Are you wondering which essential oils are the most powerful for weight loss? In this post, I reveal the top 3 most potent essential oils to help you lose weight!
I know what you might be thinking? Essential oils might be able to help me with weight loss? Really? I know!
I thought the same way. But please understand that it MAY HELP with weight loss. That doesn’t mean it will help with weight loss. I am not a doctor, so if the idea of ingesting essential oils wigs you out or makes you queasy, don’t do it.
However, I suspect though, that if you’re here you are intrigued to know which essential actually do help with weight loss right? If so, then let’s go ahead and get started.
What are essential oils?
So what are essential oils exactly?
Essential oils are chemical compounds that are found in the different parts of plants. The oils can be found in the stem, leaves, root, or seeds.
It just depends on the plant or even whether or not that plant contains essential oils. All plants are not so lucky as to have these cool chemical constituents in them (sad face).
Extracting essential oils from the plant while it might be something you could do at home, it’s highly unlikely that you would.
Essential oils are extracted from plants through methods like steam distillation, cold press extraction, and through the use of solvents.
Let’s say for example we wanted to try to get the essential oils out of a particular flower.
What the companies do to extract the oils is hang the flower over boiling hot water, collect the steam that now contains the essential oils of the flower, allows that steam to turn back into water, and then separates the essential oils from that water.
I hope that made sense but unless you’re like some kind of chemistry geek (I mean that in a nice way), you probably won’t be trying this at home.
I remember looking up how to make essential oils on YouTube years and years ago before I really knew what they were and I watched a video where they soaked flower petals in olive oil or some other carrier oils and then pronounced that they had just made essential oils.
Ummm, no, boo boo, no!
Even back then when I was a lot more ignorant about essential oils, I knew that wasn’t right. It just seemed too easy and now I know it was.
You can’t extract essential oils by placing petals in olive oil.
Which brings me to my next point…
Quality is everything because all “essential oils” are not essential oils
Essential oils like I already established, have to come from a plant. Unfortunately, not every bottle that claims to be filled with an essential oil is actually an essential oil.
The bottle may no doubt contain the chemical compounds from a plant but that doesn’t mean that’s all the bottle contains.
There are some fake essential oils running around out there.
Where You Can Buy Real Essential Oils
There are people who run chemical analysis on some of these essential oils especially ones you find on Amazon and they tell you that they are fake .
One of the brands on there actually shocked me because they are so highly touted as being one of the best essential oil brands.
That’s why it really does matter where we get the essential oils we use in and on our bodies.
I get most of my essential oils from Puritans Pride because they have awesome prices and I know I can trust them because of their reputation.
What essential oils can’t do
But let’s be clear on some things. I believe essential oils can help support you in your weight loss journey meaning it can play a role in your journey.
However, I don’t think you can eat a bunch of junk food and then breathe in essential oils and lose weight. No matter what, our lifestyles will have to change which can be so hard for us to do.
It’s hard for me to do.
That’s why I advocate for making one small sustainable change at a time and letting those small changes add up to big results. Now I’ll admit that I was very skeptical that they really could help you.
It seemed like a scam however, after doing my research I’ve been very encouraged by it.
So, no using essential oils alone will not make you lose 50 pounds but I believe there are some ways to use essential oils to make your weight loss journey easier.
Now, it would be awesome if all essential oils helped with weight loss but that’s not the case of course.
There are only certain ones that can assist you in your weight loss journey. Let’s find out which ones.
The Top 3 Essential Oils That Help With Weight Loss
1) Grapefruit.
I’ll be honest with you. Grapefruit is one of my least favorite fruits. It may actually be my least favorite.
However, I can’t deny the weight loss boosting benefits of this fruit either so it’s no surprise that the essential oils from the fruit are also beneficial for weight loss.
There is a compound in the peel of grapefruit called limonene and it does some amazing things. Read this quote from self-hacked (they have sources, as well)
“…decreased the size of fat cells, reduced glucose and fat levels in the blood, and decreased the accumulation of fat in the liver of mice fed high-fat diets [R].In obese mice, limonene lowered blood sugar levels, reduced the amount of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, and raised the level of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol in the blood [R]. Limonene also reduced overall appetite and increased breakdown of fat cells, leading to weight loss in rats [R].”
Whoa!
See what I mean… limonene ain’t no joke!
And the limonene makes up 85 to 95% of grapefruit essential oil so it’s literally bursting with this powerful compound that can help us in our weight loss journey.
We definitely want to get this essential oil in our collection.
2. Cinnamon essential oil
If you are diabetic, prediabetic, or know anything at all about diabetes then it probably won’t be a surprise to you that cinnamon essential oil is on the list.
I’ve been using cinnamon capsules for years and it helped me reverse my prediabetes and it helps my diabetic grandmother keep her blood sugar under control.
Studies done on animals and humans in regard to cinnamon have shown that it helps reduce blood sugar, lipids, and insulin levels.
It has also been shown to help offset some of the symptoms that of insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes.
But what does cinnamon essential oil have to do with weight loss?
Good question!
When your blood sugar levels are all over the place, you can feel constant hunger. I remember when I was prediabetic. I could probably eat a 1,000 or more calorie meal and still be hungry in an hour or two.
I just felt hungry all the time. And I would eat trying to satisfy that hunger but it never worked.
So I would eat a lot of calories, steadily gaining more weight but never being filled. And my blood sugar was going haywire.
It’s seemed like a never-ending cycle:
you’re hungry and craving unhealthy food so you eat unhealthy food and a lot of it and then your blood sugar goes crazy, causing you to be hungry and so you eat more unhealthy food
And on and on it goes.
Well, cinnamon can help break this vicious cycle.
It can help your blood sugar not spike so much which keeps you from feeling so hungry you could probably eat all the contents of the refrigerator and still not be satisfied.
And the less hungry you truly are the less you will eat and the more weight you can lose.
And that hunger was even worse around my PMS and my period.
So if your experiencing that kind of gnawing hunger any time of the month but especially around that time of the month, you definitely want to get some cinnamon essential oil!
3. Ginger essential oil
Ginger is basically a superfood so it’s no shock that it would wind up on this list. Ginger is probably most known for its ability to calm our stomachs when we feel nauseous or seasick.
And I honestly didn’t know that it could be so helpful with other health issues until a few years ago.
Ginger root comes from the Zingiber officinale plant and it has a very spicy and strong flavor.
I didn’t look this up but I’m wondering if there’s something inherent in these spices in general that kickstart weight loss into high gear but I digress.
Well, ginger has a component called gingerol in it that does rev up those fat-burning fires.
A study done on rats who were fed a high-fat diet showed that gingerol “suppresses obesity induced by a high-fat diet” and maybe a promising treatment for obesity and its complications.
We’ve covered a lot for today. In the next post, I’m going to show you how you can use these essential oils in your weight loss journey, where you can get them and the additional supplies you’ll need to get started.