Fight Weight with Calcium

You've seen more then enough milk moustaches to iknow that calcium strengthens your bones, but did you know that calcium can also firm up you gut?

Researchers at Harvard Medical School showed that those who ate three servings of dairy a day, which in conjunction with other foods provided about 1,200 milligrams of calcium (about the daily recommendation) were 60 percent less likely to be overweight. In studies at the University of Tennessee, researchers put subjects on diets that were 500 calories a day less than what they were used to eating.  The subjects lost weight, about 1 pound of fat a week. But when researchers put another set of subjects on the same diet but added dairy to their meals, their fat loss doubled, to 2 pounds a week. Same calorie intake, double the fat loss.

Calcium seems to limit the amount of new fat your body can make, according the University of Tennessee research team. Some researchers speculate that dairy calcium helps fight fat because it increases the thermic effect of eating, in other words, you burn more calories digesting calcium-rich foods that you would if you ate something with equal calories but no calcium.