A balanced diet full of vitamins and minerals is essential for good health. But did you know that some of those vitamins help you maintain a healthy weight? Vitamin B6 in particular can help you if you’re trying to lose or maintain a healthy weight. Vitamin B6 is so important to this process that Mia Aesthetics adds it to the skinny shots we use to help our patients lose weight and reach a healthy BMI for surgery.
What is Vitamin B6?
There are eight essential B vitamins required for your health, and B6 is one of them. Also known as pyridoxine, vitamin B6 is a water-soluble vitamin that leaves your body in your urine if you ingest more than your body can use. Because of this you must constantly replenish your vitamin B6 supply — your body doesn’t store the vitamin.
Vitamin B6 assists with more than 100 different enzymatic reactions in your body, which makes it an important vitamin to incorporate into your diet. It even helps your body make neurotransmitters, hemoglobin, and DNA.
What are the Benefits of Vitamin B6 for Weight Loss?
Vitamin B6 can aid your weight loss journey in two key ways. One is by helping you use your food more efficiently so you get more energy from it. The other is by helping your body process and break down stored fat.
More Efficient Use of Food
Vitamin B6 helps your body break down proteins and carbohydrates during the digestion process. These are the fuels your body uses for energy, and breaking them down more efficiently can help increase the amount of energy you have. This means that vitamin B6 can ultimately give you an energy boost while reducing feelings of tiredness and fatigue. This makes it easier to get motivated and meet your exercise goals. It also helps your body store unused energy from proteins and carbohydrates so you can tap into it later when you need it.
Breaking Down Fat
Fat is simply a potential source of energy that your body stores for a rainy day when food isn’t readily available. In order to lose weight, you need your body to burn this excess fat rather than continuing to store it. Vitmain B6 is one of the tools your body uses during the process of turning that stored fat into energy. If you don’t have enough vitamin B6, your body may struggle to get rid of the fat.
How Can You Get Vitamin B6 in Your Diet Naturally?
Many foods are rich in vitamin B6, and you should be sure to include them in your diet. Many meats are an excellent source of vitamin B6, including tuna, beef, chicken, turkey, salmon, and shrimp. Tofu is also a good source of B6. You’ll also find lots of the vitamin in:
- Beans
- Bananas
- Brown rice
- Carrots
- Spinach
- Sunflower seeds
- Milk
- Cheese
- Eggs
- Potatoes
- Sweet potatoes
- Avocados
- Pistachios
- Green peas
How Much Vitamin B6 Do You Need Per Day?
Men up to 50 years of age should strive for 1.3 milligrams of vitamin B6 daily. At age 51, men should increase their intake to 1.7 milligrams per day. Women should also strive for 1.3 milligrams a day up until the age of 50, after which they should also increase their vitamin B6 intake as well. They need not go quite as far as men, however. After 50, women need only 1.5 milligrams of vitamin B6 per day. During pregnancy and breastfeeding, women should increase their vitamin B6 intake to about 2 milligrams a day.
It is possible to have too much of a good thing, and even vitamins can become toxic at high levels. It is difficult to overdose on vitamin B6, however, as the established upper limit for adults is 100 milligrams a day.
Can You Get Vitamin B6 Injections?
A vitamin B6 injection can help boost your weight loss efforts, but the vitamin alone will not cause you to lose weight. We combine weight loss drugs with vitamin B6 to help promote even faster weight loss results and then send the medication to you for easy at-home administration.