Vitamin B12 serves many useful purposes in the human diet. One of the greatest signs of a vitamin b12 deficiency is fatigue and anemia. This is why many believe vitamin b12 shots can help with weight loss. IF you are deficient in b12 you will feel sluggish and lack the energy to be active. This lack of activity will cause you to gain weight, so yes, if you are deficient in b12 you will have difficulty keeping the weight off.
Unfortunately for most of us, however, vitamin b12 will have little impact on our weight since we are not deficient in the vitamin. The good news is that taking moderately high doses above the minimum RDA will not hurt you and the body is able to store this vitamin, without risk, until the lean times when it is needed.Most of us should be able to get sufficient levels of this vitamin from a normal diet. If you drink 4 glasses of milk a day for the calcium, you're getting enough vitamin b12 in your diet. Some other great sources of vitamin b12 include beef liver and salmon. These two foods will supply you with many times your minimum RDA of this essential vitamin.
The truth is, vitamin b12 will help speed up your metabolism, but not significantly, unless you are deficient in the vitamin. Still, doctors will often give their patients added b12 to help them in their efforts to lose unwanted weight.
The real value in vitamin b12 is that it is essential in the creation of DNA and red blood cells, which are needed to carry life-giving oxygen. This, in part is why b12 is considered to be good for weight loss. With low levels of oxygen in the bloodstream, how can you have the energy to be active enough to keep the weight off? But that is only part of what vitamin b12 does. It also helps the trillions of cells of the body create the energy to function properly through the "powerhouse of the cell", the mitochondria. It is these mitochondria, the trillions of them generating energy, that determines the metabolism of the body. By keeping them functioning at peak efficiency the body is able to handle the food consumed and little is stored as body fat.
So it is crucial that you get at least more than the minimum RDA of this essential vitamin in your daily diet. It may not be the key to weight loss, but the lack of this important vitamin will guarantee that you don't lose that unwanted weight.
