Stick around the cannabis community long enough, and you’re bound to single handedly finish off dozens of junk food meals and king size candy bars. It comes with the territory when your substance of choice is the world’s most effective appetite stimulant.
Though “the munchies” are definitely real, science shows that using cannabis regularly can actually improve metabolism and generally help you maintain a healthy weight – in spite of higher calorie intake.
Researchers in Canada recently discovered that individuals in their obesity study who smoked marijuana actually had lower BMI (body mass index) and more efficient and consistent blood sugar levels than their non-smoking counterparts.
This isn’t new data!
Before that, in 2013, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey showed a similar strong correlation between those who self-identified as marijuana smokers and those with smaller waistlines and lower fasting insulin levels and insulin resistance levels.
Even a few years before this correlation was discovered, yet another study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology had hinted that obesity rates were about a third lower among pot smokers than among non-users.
So what makes cannabis so diet-friendly? For starters, it has zero calories in smoked or vaporized form.
The next key is in the relationship between your endocannabinoid system with your GI tract and other systems of the body. While it’s not clear exactly how they work, we already know that there are tons of CB1 and CB2 receptors located within the intestines and pelvic region, where several vital organs live, and that a mixture of stimulating and blocking these receptors seems to regulate the body almost perfectly.
Since cannabis has been linked to improvements in insulin regulation within the body, it could even prove effective as a potential treatment for diabetes, a disease that affects 29 million people in the United States alone.
Cannabis entrepreneurs Jane West and Kristen Williams collaborated to release an eBook earlier this year called “Coming Clean With Cannabis.” Within the eBook, they break down the ways that cannabis can supplement a healthy diet and weight loss program – especially while abstaining and “cleansing” from alcohol. With advice from making conscious diet choices to the various dosage levels in the medical cannabis world, it’s a groundbreaking look into a brand new lifestyle.
When compared with alcohol, the weight loss potential of cannabis is certainly huge.
If a person is a moderate to heavy drinker, he or she likely suffers from some degree of dehydration, making it extremely difficult to exercise those toxins out of the body, and other effects can take place in some of the internal organs, clogging up the body’s natural systems for properly disposing of fats. Big drinkers can end up feeling soft or even having a significant “beer belly.”
Conversely, there are many athletes who use cannabis daily and experience fantastic metabolic health benefits firsthand, as well as relief from pain and inflammation.
Your vodka might “hide” the pain, but it’ll never fix it.
It’s important to be realistic in communicating these types of scientific findings to others. Many of your friends may not believe you when you tell them this evidence exists, as it’s all so new, and the Canadian study in question wasn’t really looking for.
Cannabis is certainly not a panacea, and we have so much left to research as far as what is inside this plant, and inside our own bodies. However – those who use it are becoming more and more comfortable showing the world who they are, and so far, it looks like we’re all pretty damn healthy.
