Coconut oil is a must-have in the Livingood Daily household. It has so many different benefits, especially for the organs.
In this blog, I’ll go over 13 reasons you should include coconut oil in your daily regimen, as well as some ways that you can use it.
1. Burning Fat
Coconut oil cranks up the thermogenesis inside of your body, which feeds your brain and puts you in a fat-burning mode.
When you’re burning fat for fuel, you’re producing more ketones, which fuel your brain and can help boost mental clarity.
Medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) are very prominent in coconut oil, so adding this to your diet is a good idea.
It can increase your thermogenesis by up to 6%, and another study showed that coconut oil and MCTs help increase energy expenditure by up to 5%.
This means you’re burning off more energy than you’re eating and taking in.
My favorite way to get this in is in my morning coffee. You can blend it in with collagen or butter so it has some healthy fats.
You can find the recipe for my healthy proffee recipe here if you want to make it yourself!
2. Supports Microbes
Coconut oil kills bacteria, mainly because it’s high in what’s called lauric acid.
Lauric acid has been shown in studies to kill off build-ups of candida and harmful bacteria like staphylococcus.
When you ingest coconut oil into your body, it mixes with enzymes inside of your system and creates monolaurin.
Monolaurin is a powerhouse when it comes to fighting off invaders.
I often use a powdered form of monolaurin that’s mixed with oregano for a good 1-2 punch for any kind of immune flare-up, sore throat, or cold.
Adding coconut oil into your regimen, either orally or on the skin for surface-level bacteria, is a very good idea to fight it off.
3. Lubricant/Massage Oil
Coconut oil is actually a great alternative in the bedroom for any sort of lubricant or massaging oil.
It’s immune supporting and a more natural alternative. If you’re doing some kind of massage, coconut oil can help stimulate blood flow on the skin.
It’s a very great option to use as opposed to something that may have a lot of chemicals or toxic oil in it.
4. Builds Muscle
The MCts found in coconut oil are very good at building and developing muscle. These help your body burn fat and keep healthy fats in your system.
Coconut oil gives your body the nutrients and building blocks to keep muscle on, keep fat burnt up, and keep your body in a lean, healthy state.
We want our bodies to have a strong metabolism, and to have more muscle and less fat.
5. Curbs Appetite
Studies done on men found that if they took in coconut oil and MCTs in the morning, they had a lower caloric intake throughout the rest of the day.
That means that by inserting this into your coffee, for example, your body will be more full and you’ll eat less for lunch and dinner.
This will lead to less processing of sugars and carbohydrates for your liver and less weight going onto the system.
6. Better Memory
A 2004 study found that consuming coconut oil—specifically the MCTs in it—was linked to improvements in elderly people’s memory.
The oil can get easily absorbed into the body, and easily used by the brain.
The people in the study could recall things at a quicker rate because the brain was getting fuel.
For any kind of brain cognitive issue, I always recommend taking a tablespoon or two of coconut oil a day.
7. Heart Health
Coconut oil is high in saturated fats.
There are saturated fats in butter and other oils, but the saturated fat in coconut oil works differently inside the system.
In fact, coconut oil intake has been shown to increase HDL (‘good’) cholesterol.
If your HDL is not at least a quarter of your total cholesterol, then adding something like coconut oil to your diet each day can help raise HDL levels.
The HDLs also keep triglycerides in check, so you need plenty of them to protect your heart.
8. Hair and Skin Health
Coconut oil is a great moisturizer that you can try on your hands or on your face. It can get a little oily, so you may only want to use it at night.
It’s also very good for the scalp!
If you struggle with dandruff or scalp-related issues, massaging coconut oil into the scalp before bed or after a shower is a great way to fight off any microbes that might be there.
It’s also going to help moisturize and bring more blood flow to the skin that it’s put on, so it’s an excellent cheap option to use in your beauty regimen.
9. Oral Health
One of the key ways to use coconut oil is through oil pulling. I recommend this if you have dental issues like a cavity, dental work, or sores in your mouth.
You simply take a tablespoon or two of coconut oil, put it in your mouth, and pull it back and forth as if you’re trying to drag it through your teeth.
It’ll get into the pores and crevices between the teeth and gums. It pulls out microbes that can create plaquing.
You do want to spit out after 5-10 minutes because you don’t want to ingest the bacteria.
Oil pulling is a fantastic way to fight off infections in your mouth.
10. Balances Hormones
Coconut oil is a hormone balancer because of the healthy fats and lauric acid in it.
A 2012 study out of the Philippines showed that coconut oil actually helps balance out hormones, especially during menopause.
Coconut oil can have a positive impact on estrogen levels, and oftentimes in menopause, you’re naturally not producing estrogen like you used to.
Adding in a tablespoon or two of organic coconut oil each day into a smoothie or coffee can balance out estrogen and curb some of the menopause symptoms.
11. Diet For Seizures
One of the main foods to focus on if you have epilepsy or seizures is coconut oil.
Lowering carbohydrate intake is super important, and this is actually where the ketogenic diet originated from.
We found that when we cut out all of the carbs and focused on healthy fats like coconut oil, the brain responded really well to those ketones.
This calmed down the storms that can happen in the brain with seizures.
Coconut oil is a must if you have a history of or suffer from epilepsy or seizures.
12. Supports Body Discomfort
Coconut oil is a really good for supporting body discomfort for both the inside and the outside, as long as it’s properly-sourced coconut oil.
Its antioxidants can lower free radicals, which lowers discomfort in the system.
That’s especially good for those suffering from arthritis or any kind of joint disorder.
It has the same effect to increase blood flow and relieve a sore joint when it’s used on the outside of the body.
Before bed, you can rub coconut oil on a bad knee, elbow, or bad wrist to stimulate blood flow, and have an antioxidant impact.
13. Bone Health
Coconut can have a big impact on the strength of your bones. For osteoporosis or osteopenia sufferers, coconut oil can help you.
It helps drive the absorption of the fat-soluble vitamins A, E, D, and K. Those vitamins require fat in order to get absorbed.
If you’re taking a supplemental form of any of those, you want to make sure you take it with fat.
My vitamin D complex, for example, which has vitamins A, D, E, N, and K, has coconut oil in it to make sure those vitamins get absorbed.
If you’re taking a bone health supplement, take it with coconut oil. That fat is going to get more of the A, D, E, and K absorbed.
When you can get more D3 and K2, your body can then take the calcium, get it out of the blood, get it out of the blood vessels, and into the bones.
Summary
Those are 13 amazing benefits of coconut oil, and why I think you should absolutely put it into your regimen.
1-2 tablespoons a day is a great start—just make sure it’s organic, or at least cold-pressed and unrefined.
This is definitely one of the healthy foods that you should be focusing on, but there are a lot of foods that people think are healthy, but actually aren’t.
I polled thousands of people’s answers and made a list of 13 unhealthy foods people think are healthy, and you can check out that video here.
