4th hours, except serum ionized calcium (iCa2+) and intact parathyroid hormone (iPTH). The postprandial change following lunch hence utilized the breakfast 4th hour value as baseline."

Spoiler: Changes in blood markers

View attachment 16709

They were colored this way because there are factors (such as meal composition and timing) that make a comparison of same meals (low and high killcium days) more reliable than previous and next meals.

"At 4 h following each breakfast, iCa2+ was still elevated, and iPTH was still significantly suppressed; suggesting that absorption of calcium from breakfast was not complete. This is supported by the observations that the fractional absorption of calcium at 3 and 7 h after a load is about 80 and 95%, respectively (Barger-Lux et al., 1989). Second meal effects, in part, may be due to spillover of calcium from breakfast to lunch."

"While NEFA was significantly suppressed following both breakfasts, the magnitude of the suppression was lesser following HCB and was significantly carried over to lunch (Table 3, Figure 3). The pattern of change in glycerol mimicked that of NEFA (Spearman’s r=0.52, P=0.04) but did not achieve statistical significance because of the small sample (Figures 3 and 4). Overall, they confirm our earlier observations that a high calcium breakfast meal produced a lesser suppression of NEFA without affecting insulinaemia (Cummings et al., 2006). In addition, they provide newer evidence to suggest that dietary calcium and vitamin D may also contribute to second meal effects (Figures 3 and 4)."

Spoiler: Free fatty acids and glycerol changes

View attachment 16712


View attachment 16713

Spoiler: Variations in dextrose and insulin levels

View attachment 16714

View attachment 16715

"Ingestion of calcium is expected to lower intracellular calcium and a reduction in intracellular calcium concentrations has been shown to stimulate lipolysis in human adipocytes (Xue et al., 1999). We acknowledge that systemic NEFA and glycerol concentrations are not the best quantitative indices of adipose tissue lipolysis (Coppack et al., 1994). However, higher postprandial NEFA (Cummings et al., 2004) and higher glycerol following calcium (Zemel et al., 2005a, b) are emerging as consistent findings in humans."​

Thank you for the study.
I will do my experiment number 3.
I will take 750 mg of calcium and this time i will really track my calories to be 100% sure that i am in a deficit.
Hope i start losing weight again!

 

[success23]

So with a lot of experimentation and reading i concluded that the supplement made me lose a lot of WATER WEIGHT

 

[Andy316]

So with a lot of experimentation and reading i concluded that the supplement made me lose a lot of WATER WEIGHT

How is your weight now? Also how do you take your calcium carbonate?

 

[success23]

How is your weight now? Also how do you take your calcium carbonate?

During the time i took 500mg calcium carbonate ( there is citric acid in the eff.tablet so i guess it turns into calcium citrate in the water).
Stopped drinking coffee during that time and took 2 pills of gymnema sylvestre a day.

Weight is about 295 lb ( 134kg)

 

[marcar72]

So with a lot of experimentation and reading i concluded that the supplement made me lose a lot of WATER WEIGHT

High dose vitamin C supplementation had a diuretic effect on me as well.

 

[success23]

High dose vitamin C supplementation had a diuretic effect on me as well.

Isolated vitamin C doesn;t have this effect in me. As far as i know gymnema inhibits lipase so it lowers glycerol and glycerol hold water in the body. Also lipase is activated by adrenaline/cortisol and i have the habit of drinking coffee first thing in the morning without any sugar and that drives my stress hormones up.

Maybe i will try this one more time.

 

[Dr. B]

Just a word of caution: be wary and dont too crazy with vitamin C intake. More is not automatically better. It may be better initally but eventually you will deplete other cofactors if you aren't aware of them. Carnitine needs methionine, lysine, vitamin C, iron, B6, zinc off the top of my head.

I used vit c in 1-2g doses for years but stopped a year or so back. Im curious do you know if vitamin A, D3, K2, and E supplementation (and magnesium/zinc) also have cofactors involved? so basically supplementing any of these vitamins/minerals (besides maybe vitamin D3), would be depleting other nutrients or amino acids?