Magnesium: the super mineral to improve your health and optimize weight loss
You might be wondering how one little mineral can make such a difference in your weight loss and health journey, but magnesium is special. Magnesium is responsible for over 600 functions within our bodies and most Americans are deficient in it and don’t even know!
Because magnesium is responsible for so many parts of our health, a deficiency can cause multiple problems, which can all be linked to weight gain! In this comprehensive guide to magnesium and weight loss you’ll learn just what magnesium is and how it might be the answer to your weight loss woes.
What is magnesium?
Magnesium is a mineral that plays a vital role in our bodies. It’s responsible for producing energy, regulating blood sugar, conducting nerve impulses and muscle contractions, and many, many other important chemical reactions.
Magnesium plays an important role in the body structure as well. Bones and teeth are mostly comprised of magnesium and it’s used to keep muscles soft and relaxed. It can even be found in our soft tissues and blood.
Our bodies use magnesium to
Convert food into energy
Create new proteins from amino acids
Regulate neurotransmitters
Create and repair DNA and RNA
Long story short, magnesium is essential to our overall health. Our bodies don’t produce magnesium, we absorb it through the foods we eat.
How to know if you’re deficient in magnesium
The importance of magnesium is pretty obvious, but what we don’t realize is that most adults are deficient in magnesium. Studies have shown that half of adults aren’t getting the necessary amounts of magnesium to support healthy functions.
According to the National Institute of Health, signs of a magnesium deficiency include loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting, fatigue, and weakness. If you are severely lacking magnesium you will also see numbness, tingling, muscle contraction and cramps, seizures, personality changes, abnormal heart rhythms and coronary spasms. Consistent stress is also a leading cause of low magnesium levels.
It’s most likely that you are deficient in magnesium if you don’t eat a high-magnesium diet, but you should always check with your doctor before making serious diet or supplement changes.
Benefits of magnesium
When our bodies have the magnesium they need to carry out their many functions we see amazing health benefits. Some of these things we assume are normal parts of being a woman, mom or just life, in general, can be fixed with magnesium!
Relaxed muscles
Magnesium plays a huge role in the contraction and relaxation of muscles. Calcium is the nutrient that contracts our muscles and then magnesium follows up to cause the muscle to relax.
Most people eat enough calcium to help this process, but because they are lacking in magnesium, the muscles can’t fully relax. If you suffer from stiff, tight muscles, then you are probably lacking in magnesium.
A lot of people turn to intense stretching, foam rolling, deep massages and more to relax the muscles. While these may help slightly, without magnesium, these are just bandaids.
Better sleep
A lack of magnesium can cause sleep problems including insomnia. Magnesium is responsible for relaxing the muscles and when you’re deficient in it you’re unable to fully relax. This includes relaxing your mind! Your mind can’t relax if muscles are still firing or have too much tension.
Magnesium also regulates hormones, including melatonin which is responsible for sleep and wake cycles. With enough magnesium, you will be able to get enough sleep because your body will finally be on a consistent sleep cycle.
When you have adequate levels of magnesium, not only will you fall asleep easier, but you will have better sleep overall. Magnesium blocks more excitable molecules from the nervous system which allows for more restful sleep! Who doesn’t want better sleep? This is like a mama dream come true!
Anxiety & depression relief
Anxiety, depression and mood, in general, are all linked to muscle tension. When the muscles are tight and can’t relax it can increase feelings of anxiety. As we already discussed, muscle tension is directly affected by magnesium. If we can get the muscles to relax it can decrease those feelings!
On top of that, anxiety can even be the cause of your magnesium deficiency. The fight or flight reaction causes us to dump magnesium as magnesium allows neurons in the brain to fire faster than normal. This is fine when we are only in the fight or flight stage for a short period of time, but in our day and age, we spend more time in this state than humans used to.
Our fast-paced lives of working, keeping up with our kids’ demanding schedules and trying to have it all causes us to experience more stress than our bodies can keep up with. Which means we’re burning through magnesium faster trying to deal with all the stress.
Increasing your magnesium intake can help reduce the stress and its effects on the body, but if that’s not enough you may need to make lifestyle changes to help stop the constant depletion of magnesium.
How does magnesium aid in weight loss
Have you been connecting the dots as we’ve been talking about magnesium? Studies haven’t proven that magnesium directly correlates to weight loss, but it does correlate to a lot of issues that both cause weight gain and weight loss.
Our weight is directly affected by our sleep, stress, exercise and food. You’ve seen how we can improve our sleep and decrease our stress by getting enough magnesium. Next, it’s time to talk about how magnesium plays a role in exercise and diet.
Magnesium can boost our performance during exercise by moving blood sugar into the muscles to dispose of lactate. Lactate builds up causing fatigue during exercise. Studies have shown that triathlon participants who had increased levels of magnesium had better running, swimming and cycling times.
Finally, we consume magnesium through our diet. Magnesium is found in a lot of whole foods because it’s a mineral that comes from the soil and the sea. If you eat a diet rich in whole foods, you’ll be at less of a risk for magnesium deficiency and you’ll probably be eating healthier in general!
When you combine a well-balanced diet, exercise, sufficient sleep, and less stress together, you’ll have a healthy life and will see weight loss.
Magnesium sources
As I said before, our bodies don’t produce magnesium, we have to consume magnesium in order to replace what we use. The first way we do that is through our diet. Nutrient-rich foods should always be the first source for getting our vitamins and minerals.
Magnesium-rich foods include:
Nuts (Almond, cashews, peanuts)
Spinach
Black beans
Whole grains
Fish
Oatmeal
Yogurt
Edamame
Bananas
Potatoes
If you eat a diet that is high in magnesium you will be better off, but it still might not be enough. Our soil isn’t as magnesium-rich as it once was, which means the food we grow is lower in magnesium.
If you can’t get enough magnesium from your diet, you can add in a magnesium supplement. There are lots of options for supplements, some can be taken orally and some can be used topically as creams, lotions and bath flakes.
Oral supplements usually come in four different varieties: magnesium glycinate, magnesium malate, magnesium citrate and magnesium threonate. Each of these has different benefits:
Magnesium glycinate is best for muscle tension, sleep and gut health.
Magnesium malate is best for increasing energy
Magnesium citrate is best for muscle cramps and relaxation.
Magnesium threonate is best for memory, brain health and learning.
You can choose which of these benefits you need the most and use that form of magnesium, but you can also do some of each!
You should always consult your doctor before starting any of these. Too much magnesium can have side effects, the most common being diarrhea. For optimal health benefits, you need to have the right amount of magnesium, not too much or too little.
As you can see, magnesium is an extremely important nutrient and plays a vital role in our overall health. If you think you may be deficient in magnesium, see your doctor for testing. It could be a solution to a lot of the health and weight loss problems you’re experiencing. If you need help getting more magnesium in your diet, let’s talk! Schedule a free discovery call with me and we can chat about getting your diet on track.
