A lot of people are concerned about losing fat and have looked for supplements that can help them to maximize their fat loss results.
Fat burners are one of these supplements.
They’re designed to help people to lose weight. Although they aren’t a substitute for following a healthy diet focusing on consuming a calorie deficit (alongside regularly exercising), fat burners have become popular amongst gym goers, bodybuilders, and athletes.
A common question when it comes to fat burners is how long they stay in your system. If you’ve ever taken a fat burner, or if you’re considering taking them, then you may have wondered how long you’ll feel the effects for – or if you’ll feel the effects at all…
In this article, I’ve firstly explained what fat burners are, how they work, as well as how long they stay in your system for, and the factors that influence this.
Table of Contents
What Is A Fat Burner?
A fat burner is a supplement that is supposed to help people to lose body fat.
They come in different forms, though the most popular type is a fat burner pill. Depending on the dose, they can be taken once a day or multiple times per day. They contain different ingredients, but most often contain stimulants like caffeine.
How Do Fat Burners Work?
Fat burners work in different ways depending on whether they contain stimulants or if they’re non-stimulants (also known as stimulant free).
Related – Are stimulant or non-stimulant fat burners best
Stimulant fat burners contain stimulants. The most common type of stimulant is caffeine and it’s often found in high doses in fat burners. To compare, a cup of coffee contains about 40 mg of caffeine, whereas, in fat burners, there can be as much as 200 mg of caffeine per dose!
Stimulants are common in fat burners, as they’ve been shown to boost weight loss. They do this by speeding up your metabolism.
Your metabolism is basically how many calories you burn in a day. You burn more calories each day by speeding up your metabolism, resulting in weight loss.
Stimulants have also been shown to suppress appetite. This is helpful in a fat burner, as when hunger levels decrease, you eat less, which means fewer calories consumed.
To summarize then, stimulant fat burners can work by decreasing the number of calories you consume, and by increasing the number of calories that you burn.
In comparison, non-stimulant fat burners don’t contain stimulants.
Instead, they contain other ingredients which can help to maximize weight loss. The way non-stimulant fat burners work varies depending on their individual ingredients, but two of the more common ingredients are green tea extract and cayenne pepper.
Green tea extract isn’t considered a stimulant, but it works similarly to one as it speeds up your metabolism. As with stimulants like caffeine, this results in more calories being burned throughout the day, which should increase weight loss results.
Cayenne pepper also works to aid weight loss. It does this by increasing your body temperature. Eating spicy foods has been shown to raise body temperature. As this happens, your body works to bring your temperature back down again and this process burns calories.
Overall then, non-stimulant fat burners work by speeding up your metabolism, as well as by changing your body temperature, to encourage weight loss.
See also – Do non-stimulant fat burners work
If you want to know more about how fat burners work, check out this video:
How Long Do Fat Burners Stay In Your System?
The duration of time that fat burners stay in your system varies depending on what ingredients they contain, as well as your individual response to those ingredients. On average though, fat burners can take anywhere between 1.5 and 10 hours to leave your system.
To explain this further, when people talk about fat burners and how long they can ‘stay in your system’, they usually mean how long it takes for them to be metabolized by your body.
For something to be metabolized, it undergoes a chemical process through which it’s broken down, absorbed, and used by your body. As this happens, the effect that it has on you should decrease.
The amount of time fat burners stay in your system will depend on some different factors including what ingredients they contain, the dosage of those ingredients, as well as your individual response to them.
Fat Burner Ingredients and Dosage
In terms of ingredients, each ingredient will take a different amount of time to be metabolized.
The main difference between types of fat burners is whether they contain stimulants. As I mentioned earlier, stimulant fat burners typically contain high doses of stimulants such as caffeine.
Stimulant fat burners will typically last for longer than fat burners that don’t contain stimulants.
Taking caffeine and green tea extract as examples, caffeine stays in your system for a long time. On average, the half-life of caffeine, or how long it takes for your body to eliminate half of the ingredient, is around 5 hours, but it can vary between 1.5 and 9.5 hours.
Source – Pharmacology of Caffeine
So you may still be feeling the effects of caffeine for around 10 hours after you’ve taken it.
In comparison, green tea extract isn’t as strong as caffeine. The half-life of green tea is around 3 to 5 hours.
Therefore, for a non-stimulant fat burner containing green tea extract, you’d expect most of it to be out of your system 10 hours after you’ve taken it, whereas for a stimulant fat burner containing caffeine it can take twice as long for it to leave your system.
Individual Response
Everybody is different and your body’s response in terms of how quickly the ingredients are metabolized can vary widely in comparison to other people.
This can depend on many factors including age, lifestyle, gender, weight, height, as well as your overall health.
As a result, there isn’t really one answer to how long fat burners last in your system as it will depend on what ingredients they contain, the dosage of these ingredients, as well as your individual response to them.
As an example, I have a high tolerance for caffeine in the sense that I don’t really get a “buzz” unless I consume a high dose.
If, however, I consume caffeine later in the day, I struggle to sleep as the caffeine keeps me stimulated and alert even though it doesn’t feel particularly potent.
Side Effects
When it comes to supplements, you obviously want to get the most out of them. Some people think that taking a higher dose of fat burner is going to make it last for longer in your system which may lead to better results.
However, this isn’t true. Taking more, or taking a higher dose, isn’t necessarily better.
This is because fat burners come with side effects. Depending on their ingredients, fat burners can cause digestive problems, affect your ability to sleep, and even cause serious heart problems.
Increasing the dose above what’s recommended puts you at greater risk of side effects, so you shouldn’t go above the recommended dosage.
Taking a higher dose can also make you tolerant to the ingredients, which means that these ingredients won’t be effective long term which will undermine the results you want to see.
This is something very common with people who take pre-workout and get a tolerance to the ingredients over time. Fat burners contain similar ingredients and therefore the tolerance effect can be similar.
Final Thoughts
Fat burners are often thought of as a magic weight loss pill whereas, in reality, they are not that potent and should only be used to support a calorie-restricted diet and dedicated weight training and cardio routine.
With that said, fat burners do still contain some potent ingredients in the form of stimulants so it’s good to know how long fat burners will stay in your system once consumed.
In general, fat burners will stay in your system anywhere from 1.5 – 10 hours depending on the ingredients used, the dose you consume, and your individual tolerance levels. Fat burners high in caffeine or other stimulants will have a longer half-life and stay in your system longer.
If you’re taking fat burners and need some further advice on how to get the most out of them then check out our dedicated guide on the best time to take fat burners for maximum effect.
