Does caffeine make us have more energy even though it doesn’t have many calories? Does it make our bodies use up fat that is already stored? Where does the extra energy from caffeine come from?

Question

Does caffeine make us have more energy even though it doesn’t have many calories? Does it make our bodies use up fat that is already stored? Where does the extra energy from caffeine come from?

In: 2234

Answer 1

Consider this: People sometimes take various stimulants — including caffeine (from coffee, tea, or soda), nicotine (tobacco), ephedrine (ma huang), or amphetamines — when they want to lose weight.

This is partly because these drugs reduce appetite: they make you want to eat less food.

But it’s also partly because they make you more “energetic”, in the sense of moving around rather than sitting still. And moving around burns calories. If you’re eating less food, and burning more calories, you’re likely to lose weight.

However, this turns out to be not very sustainable for the body. If you use stimulants often, you get addicted — you feel sick or blah when you don’t take them, and they don’t have the same effect any more. (Instead of coffee making you feel energetic, it just relieves your caffeine-withdrawal headache.)

So people end up either eating more food later on, or having episodes of feeling terrible from drug withdrawal, or getting really sick from taking more and more drugs.