What Is Good Supplement For Losing Belly Fat?

While the flat belly diet advocates are creating a buzz with their advocacy of monounsaturated fatty acids, or MUFAs, there's a lesser known fatty acid that may have a significant impact on your waistline. Nationally-known nutritionist and best-selling nutrition author Ann Louise Gittleman recommends you utilize conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA, to lose belly fat. Always check with your doctor, however, before adding a new supplement to your regimen.

Significance

CLA helps your body gain muscle over fat, Gittleman says in her book, "The 40-30-30 Phenomenon." That's because it reduces your body's ability to store fat while promoting your body's ability to use stored fat. Lean muscle is more metabolically active than fat, meaning muscle burns more calories than fat, the nutritionist notes. CLA appears to work in many cases without other diet and lifestyle alterations, according to Gittleman. CLA also appears specifically to help people lose belly fat, according to Irish nutritionist Anne Collins.

Identification

CLA is an omega-6 fatty acid that you'll find in organic, grass-fed beef. It also exists in organic dairy products as well as lamb. Only animals that are grass fed contain CLA, according to the book, "Eat Fat, Lose Weight," by Gittleman and Dina Nunziato. Animals that are fed chemically-altered grain-based feeds are not rich in CLA, which is classified as a polyunsaturated fatty acid and acts as a strong antioxidant, notes the Sloan-Kettering Memorial Cancer Center in New York. Antioxidants can reduce inflammation in your body caused by free radicals.

Dosage and Time Frame

You can take CLA as a supplement. Gittleman recommends using 6g a day while you are losing weight. When you reach your goal, cut the amount you take in half to 3g daily. Most people have noticeable results after taking CLA for about six weeks, Gittleman notes. Collins recommends taking 3.4g daily to see results.

Expert Insight

The science to back CLA's effectiveness for people is mixed, according to SKMCC. When given to obese men during a randomized, double-blind trial, it produced a significant body fat mass reduction, says H. Blankson, lead author for a study published in "The Journal of Nutrition." A six-month study published in the "British Journal of Nutrition" found that taking CLA decreased body fat and increased or helped maintain lean body mass independent of exercise or diet, says lead author J.M. Gaullier. However, according to SKMCC, the effect is more questionable among healthy weight adults, such as non-obese women.

History

Prior to the 1970s, meat and dairy products contained ample amounts of CLA. However, when grain-fed livestock became the norm over grass-fed livestock, CLA intake by Americans dropped about 80 percent, Gittleman says.