MCT oil, made from fats, are quickly used for energy instead of being stored as excess flab, are an overlooked and underrated nutritional supplement. This is a shame since it has so many benefits! It’s great for those of us who want to perform our best when we train, are wanting to lose fat, improve focus, and optimize our overall health.
This article lists and details the top 12 benefits of MCT oil. After reading you will understand how they may be able to help you look and feel your best.
Table of Contents
12 Benefits Of MCTs
1. MCTs Can Help You Train Harder, Longer
This is especially true if you follow a low carbohydrate diet. My favorite pre-workout supplement, especially when I am feeling too tired to train is 1-2 tablespoons of MCT oil.
Taking them 15-20 minutes pre-workout produces an instant shot of energy without causing a spike in blood glucose like sugar rich pre-workout supplements. This means that you won’t feel a huge crash in energy during or after your training session.
I like to take 10 grams of branched chain amino acids with my MCTs. They give me additional energy and diminish post-workout soreness.
Working out more intensely is another MCT Oil benefit
2. MCTs Can Help You Shed Excess Fat
An analysis of all of the weight loss related studies on MCTs finds they do increase your metabolism and the calories you burn from stored body fat throughout the day.
When taken every day, you can lose a couple extra pounds a month, not including what you may also shed from diet and exercise. Eating MCTs and spicy foods together increases the calories you burn too.
3. MCTs Give You More Energy
Energy is Another MCT Oil Benefit
This is what makes MCTs so great to take before a workout or do some other type of demanding physical or mental labor. Within 15-20 minutes of taking MCTs you will feel a huge boost in energy throughout your body.
This effect can last for several hours and doesn’t come with any jittery feelings of energy draining crash. What you should notice are more endurance and the ability to more easily concentrate and focus while working or watching a movie.
4. MCTs Help You Feel Full Between Meals
My wife loves MCTs for this reason. She takes a tablespoon in the morning, either alone or with coffee and remains full and craving free until midafternoon. Doing this enables her to skip breakfast and stay in fat burning mode instead. This single benefit is what helps her stay lean, strong, and super fit year round.
Give them a try for yourself and see just how much MCT oil keeps hunger and cravings at bay.
5. MCTs Boost Brainpower
Boosting brain power Is another MCT Oil benefit
Caprylic acid, one of the fats in MCT oil is especially good at creating more energy for our brain. This is why you may often feel more focused and alert after taking an MCT oil supplement.
I’m always on the lookout for ways to increase alertness and focus when I work. Especially for writing. Taking a tablespoon of MCTs does the trick. Within 15 minutes I feel a greater sense of focus and am able to work without getting distracted.
If you drink coffee, try adding MCT oil to your next cup. The best way is to blend it which actually makes a frothy, cappuccino like drink. This is how we drink it every morning. The energy you get from a cup is strong but not anxiety inducing and lasts for several hours. One cup a day is all I ever need.
6. MCTs Curb Your Cravings For Sweets
One of the biggest diet killers are cravings for sugar and carbohydrate rich foods like bread, cookies, and pizza. Just typing the names of these foods is making me think about eating a pizza and a dozen chocolate chip cookies! Taking MCT oil helps get rid of these cravings.
Get Your MCT Oil Benefits – Drizzle It On Food MCTs Are Tasteless And Odorless
Here’s another thing that makes this supplement so great. They literally have no taste or scent. This makes MCT oil great to take off a spoon, add to a protein shake, or drizzle on food. All you’ll get is the power of MCTs without having to choke down something that smells and tastes worse than dirty socks.
Another benefit of this is that adding MCTs to your food can help you stay in nutritional ketosis – if that’s your thing – even if you consume too many carbs.
8. MCTs Make Low Carb Dieting Easier
I tried in vain to stick to a low carbohydrate diet for several years and always ended up caving in to my cravings after a few weeks. Sometimes I would only make it a couple of days.
Supplementing my diet with MCT oil eliminated this problem. Cravings happen rarely. When then do occur are usually little more than a fleeting thought.
The other reason MCTs are great to take when you’re on a low carbohydrate diet is that they make getting your body into a state of burning fat for fuel much easier. This can be difficult for many of us, even when we’re really cutting carbs to a bare minimum.
If you’re on the go and and MCT Oil is not convenient for you to take with you, there are alternatives! Read more about it in this article ‘What is MCT Powder And How It Can Help You!’
9. MCTs Are Good For Your Gut
MCT Oil Benefits Include Gut Health
Our intestines are teeming with bacteria. Don’t panic, this bacteria is supposed to be there and plays a major role in keeping us healthy. Many medical experts believe that the health of your digestive system determines is actually what determines much of our overall well being.
This is why it’s important to eat foods that give our intestines with the nutrients required for this health bacteria to grow. MCT Oil is one. This is because one of its fats, caprylic acid, kills off the bad stuff that may be growing in our guts so healthy bacteria to grow.
10. MCTs Can Prevent Muscle Loss
Preventing Muscle Loss Is Another MCT Oil Benefit
While most of us want to build muscle and strength, there are also times when preventing muscle loss is even more important. One is when you’re dieting to lose weight. Research finds that supplementing with about 2 tablespoons of MCT oil every day not only increases fat loss but also prevents us from losing our hard earned muscle. This way you lose the fat you want to get rid of and look and feel even better afterward since kept our muscle mass.
11. MCTs Are Super Stable
Since they’re stable at room temperature, you don’t have to worry about keeping it the refrigerator or worrying about it going rancid. Just make sure to keep the lid on it and it lasts for two years, five months!
Their stability also makes MCT oil convenient while on vacation or just running errands.
12. MCTs Make Intermittent Fasting (IF) Easier
In case you aren’t familiar, intermittent fasting is a way of eating that has been in practice for as long as we’ve been walking upright. Maybe longer. It has become popular again over the last couple of years, especially with life extension and optimal performance community.
It’s a simple way to eat. You eat a meal and then don’t eat again for 16-20 hours. You can drink calorie free drinks during your fast. Water is of course your best friend, but coffee would be acceptable, for example.
Taking MCT oil when during a fast can help keep you energized and any hunger pains at bay. Since every serving only has 130 calories and are immediately going to be used for energy, taking a tablespoon or two won’t ruin your fast.
If you haven’t been taking MCT Oil, please be patient and begin with 1/2 – 1 teaspoon. It can cause nausea or give you diarrhea!
Now that you know the many benefits of MCT oil supplements it’s up to you to give them a try for yourself. I hope it works as well for you as it does me.
When buying an MCT oil supplement, make sure you get one that only contains caprylic and capric acids. These are the fats that create the greatest increase in ketones and therefore have the most overall benefit.
The brand my wife and I use is MCT Edge. It’s made from coconuts and palm kernels that have been grown on the same land for at least 20 years. This means that the MCT oil they produce comes from ingredients whose farming isn’t hurting the environment, animals, or people in the area by deforesting and stripping away what they need to live.
I’ve been fascinated with human performance and striving to help myself and others perform our best since I was a skinny and weak 90 lb high school freshman. This led to studying exercise science and biochemistry in college and graduate school and working with countless men and women to get leaner, stronger, and fitter. I’ve also published more than 1,000 articles on physical fitness and performance for dozens of publications including: Stayfitcentral, Business Insider, Lifehack, and Breaking Muscle.
