back to indexHow to Lose Fat with Science-Based Tools | Huberman Lab Podcast #21
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Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,
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where we discuss science and science-based tools
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for everyday life.
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I'm Andrew Huberman,
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and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology
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at Stanford School of Medicine.
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This podcast is separate from my teaching
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and research roles at Stanford.
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It is, however, part of my desire and effort
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to bring zero cost to consumer information
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about science and science-related tools
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to the general public.
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In keeping with that theme,
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I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.
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Our first sponsor is Inside Tracker.
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Inside Tracker is a personalized nutrition platform
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that analyzes data from your blood and DNA
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to help you better understand your body
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and help you reach your health goals.
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I've been getting my blood work done for many years now,
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and that's for the simple reason
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that only through quality blood work,
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and now through the advent of DNA tests,
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can one really get a clear picture
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of what's going on with their health.
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Things like metabolic factors and hormones,
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all the various triglycerides,
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these are things that can only be measured
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from a quality blood test.
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And now with DNA tests,
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you can get an additional window
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into your current health status
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and the trajectory of your health.
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What's really wonderful about Inside Tracker
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is that you don't just get numbers back
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about the specific levels of various hormones
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and metabolic factors.
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You also get a lot of information
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about what you could or should do
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in order to adjust those numbers
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to put you on the course to better health.
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So for instance, it will give recommendations
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about particular foods to eat or avoid,
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particular exercise regimens that you might want to adopt
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and the frequency of those regimens
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in order to move those markers in the correct direction.
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Inside Tracker has also added a new feature
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that makes tracking your progress
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and analyzing your data even easier.
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For those of you that use a Garmin fitness tracker
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such as the Garmin watch,
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that's now compatible with their platform.
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So you can couple your data from your Garmin
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with your blood and DNA for even more personalization
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and insights on your health.
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However, if you don't have a Garmin device,
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there's still a lot that you can get
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from Inside Tracker and their tests.
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If you'd like to try Inside Tracker,
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you can visit insidetracker.com slash Huberman.
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And if you do that, you'll get 25% off
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any of Inside Tracker's plans.
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Use the code Huberman at checkout.
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That's insidetracker.com slash Huberman
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to get 25% off any of Inside Tracker's plans
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and use the code Huberman at checkout.
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Today's podcast is also brought to us by ExpressVPN.
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ExpressVPN is a virtual private network
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that keeps your data secure and private.
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It does that by routing your internet activity
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through their servers and encrypting it
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so that no one can see or sell your data.
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I'm familiar with the effects
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of not securing my data well enough.
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A few years back, I had my bank accounts hacked.
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I don't know exactly how it happened,
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but it happened and it was a terrible amount of work
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to have that reversed and secured.
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The great thing about ExpressVPN
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is I don't even notice that it's running.
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I have it on my computer.
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I turn it on anytime I work at home or when traveling
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or in a cafe, airport, anywhere.
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And it runs in the background.
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It doesn't change anything about the interface
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with my computer or the wifi.
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It just secures my data and it secures any information
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about what I happen to be searching for, et cetera.
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I don't feel like I have anything particular to hide
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except my bank account passwords and things of that sort.
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But with ExpressVPN, it basically makes everything secure.
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You can't be tracked and no one can access
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or steal your data, which is terrific.
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So again, I use it when I'm traveling and when I'm at home.
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If you want to start protecting your internet activity
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using ExpressVPN, you can go to expressvpn.com slash Huberman
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and you'll get an extra three months free
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on a one-year package.
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That's expressvpn.com slash Huberman
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to get three months free on any of their one-year packages.
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Today's podcast is also brought to us by Athletic Greens.
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Athletic Greens is an all-in-one
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vitamin mineral probiotic drink
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that gives you a total foundation of vitamins and minerals
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and probiotics to support your health and wellbeing.
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I've been using Athletic Greens since 2012.
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And so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast.
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I started using Athletic Greens
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and I still use Athletic Greens once or twice a day
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because it's the simplest and most straightforward way
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to get my basis of important vitamins, minerals
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and probiotics taken care of.
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All of those things combined to support various aspects
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of my health, such as brain health, such as gut health.
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For instance, there's a tremendous amount of evidence now
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showing that probiotics support gut health
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and that the gut brain access is important
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for things like focus and cognition,
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as well as for immune function
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and various aspects of physical health like metabolism.
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The list sort of goes on and on.
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With Athletic Greens, it has all these vitamins and minerals
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and various other things that are good for me.
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And I actually really liked the way it tastes.
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So the way I use it is once a day, sometimes twice a day,
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I'll mix it up with water.
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I add a little bit of lemon or lime juice.
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I think it tastes great without the lemon or lime juice.
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But when I add that, it's truly delicious to me.
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And I'll drink that first thing in the day,
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mid-morning sometimes instead.
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And sometimes again in the later afternoon.
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I'm able to drink Athletic Greens late in the day
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and not have it keep me awake.
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If you want to try Athletic Greens,
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you can go to athleticgreens.com slash Huberman.
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And if you do that, you can claim a special offer.
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They'll give you five free travel packs,
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which make mixing up Athletic Greens
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while you're on the road really simple and easy.
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And they'll give you a year supply of vitamin D3K2.
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Vitamin D3, as many of you know, you can get from the sun,
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even if they're already getting a lot of sun exposure,
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still have vitamin D3 levels that are too low.
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And vitamin D3 is very important for a huge number
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of cardiovascular, immune, metabolic,
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and other aspects of health.
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So once again, if you go to athleticgreens.com slash Huberman
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you'll get the five free travel packs
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and a year supply of vitamin D3 and K2.
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Today is the third episode in our series of episodes
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about physical and athletic skill performance
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and skill learning in general.
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And today we're going to talk about the science
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of tools for fat loss.
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And fat loss is something that interests
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a large number of people.
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Many people want to lose fat.
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Many people are athletes who need to lose fat.
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And in general, we know that having body fat percentages
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that are too high is unhealthy for us.
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And most people struggle to lose fat.
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Most people struggle to lose weight generally,
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but most people especially struggle to lose body fat
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or what we call adipose tissue.
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Now, this is a huge topic on the internet.
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There's a lot of controversy.
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Today we're going to talk about some things related
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to fat loss and that are powerful for fat loss
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that I'm guessing most of you have never heard about before.
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You may have heard about a few of them,
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but I'm guessing you haven't heard about all of them.
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This episode is going to be rich with science-based tools
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that are gleaned from a variety of aspects
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of the literature, including the use of cold,
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including brown fat, including something called beige fat.
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We're going to talk about something called neat.
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We're going to talk about all sorts of aspects of fat loss
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that are governed by your nervous system.
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And this is, I think, an important gap that's missing
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in the discussion about fat loss.
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You can hear a lot of information out there
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about the role of things like insulin and various diets
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like ketogenic diets or vegan diets or Mediterranean diets.
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And there's some great stuff out there
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and there's some really terrible information out there
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and there's a lot of controversy.
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We did a number of episodes talking about
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the role of hormones on metabolism
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and the role of food on mood and wellbeing.
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So if you're interested in those topics,
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please check them out.
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I will touch a little bit on hormones today,
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things like insulin and leptin, just a little bit,
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but today's episode is mainly going to be focused on
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how the nervous system, neurons,
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and some of the cells they collaborate with
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like glia and macrophages,
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how those encourage or can encourage accelerated fat loss
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because it turns out they can.
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Remember your nervous system,
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which includes your brain and your spinal cord
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and all the connections that they make
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with the organs of the body, governs everything.
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It's the on switch and the off switch for your immune system.
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It's the on switch and the off switch,
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it turns out also for fat burning.
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And so the nervous system and the role of the brain
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and other neurons has been vastly overlooked
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in the discussion about losing fat.
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Now, I would be remiss,
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and I'd probably come under a pretty considerable attack
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if I didn't just acknowledge upfront
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a core truth of metabolic science
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and also of neuroscience, frankly,
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which is that calories in versus calories out,
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meaning how many calories you ingest
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versus how many calories you burn,
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is the fundamental and most important formula
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in this business of fat loss
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and weight management in general.
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There's simply no way around the fact
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that if you ingest far more calories than you burn,
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you're likely to gain weight.
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And a good portion of that weight
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is likely to be adipose tissue, fat.
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It's also true that if you ingest fewer calories
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than you burn, that you will lose weight
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and that a significant portion of that
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will come from body fat.
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Depends on the number of factors.
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But that simple formula is important.
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On a previous episode, I mentioned the complications
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with the statement of a calorie is a calorie.
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And indeed, there is evidence from, for instance,
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Robert Lustig, who's a pediatric endocrinologist
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at UC San Francisco,
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has talked about how highly processed foods
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change the way that we utilize food
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and can lead to higher incidences of obesity
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and other metabolic syndromes
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that go against the idea
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that a calorie is a calorie and that's it.
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So a calorie is a calorie as a unit of energy,
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and we need to accept and acknowledge this calories in,
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meaning calories ingested versus calories burned formula,
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but the calories burned portion is strongly influenced
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by a number of things that you can control
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that can greatly accelerate
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or increase the amount of adipose tissue
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or the proportion of adipose tissue
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that you burn in response to exercise and food.
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So your hormones are important.
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Your thermogenic milieu, meaning how warm
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or how cold your body is,
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how cold you make it, how warm you make it,
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but also your level of metabolism,
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your levels of thyroid hormone,
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and something that's hardly ever discussed,
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but is well supported by the scientific literature,
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how much innervation,
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meaning how much connectivity there is
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between your nervous system and fat.
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Today, we're going to talk about the fact
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that your body fat of various kinds,
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and there are several kinds of body fat,
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are actually innervated by neurons.
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Neurons connect to your body fat
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and can change the probability
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that that body fat will be burned or not.
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So your nervous system
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is the master controller of this process,
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and it plays a strong role in the calories out,
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the calories burned component.
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So as usual, we're going to discuss a little bit of science.
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I promise I won't go too deep into lipolysis
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and all sorts of things related to fat oxidation.
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We're going to break down that process
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into two important steps.
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And if you can understand those two important steps,
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then the rest of the tools will be very straightforward
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to understand and manage.
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And I do believe that today you will walk away
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with many new tools that you could incorporate
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into any kind of fat loss regimen
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that will greatly accelerate that process
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because it's grounded in quality peer-reviewed science.
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Throughout the episode,
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I'm going to talk about some behavioral tools.
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In fact, I'll mostly talk about behavioral tools.
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I will also talk about compounds, supplements.
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Many of you are into supplements,
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some of you aren't, and that's fine.
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For those of you that are into supplements,
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an important issue in a discussion about supplements
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for fat loss or otherwise
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is going to be the quality of those supplements
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and the accuracy about what's in those supplement bottles
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and tablets, et cetera.
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I usually mention this at the end of the podcast,
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but this podcast, we've partnered with Thorne,
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T-H-O-R-N-E, because Thorne, we believe,
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has the highest levels of stringency
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in terms of the quality of the compounds
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in their supplements and the amounts of those compounds.
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If you want to see the supplements I take,
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you can go to thorne.com slash the letter U slash Huberman.
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You can see the supplements that I take.
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That will also allow you to get 20% off
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any of those supplements
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or 20% off any of the other supplements that Thorne makes.
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Thorne has partnered with the Mayo Clinic
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and all the major sports teams,
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so there's a very strong basis for their stringency.
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Again, you don't need to use supplements.
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I'm certainly not encouraging anyone to use supplements
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if that's not your thing,
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but if you're going to use supplements,
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make sure that your supplement source
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is one of very high quality.
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With that said, I want to get started
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and talk about the various tools for fat loss
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and how neuroscience, neurons, control fat loss.
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Before I do that, I want to set the context correctly
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and extract some of the key takeaways
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from previous episodes,
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because if your foundation of health
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and your foundation of hormones
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and your foundation of metabolism isn't right,
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it's going to be very hard to get the most
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out of any kind of exercise or fat loss protocol.
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In previous episodes, I talked all about the science
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and the details going into particular protocols.
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We don't have time to do that now,
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and I want to get to the new material.
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However, there are a couple bins,
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a couple items that you should make sure
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you're getting correctly,
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and if you're not perfect about these,
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don't worry about it.
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Most people are not perfect about them.
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I'm certainly not perfect about them,
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but we should all be striving to get quality
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and sufficient sleep.
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I did four full episodes on sleep
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and how to get better at sleeping
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through things like light exposure, temperature,
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timing your sleep correctly for your so-called chronotype
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if you're a night owl or a morning person.
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That's the first four or I think five episodes
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of the Huberman Lab podcast.
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Get your sleep right, get your light exposure right,
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avoid bright light in your eyes
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at times you want to be asleep,
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and get bright light in your eyes
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at times you want to be awake.
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So get your sleep right.
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The other thing is essential fatty acids.
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I talked about this in the food and mood episode,
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but I also talked about it during the hormones episodes.
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We need fatty acids.
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They are vital to so many aspects of our health.
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You don't have to get them from supplements.
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You can if you want to,
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but you need to get them from your food.
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They are essential.
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There's a reason there's an E, the essential part there.
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Of the fatty acids, there are multiple kinds,
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but for the antidepressant effects
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or the levels of fatty acids that will promote good mood
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and also healthy metabolism
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and will start to shift the needle in the right direction
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on bloodborne cardiovascular factors,
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the key thing is to get the levels of EPA that you ingest
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above 1,000 milligrams per day.
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So that doesn't mean just taking 1,000 milligrams or more
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of say fish oil or krill oil
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or whatever your preferred source is.
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It means getting above 1,000 milligrams of EPA,
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which may require that you ingest more essential fatty acids
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than just 1,000 milligrams per day.
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That of course can be done through food sources,
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things like fatty fish,
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or if you're not into eating fish,
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you have quality meats that are grass-raised can do that.
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There are other sources of essential fatty acids,
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of course, also from plant sources.
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So look those up online.
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It's really easy to find,
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but the research and the literature shows
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that you want to get above 1,000 milligrams of EPA per day
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because that's when you can best support your metabolism
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and position yourself for good fat loss.
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As well, for people who have cravings issues,
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they crave sweets all the time.
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I talked about this in the gut brain episode
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and hormones and food,
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that you have neurons in your gut that are craving,
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they're seeking essential fatty acids
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and they're craving and seeking amino acids from your food.
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Now, these are not supplements that they crave per se,
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they're craving those things
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because that's what your body needs and your brain needs.
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But those same neurons will respond to sugars.
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And so many people who are craving sugar
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can satisfy that sugar craving
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by giving the neurons, so to speak, what they actually want,
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which are amino acids and essential fatty acids.
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That includes EPA, but also things like glutamine,
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an amino acid that can really reduce sugar cravings
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if you take a teaspoon of that
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or even a tablespoon of that a few times a day.
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You have to ease into that a little bit
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because some people can get a little bit of GI distress
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from too much glutamine.
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But glutamine has also been shown
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to improve symptoms of leaky gut.
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It's a powerful amino acid.
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And yes, you can also get it from food.
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Things like cottage cheese are high in glutamine, et cetera.
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And then finally, you can't really position yourself
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to have a strong metabolism
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if your iodine levels aren't correct
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and your thyroid levels aren't correct.
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You can overdo iodine, so you don't want to do that.
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A lot of table salt has iodine added to it,
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but some people need to add iodine
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by ingesting things like kelp, et cetera.
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But one of the best ways to support the thyroid system
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and metabolism in general
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is to make sure you're getting enough selenium,
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sometimes called selenium.
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Each day, simple way to do that
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is to ingest the highest concentration of selenium food
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that I'm aware of, which is Brazil nuts.
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One or two or three of those per day,
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you'll have more than enough selenium
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to meet the thyroid needs.
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You don't want your selenium to be too high.
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You don't want a diet too high in anything.
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So again, sleep, sufficient EPAs.
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Glutamine, if you have issues with leaky gut
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or sugar cravings can really help.
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Get your gut microbiome right.
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I may have missed saying that,
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but get your gut microbiome right.
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That does not necessarily mean
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you need to ingest probiotics.
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You can if you want to,
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but you can also just simply ingest a serving or two
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of fermented foods per day.
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That can greatly assist.
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So things like sauerkraut, kimchi,
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every culture has a different source
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or sources of fermented foods.
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Those can really help the gut microbiome.
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And then make sure that your thyroid hormone is supported
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through the ingestion of sufficient iodine, not too much,
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and sufficient selenium, not too much.
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Sleep, EPA, glutamine, fermented foods, iodine, selenium.
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That sets the basis for how things like exercise, cold
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and some of the compounds and other things
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that we're going to talk about today
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that are I'm guessing truly going to be truly new
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to many of you that can really increase the burn factor
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in the equation of calories in versus calories burned, okay?
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So on the one hand, we have this reality
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of calories in versus calories burned.
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However, I would also be remiss
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if I didn't mention an incredible study
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that was done by my colleague, Alia Crum at Stanford.
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She's a faculty member, a professor
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in the psychology department.
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Looking at how belief effects, just thinking,
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can impact the effects of things
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like exercise on weight loss.
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These are just incredible results.
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What they did was they took subjects
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who were hotel service people that would clean the hotels
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and come in and change the linens and so forth,
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divide them into two groups.
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One group, they were told moving around
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and doing your duties for your job,
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meet the standards for US guidelines
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for activity and movement, et cetera.
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And a basic lecture about how movement
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is good for you, et cetera.
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But mostly just that their daily activities
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met the standards for the US.
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The other group, however, was given a bunch of information
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about how movement and their daily routine
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was very good for cardiovascular health.
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It could be good for weight loss, et cetera.
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And then they tracked these subjects
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over a period of many weeks.
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The take-home message from this study
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was that simply being told that movement is good for you
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can lead to weight loss, et cetera,
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led to significantly more body fat loss,
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waist to hip ratio changes in the direction
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that most people would want.
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Essentially a slimming down, if you will.
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And all sorts of other positive effects
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on things like cardiovascular health,
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simply by the knowledge that movement and exercise
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can help various health markers.
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So this is remarkable and it speaks to the power
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of the nervous system and the power of belief
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in governing aspects of our body and our physiology
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that one would otherwise think
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were outside our conscious control.
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Now, of course, any of you that think scientifically,
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which I imagine if you watch this podcast
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or listen to this podcast is all of you by now,
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probably thinking, well, maybe they just moved around more
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or maybe they stood up and sat down more.
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Maybe they did something else that was different.
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And indeed there's a strong possibility
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that they did things differently than the other group.
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But the mere knowledge that exercise is good for you,
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that movement is good for you shifted their behavior
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and their physiology in the direction
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of enhanced weight loss, fat loss, et cetera.
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So how we think about a given set of activities
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affects how we perform those activities
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and how we think about and perform those activities
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has a real effect on our physiology.
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So somewhere between the hard and fast rule
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that governs fat loss and weight loss,
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which is if you ingest more calories than you burn,
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you'll either maintain or gain weight,
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typically you'll gain weight, although not always.
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If you ingest about as many calories as you burn,
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you maintain weight typically.
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And if you ingest fewer calories than you burn,
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typically you'll lose weight.
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That's the kind of rule of fat loss.
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And yet we also have these belief effects which show,
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and this has been replicated again and again,
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that how we think about a process,
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whether or not we think it's beneficial
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can change our physiology in ways
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that can be beneficial to us.
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Somewhere in between those two extremes
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of hardcore metabolic science and belief effects
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lie a bunch of protocols that are grounded
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in quality peer-reviewed science and in physiology
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that you can leverage to increase the rates of fat loss.
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And so that's what we're going to talk about today.
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I love this topic,
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and it's not that I'm so obsessed with fat loss,
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but rather the first project I ever worked on in science
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was thermogenesis and fat loss.
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I joined a laboratory as an undergraduate
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and the guy I worked for loved to explore new compounds
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and how they impacted thermogenesis.
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And so we looked at how things like MDMA, ecstasy,
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how antipsychotics, antidepressants,
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various weight loss drugs that were on the market,
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how those impacted body temperature
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and fat loss and metabolism.
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And we just had so much fun doing it.
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So if you detect a smile on my face,
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that's what that's about.
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And I also learned a lot,
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and I also came to really appreciate
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that this tissue of our bodies, adipose tissue and fat,
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we think of as just this unfortunate thing,
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this like we're told it's a core energy source
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if we ever entered a famine and that's all true, et cetera,
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come to realize that these cells in our body,
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they are there as fuel for the furnace of our body,
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which is our metabolism.
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And there's a third player.
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And that's where it really gets interesting
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that the nervous system, neurons has the opportunity
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to turn up the intensity of that furnace.
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It has the opportunity to increase the amount of heat
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that we produce and therefore the amount of energy
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And I was also really intrigued by something
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which is that growing up,
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I think we all know people who can eat a ton
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and never seem to gain any body fat
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or people who seem to eat very little
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and seem to gain body fat very easily.
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And I was always intrigued by that.
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And it turns out there are a number of different factors
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that relate to that,
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but the nervous system is the one that we can really control
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both through behaviors and what we eat,
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but also in terms of this thing that we call thermogenesis.
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There was one particular story I want to relate to you
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that does not suggest any protocol.
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In fact, I'm going to discourage you
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from following this protocol.
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Please do not try the compound that I'm about to describe.
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One of the favorite things that we like to do in that lab
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was to find rare compounds and test them.
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And at the time I was reading about thermogenesis
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and I learned about a compound that was actually discovered
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in the armory factories of World War II.
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And it was discovered because women in particular
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who were working in these factories
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would take a brush and dip it in a compound
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or a paint rather.
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And they would then paint the numbers with a stencil
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onto things like bombs and ammunition of various kinds.
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And they were losing weight like crazy.
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It turns out that occasionally they'd lick the brush
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and then they would go back
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just to get a sharper point on the brush.
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And then they would paint onto these various bullets
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and missiles and so forth, bombs and so forth.
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And they started shedding all their body fat.
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And many of them lost a lot of weight,
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a significant portion of their weight
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without changing anything else that they were doing,
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what they were eating, et cetera.
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Turned out that that compound
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is something called dinitrophenol, DNP.
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And over the years, dinitrophenol, DNP,
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has gained popularity in some niche cultures,
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mainly bodybuilders, athletes,
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even in the kind of modeling industry,
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it is a absolutely terrible compound for anyone to use
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because it's highly fatal
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if your body temperature goes too high,
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hyperthermia will kill you.
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And indeed, many people have died using dinitrophenol
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as a weight loss drug
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or attempting to use it as a weight loss drug.
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But dinitrophenol really illustrates a principle,
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which is that your metabolism
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includes things like thyroid hormone
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and growth hormone, et cetera,
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but your body temperature and the way you utilize energy
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is controlled by your nervous system.
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And the way dinitrophenol works is by changing the neurons
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and the way that the neurons that connect to fat
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change the way fat burns up.
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So we are not going to suggest,
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I am not suggesting that you use dinitrophenol.
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However, there are other things that you can do
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that can change the relationship
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between these neurons and the fat of your body
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in ways that can powerfully accelerate fat loss.
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And I don't know why we don't hear about these things more,
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but probably because most of what you see out there
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on the internet focuses more on what you could eat
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and should eat or shouldn't eat.
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It concentrates on exercise regimens,
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which we will also talk about.
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But the burn factor, your thermogenic environment
link |
is one of the, if not the most important factors
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in this business of fat loss.
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And since I'm a neuroscientist,
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that's what we're going to talk about.
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So let's talk about fat utilization.
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Let's talk about how fat is converted into energy,
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which is sometimes also called fat burning.
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What I'd like you to know
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is that this is a two-part process, okay?
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In reality, there are many biochemical steps.
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And if you log on to the internet
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or you open up a textbook
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and you want to learn about fat utilization,
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you're going to see a lot of chemistry.
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And I'm happy to go deep into that chemistry if you like,
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but I think most of you are probably interested
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in what are the leverage points?
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Where can you exert control over this process
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in ways that benefit you?
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So I'm going to focus mainly on those, okay?
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This is not to upset the aficionados
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and I will put in some nomenclature,
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There's two parts to this process.
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One is fat mobilization.
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And the second is fat oxidation or utilization, okay?
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So the first thing that has to happen
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for body fat to get burned up or used and reduced
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is that it has to get mobilized.
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And that's a process called lipolysis,
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but I actually don't care if you know the name lipolysis,
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you just have to move that fat
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out of the position that it's in.
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You have to get it out of the fat cells, all right?
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Fat cells can be visceral around our viscera, our organs,
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or they can be subcutaneous under our skin.
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Most people are thinking about subcutaneous fat
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when they think about fat.
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So here's the deal.
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And if you want more detail, great.
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I'll touch on that in a bit,
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but basically stored fat has two parts
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that are relevant here.
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It's got the fatty acid part,
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and that's the part that your body can use.
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And that's attached to something called glycerol,
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and they're linked by a backbone.
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So already probably too much chemistry for both of you,
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but what you want is you want to break the backbone.
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So if you just can remember to mobilize fat,
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you got to break the backbone
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between glycerol and these fatty acids, okay?
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That's accomplished by an enzyme called lipase,
link |
but you can forget all that if you want.
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Remember, we're just trying to mobilize fat.
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So the first step is to get those fatty acids moving around
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in the bloodstream, to get them out of those fat cells,
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and then they can travel and be used for energy.
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And that second part, remember, first part is mobilization,
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the second part is oxidation,
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is then those fatty acids, those are potential fuel.
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They're just potential fuel,
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but you haven't burned the fat yet.
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You've just moved it out of your fat cells.
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They're going to go into cells that can use them for energy.
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And once they are inside those cells,
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they're still not burned up.
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You need to oxidize them.
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You think oxidation is the burnup part.
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They need to be moved into the mitochondria,
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and then they can be converted into ATP, into energy.
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So just to really zoom out again
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to make sure I don't lose anybody,
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you got to mobilize the fat,
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then you have to oxidize the fat.
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You have to, in other words, you have to mobilize it,
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then you actually have to convert it into energy.
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If you just mobilize it
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and you don't convert it into energy, you don't oxidize it,
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it can be returned to body fat.
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And many of the things that the nervous system can do
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is to increase the mobilization of fat,
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but also the oxidation of fat, okay?
link |
So you have two opportunities to burn more fat,
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and both of those opportunities
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are governed by your nervous system,
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by neurons that literally send little wires
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that we call axons into fat,
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and release chemicals that provide a stimulus
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for more of that fat to be mobilized,
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and then later for more of that fat to be burned up, okay?
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So we could go really deep on this,
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but I'm not going to go much deeper than that
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because this isn't a biochemistry
link |
of fatty acid metabolism lecture.
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This is about how to burn fat using your nervous system.
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But remember, there's a mobilization step
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and then there's an oxidation step.
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I think any one of you,
link |
all of you should be able to internalize that.
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Mobilize, then oxidize, okay?
link |
Mobilize, then oxidize.
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So what are these neurons that connect to fat doing?
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What are they releasing exactly?
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How do they actually increase fat mobilization
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and how do they increase fat oxidation, burning of fat?
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Well, there are a couple of things that they release
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that encourage that process.
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And the main one that you need to know about
link |
is epinephrine or adrenaline.
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The conversion of these fatty acids into ATP
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in the mitochondria of cells is favored by adrenaline, okay?
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And adrenaline is released from two sources.
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Adrenaline is released from the adrenal glands,
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which sit atop our kidneys and our lower back.
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And it's also released
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from the so-called sympathetic nervous system,
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although that name is a bit of a misnomer
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because it has nothing to do with sympathy,
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has to do with stimulating alertness
link |
and promoting action of the body.
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There's a big mistake in the literature
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that is finally being corrected among those who know.
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The mistake in the literature is that the adrenal glands
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and the release of adrenaline
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is what stimulates fat loss and fat oxidation.
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In fact, it was thought for a long time
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that adrenaline swimming around in your body
link |
of when you're fasted,
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because fasting can increase adrenaline,
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or when you're engaging in intense exercise
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or when you're stressed,
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is going to promote fat oxidation.
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That's actually not the case.
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The adrenaline that stimulates fat oxidation,
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the burning of fat,
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is coming from neurons that actually connect to the fat,
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not hormones like adrenaline
link |
that are swimming around in your system.
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It's a local process.
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And this is very important
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because it means that what you do,
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the specific patterns of movements
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and the specific environment you create
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that can stimulate these particular neurons
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meaning to release fat, to mobilize it,
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and then to burn it,
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is going to be a powerful lever that you can use
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in order to increase fat loss.
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So what have we said so far?
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We've said that you got to mobilize,
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you got to burn fat,
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and that your nervous system is in control of that process.
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It's not just about calorie deficit.
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So let's talk about how to activate the nervous system
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in ways that it promotes more liberation,
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movement, mobilization of fat,
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and more oxidation of fat.
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So one of the most powerful ways to stimulate epinephrine,
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which is also called adrenaline,
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from these neurons that connect to fat
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and to thereby stimulate more fat mobilization
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and oxidation is through movement.
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But I'm not talking about exercise.
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The type of movement that I'm referring to
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is extremely subtle.
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And some of you may be familiar with this type of movement,
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but I'm guessing you're probably not familiar
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with what I'm about to tell you,
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which is that shiver or shivering
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is a strong stimulus for the release of adrenaline,
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epinephrine, into fat,
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and the increase in fat oxidation and mobilization.
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But shiver is not just induced by cold.
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And there are other subtle forms of movement
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that can greatly increase fat metabolism and fat loss.
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There was a group in England during the 1960s and 70s
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that discovered a pathway
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by which subtle forms of movement
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can greatly increase fat loss.
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This is the work of Rothwell and Stock.
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It's very famous in the thermogenesis literature.
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And I learned about this early on
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when I was an undergraduate.
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And I asked, how did they come across this?
link |
And here's how the story goes.
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They were aware that some people overeat
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and yet don't put on weight.
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Other people overeat even just a little bit,
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and they seem to accumulate extra adipose tissue.
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Now, this is long before all the discussions
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about microbiome and hormone factors,
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and it was long before many of the hormone factors
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besides insulin had even been discovered.
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What they did was they examined people
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who overate and did not gain weight.
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And what they observed was that those people
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engaged in lots of subtle movement throughout the day.
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In other words, they were fidgeters,
link |
and that's what they call them.
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I'm not going to do the British accent version of fidgeters,
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but Rothwell and Stock were British.
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What they found were people that overeat
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but don't gain weight as a consequence.
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And in fact, many people who had low levels of body fat
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had a lot of resting tremor, not of the Parkinsonian type,
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but they would bounce their knee while they were sitting.
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When they would talk, they would engage
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in very angular movements.
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They were sort of electric.
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In fact, now in science, I was chuckling about this
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as I was diving back into this literature
link |
because the other day I heard a wonderful lecture
link |
on a totally different topic from a colleague of mine,
link |
and we all adore him.
link |
He's over in Europe,
link |
and he's this tremendously successful scientist,
link |
so we like to poke fun at him.
link |
And every one of his movements
link |
is incredibly electric and staccato,
link |
and he's rail thin and he eats like a horse.
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And so it fits very well into the discovery
link |
of Rothwell and Stock who discovered that fidgeters,
link |
people that bounce their knee,
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people that have a head bob while they're listening,
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people that nod a lot,
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people that stand up and sit down a lot throughout the day,
link |
and people that pace burn anywhere from 800
link |
to 2,500 calories more than the control group
link |
in the experiments that they looked at.
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And indeed, there's been a modern look into all this,
link |
and these numbers check out,
link |
that simply moving around a lot,
link |
even if those are subtle movements,
link |
greatly increases the amount of energy that you burn.
link |
And people who overeat,
link |
the people who can have the second or the third donut
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and don't seem to put on weight to the same degree,
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they are people that move around a lot even when seated.
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They're people that will often move their limbs
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very quickly as well.
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There even have been studies
link |
that have explored other things
link |
that correlate with fidgeters.
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Fidgeters stand up very quickly at the end of a lecture,
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or they start to gather their things very quickly,
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whereas non-fidgeters don't.
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So dogs like my bulldog Costello,
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definitely not a fidgeter.
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Every movement is incredibly slow and deliberate.
link |
Sitting down is a process.
link |
If you ask him to sit down, it's sort of a slow motion.
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You ask him to get up,
link |
and he kind of looks at you, sighs, and stands up.
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The fidgeters are the opposite of that, right?
link |
You say, how are you doing?
link |
So even sometimes their speech will be accelerated,
link |
although not always,
link |
but staccato movements, fidgeting, et cetera.
link |
And in 2015, and again in 2017,
link |
there've been studies that have explored this
link |
using some modern metabolic tracking.
link |
And indeed, simply moving a lot,
link |
being a fidgeter, bouncing your knee,
link |
standing up and pacing several times
link |
or many times throughout the day,
link |
led to considerable amounts of fat loss and weight loss
link |
when people were ingesting the same amount of food.
link |
they were able to compensate and burn off that food.
link |
And if they were trying to lose weight,
link |
and they incorporated this fidgeting protocol
link |
of deliberately trying to fidget more
link |
and move around during the day,
link |
pace, stand up more quickly, sit down more often,
link |
sit down and stand up more often rather,
link |
they found that they greatly increased their weight loss
link |
anywhere from 20 to 30% increases.
link |
And in some cases,
link |
there are always those few people who burned a lot more.
link |
It seems to work best
link |
in people who are already slightly overweight.
link |
So for people that are overweight,
link |
who are kind of averse to exercise,
link |
fidgeting might actually be a good entry point.
link |
And 800 to 2,500 calories
link |
is a considerable amount of calories
link |
when you really think about it.
link |
Now, why am I telling you this?
link |
Well, there's clearly a tool to export from this,
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which is that you can increase the amount of calories burned
link |
without having to go on additional long runs.
link |
I do hope that people are exercising regularly
link |
because it's so important for other aspects
link |
of brain and body health.
link |
But nonetheless, we are all time limited
link |
and we are not all so ready to embrace exercise.
link |
I have a family member
link |
who has been slowly coaxed into exercise.
link |
But if I were to tell her, for instance,
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you need to fidget more, she'd probably go for it.
link |
So this is a powerful way
link |
to increase the calories that are burned.
link |
Now, that's great.
link |
And you can think about the protocols,
link |
but I want to nest that protocol in what I said before,
link |
which is that fat is controlled by these neurons
link |
and the epinephrine they release.
link |
You might say, well,
link |
how could these little micro movements
link |
lead to so much caloric burn?
link |
And that's where it really gets interesting.
link |
Rothwell and Stock and others that they worked with
link |
subsequently found that these little fidgety movements,
link |
the engagement of certain aspects of our musculature
link |
that are nothing like exercise,
link |
it's not these large coordinated or rhythmic body movements,
link |
but rather subtle little bits of fidgety movement.
link |
And here I am doing a lot of fidgety movement.
link |
As an example, tapping the pen, this kind of thing.
link |
I was probably that kid in class most of the time.
link |
I was like, I try not to do it to irritate people,
link |
but I was definitely a knee bouncer.
link |
I'm not particularly lean or not,
link |
but I was definitely, this is a common activity for me.
link |
People that do that sort of thing,
link |
it turns out that it's not the kind of caloric burn
link |
that we normally think of, of like,
link |
oh, you're running, lifting weights, swimming, yoga, et cetera.
link |
Those subtle movements of our core musculature,
link |
not just the core, but all our limbs and our musculature,
link |
those low level movements,
link |
they trigger epinephrine release from these neurons
link |
and they stimulate the mobilization of fat.
link |
And then that fat is oxidized at higher rates.
link |
And I find this fascinating.
link |
I wish more people knew about it,
link |
which is why I'm telling you about it today.
link |
This has nothing to do with exercise
link |
in the traditional form.
link |
And yet 800 to 2,500 calories per day,
link |
that's a considerable amount of fat oxidized.
link |
If you are in a calorie maintenance mode
link |
or if you're sub caloric,
link |
that's going to add to still additional fat loss.
link |
The data on this are tremendous.
link |
I'll link to a few studies.
link |
If you're really interested in learning
link |
about what's called NEAT, N-E-A-T,
link |
which is non-exercise activity thermogenesis, NEAT.
link |
So what's the protocol?
link |
If you're really interested in burning calories
link |
and you already exercise, you want to burn more,
link |
or you don't have the opportunity to exercise
link |
or you're a versed exercise for whatever reason,
link |
fidgeting movements, staccato movements, standing up,
link |
walking around, pacing, all the sort of nervous activities
link |
that we're so critical of in other people
link |
and sometimes in ourselves are actually mobilizing
link |
and oxidizing a lot of fat and a lot of energy.
link |
And while this probably won't compensate
link |
for chronic overeating,
link |
the caloric burn from this is considerable
link |
and very likely can offset a meal that had excessive
link |
calories or a kind of steady state of eating too much.
link |
And it also starts to open up all sorts of thoughts
link |
and discussion about when you travel,
link |
you tend to eat foods that are outside your normal ones.
link |
We tend to eat foods that aren't so great for us.
link |
We also tend to be a little bit more sedentary
link |
when we travel, we're on the plane, et cetera.
link |
But all of that aside,
link |
just the use of something like low-level movement
link |
and it's almost like a tremor,
link |
but also these like short, small fidgety movements,
link |
I'm intentionally doing a lot of these today
link |
so you have examples that you can use
link |
that to select from if you like,
link |
these can have a major effect on fat loss.
link |
And it raises a second tool.
link |
If these low, meaning these small movements
link |
that we engage in trigger epinephrine,
link |
adrenaline release from these neurons
link |
of the sympathetic nervous system that innervate fat
link |
and increase fat mobilization and oxidation,
link |
now it should make sense why shivering
link |
is one of the strongest stimuli
link |
that one can incorporate to stimulate fat loss.
link |
Now shivering is almost always associated with cold.
link |
We think shivering, we think cold
link |
because when we get cold, we shiver.
link |
And there are two ways that shivering can increase fat loss.
link |
And there are several ways that you can use shivering.
link |
You can leverage shivering
link |
and you can leverage cold to accelerate fat loss,
link |
but you have to do it correctly.
link |
And most of the people that are using cold
link |
and frankly suggesting cold
link |
as a means to increase metabolism fat loss
link |
are suggesting the exact wrong protocol.
link |
In fact, the one I'm going to recommend
link |
is 180 degrees in the opposite direction
link |
to the typical protocol that you'd hear about.
link |
So let's talk about how to use cold
link |
and how to leverage shiver
link |
as a particularly strong stimulus to increase fat loss
link |
through mobilization and oxidation of these fatty acids.
link |
So in recent years, there's been a growing interest
link |
in the use of cold for various things
link |
like improving stress tolerance,
link |
improving metabolism, recovery from exercise.
link |
I've talked about a number of those things
link |
and the uses of cold on this podcast.
link |
In fact, did an episode on how to supercharge performance
link |
through palmer cooling, cooling the palms in specific ways
link |
or the bottoms of the feet.
link |
And if you're interested in that
link |
and how to improve performance in endurance and strength,
link |
you can check out that episode.
link |
But most people out there are using cold exposure
link |
typically by taking cold showers
link |
or by getting into cold water of some other kind,
link |
a lake or a river or a cold bath or an ice bath.
link |
And they are doing that probably with mixed goals,
link |
meaning they both would like to increase their metabolism
link |
and burn fat as well as improve mental resilience.
link |
Since today we're talking about accelerating fat loss
link |
through the use of science-based tools,
link |
I want to emphasize a study that was published in Nature
link |
just a couple of years ago
link |
showing exactly how cold increases metabolism and fat loss.
link |
So we have several kinds of fat, three kinds in fact.
link |
We have white fat, white adipose tissue,
link |
and we have brown fat or brown adipose tissue.
link |
And there's a third kind, which is beige adipose tissue.
link |
White fat is the type that we traditionally think of
link |
as fat, subcutaneous fat.
link |
And it is not particularly rich in mitochondria,
link |
it is there as an energy storage site.
link |
And we have to mobilize the fat out
link |
as we talked about before and burn it up elsewhere.
link |
Brown fat largely exists between our shoulder blades
link |
and on the back of our neck, between the scapulae.
link |
And it's rich with mitochondria,
link |
which is why it's called brown fat.
link |
And brown fat has a particular biochemical cascade
link |
whereby it can take food energy,
link |
and it can take food basically,
link |
break it down and convert it into energy within those cells.
link |
And there's some additional steps involved,
link |
but unlike fatty acids from white fat,
link |
which have to travel elsewhere,
link |
get broken down in mitochondria
link |
and convert into ATP, et cetera,
link |
used by the mitochondria rather,
link |
brown fat is thermogenic.
link |
It can actually use energy directly.
link |
It skips a step and I don't want to get diverted
link |
by going into all the biochemistry of it.
link |
Beige fat is sort of in between.
link |
It's white fat that could be brown fat
link |
because it has some mitochondria in it,
link |
but not as many as brown fat.
link |
Now, cold exposure does several things.
link |
Making ourselves cold can allow us
link |
to build up mental resilience
link |
because getting into cold of any kind,
link |
doesn't matter if it's a cryo chamber,
link |
doesn't matter if it's a cold day
link |
and you forgot your sweater or your parka.
link |
It doesn't matter if it's an ice bath
link |
or you're lying down in the snow.
link |
Cold causes the release of adrenaline from your adrenals
link |
and it causes the release of epinephrine
link |
from these neurons that connect to fat.
link |
Now, the big effects of cold on metabolism and fat burning
link |
are going to be through two routes.
link |
One is that if you expose yourself to cold,
link |
you have the opportunity to trigger activation of brown fat
link |
as well as to convert more beige fat into true brown fat.
link |
So you essentially create a stronger or a hotter furnace.
link |
That's the way to think about brown fat.
link |
It's like a furnace.
link |
And so with this principle that we started with
link |
of calories in versus calories burned,
link |
what you're doing is you're increasing
link |
the amount of burning,
link |
you're increasing the burn of energy
link |
by increasing the intensity of the heat inside you,
link |
so to speak, okay?
link |
I'm talking here kind of metaphorically.
link |
Now, how can you do that?
link |
Well, if you get into cold water or an ice bath
link |
or a cold day and you try and remain calm
link |
and resist shivering, you actually short circuit
link |
this mechanism for increasing brown fat thermogenesis.
link |
The paper published in Nature shows that it is shivering
link |
itself that causes the brown fat to increase your burning,
link |
your burn rate and your metabolism.
link |
And it works like this.
link |
When you get into cold and you shiver,
link |
the shivering, that low level movement of the muscle,
link |
those small movements,
link |
triggers the release of a molecule called succinate,
link |
S-U-C-C-I-N-A-T-E, succinate.
link |
And succinate acts on the brown fat
link |
to increase brown fat thermogenesis and fat burning overall.
link |
It actually increases body heat
link |
through this brown fat thermogenesis pathway.
link |
And it also over time can increase the amount of brown fat
link |
by converting beige fat into true brown fat.
link |
Now, how much cold exposure and how often, that's the key.
link |
But before I give that detail or set of details,
link |
remember if you resist the shiver,
link |
you are not going to get the increased metabolic effect
link |
because you are not going to get the succinate release.
link |
So if you want to get your body heat,
link |
your thermogenic level to go up, you need to shiver.
link |
So now we have the NEET,
link |
the non-exercise activity thermogenesis.
link |
So low levels of activity as I described before,
link |
which are done away from cold,
link |
maybe do them in cold as well,
link |
as well as shiver in response to cold.
link |
And so the shiver itself is valuable
link |
for triggering the release of succinate.
link |
In fact, succinate is being evolved now
link |
by various drug manufacturers
link |
as a potential treatment for obesity,
link |
although it hasn't really hit the market
link |
in its final form yet.
link |
Succinate is powerful for its effects on brown fat.
link |
So how many times a week
link |
do you need to expose yourself to cold?
link |
Well, depend on how much fat you're trying to lose
link |
and how much you're trying to increase your metabolism.
link |
There are studies that describe positive effects on fat loss
link |
of exposing yourself to cold,
link |
either through cold shower or through ice bath
link |
or other cold water.
link |
It doesn't have to actually have ice in it
link |
provided it's cold enough for any time,
link |
anywhere, excuse me, between one and five times per week.
link |
But it turns out that just one exposure per week
link |
The question then is how long
link |
to get into that cold environment
link |
and how cold should that environment be?
link |
So first let's talk about
link |
how long to get into that cold environment.
link |
The answer here might be a little bit different
link |
than you might imagine.
link |
Most of you might think,
link |
oh, well, if one minute is good, three minutes is better,
link |
and if three minutes is better, then 10 minutes is best.
link |
But remember, the goal is to get
link |
the shiver-induced release of succinate
link |
so that succinate can trigger the brown fat.
link |
It turns out that if you want to trigger the shiver,
link |
what you want to do is to get into the cold
link |
and then get out of the cold and typically not dry off
link |
and then get back into the cold and out of the cold.
link |
That will definitely stimulate more shivering
link |
than just getting into the cold itself.
link |
So what I'm not referring to
link |
is getting into the cold environment like an ice bath
link |
and waiting until you shiver and staying there shivering.
link |
You also don't want to get hypothermic,
link |
and I want to be clear,
link |
you want to get approval from your doctor
link |
before you do any of this.
link |
When you get into cold water,
link |
there are two factors that will dictate
link |
whether or not you shiver, probably three,
link |
but let's just talk about the main two.
link |
One is how cold it is.
link |
So how cold should it be?
link |
And look, if you get into water that's very, very cold,
link |
it can actually shock your heart.
link |
It can actually give you a heart attack
link |
if it's truly, truly ice cold
link |
and you're not adapted to that.
link |
So proceed with caution, please.
link |
I'm not a physician and I don't want to see anyone get hurt.
link |
Just cold enough to be uncomfortable
link |
is a good place to start.
link |
So for some of you, that's going to be 60 degrees.
link |
For some of you, that's going to be 55 degrees.
link |
For some of you, it's going to be high 30s, right?
link |
Depends on how cold adapted you are
link |
and people vary in terms of how well they tolerate the cold.
link |
So what you need to do is find a temperature
link |
that you can get into one to five,
link |
probably one to three times a week
link |
if you really want this to accelerate fat loss
link |
and you want to get in until you just start to shiver
link |
and then you want to get out and not dry off.
link |
Wait anywhere from one to three minutes
link |
and then get back into the cold.
link |
Now you'll notice when you get back into the cold,
link |
it'll almost seem soothing.
link |
It might actually not induce shiver.
link |
It might take away the shiver that you had.
link |
So here's a potential kind of sets reps protocol
link |
that you can play with.
link |
Find a temperature that induces shiver for you.
link |
That's going to vary depending on your cold tolerance
link |
and how cold adapted you are.
link |
One to three, maybe five times a week,
link |
get in until you or get under the shower or whatever it is
link |
until you start to shiver, genuinely shiver.
link |
Then after about a minute or so, get out,
link |
spend one to three minutes out but don't dry off,
link |
get back in for anywhere from one to three minutes
link |
but try and access the shiver point again.
link |
And you might do three repetitions of that.
link |
So it's three times in and three times out total, okay?
link |
That's a great starting place.
link |
And what you don't want to do is build up your tolerance
link |
to cold so fast that pretty soon you're able
link |
to resist the shiver because remember the shiver
link |
is the source of the succinate release
link |
that will trigger brown fat thermogenesis.
link |
So if you'd like to see this protocol spelled out,
link |
you can access it zero cost at a website
link |
which is thecoldplunge.com.
link |
The Cold Plunge is a company, they make cold plunges
link |
and they were kind enough to gift one
link |
to the Huberman Lab podcast.
link |
But I want to emphasize that these protocols
link |
The folks at the Cold Plunge are not just interested
link |
in marketing their product but one of their main interests
link |
is encouraging people to engage in cold exposure
link |
for particular endpoints and goals like fat loss,
link |
resilience, et cetera, resisting inflammation.
link |
But their main focus is providing people protocols
link |
and encouraging people to use cold exposure
link |
of various kinds, not just through their products
link |
but through cold rivers and jumps in the ocean
link |
and things that cold showers, whatever is most convenient
link |
and accessible for various people.
link |
And so we needed a place where we could house
link |
these protocols in a permanent way.
link |
And not just for this episode,
link |
so what they've agreed to do is to post the protocols there.
link |
They should be very easy to find on their website.
link |
This particular protocol we're referring to
link |
as the fat loss optimization protocol
link |
for lack of a better name.
link |
And it's really grounded in how cold can be used
link |
And again, it doesn't really matter
link |
how you're accessing that cold
link |
provided you access the shiver
link |
and you're moving from the cold environment
link |
to a slightly warmer environment.
link |
So getting out of the cold shower
link |
or getting out of the ice bath, et cetera
link |
or out of the cold plunge and then back in
link |
because it turns out that the cooling
link |
and rewarming process of the body is where shiver kicks in.
link |
And so that's distinctly different
link |
than just trying to get into the cold
link |
and stay in the cold for as long as possible.
link |
And if you zoom out a little bit
link |
and think about some examples in life,
link |
you'll understand why that must be the case.
link |
For instance, people who do a lot of cold water swims,
link |
you have these polar bear clubs,
link |
I think they call themselves,
link |
do these cold water swims.
link |
I would sometimes see these people
link |
swimming back and forth to Alcatraz and stuff like that,
link |
which just seems risky.
link |
And they tell me it's very stimulating
link |
for the mind and body, great.
link |
Sometimes those people are very lean,
link |
oftentimes they're not.
link |
And they're getting a lot of cold exposure.
link |
And one of the things that happens
link |
is if you expose yourself to cold over and over,
link |
you adapt, you become cold adapted.
link |
And when you do that, you no longer get the epinephrine,
link |
the adrenaline release from the cold.
link |
And therefore you don't get the succinate release
link |
and the shivering and the brown fat thermogenic effect
link |
quite as intensely.
link |
So if you want to use cold for other reasons,
link |
and certainly cold water swims can be fun
link |
and as long as you can do them safely, they're great.
link |
I've gotten into cold water swimming
link |
for some period of time.
link |
You can use cold for resilience, et cetera.
link |
But if you want to use cold to increase fat loss,
link |
then getting this shiver process going,
link |
the cooling and rewarming,
link |
which accelerates the amount
link |
or increases the amount of shiver,
link |
that's going to be the way to go.
link |
One note about cold and some of the factors
link |
A few years back, there was a lot of excitement
link |
about this hormone called irisin, I-R-I-S-I-N,
link |
which was associated with cold.
link |
And there was a lot of excitement about its potential role
link |
in increasing metabolism,
link |
so much so that people were starting to explore this
link |
as a potential fat loss drug.
link |
To my knowledge, that went nowhere.
link |
The science eventually shifted over to succinate
link |
as the main factor in cold-induced thermogenesis
link |
through this brown fat pathway.
link |
But if anyone out there is aware
link |
of any positive effects of irisin
link |
or of any science of irisin that I'm overlooking here
link |
or that I'm speaking about incorrectly, please let me know.
link |
I'd be very curious to learn.
link |
Now, I want to just talk about brown fat a little bit more
link |
and talk about a period in your life
link |
in which you were rich with brown fat,
link |
you had a ton of brown fat,
link |
and that's when you were a baby.
link |
Babies can't shiver.
link |
These neurons that release epinephrine into fat
link |
are not wired up and really aren't present
link |
at sufficient levels or in sufficient numbers
link |
when you are a baby,
link |
and therefore you can't shiver as a baby
link |
and you can't warm yourself up
link |
in cold environments very well.
link |
To compensate for that,
link |
mother nature installed in all of us
link |
an excess of brown fat early in life
link |
that exists again in the upper back,
link |
in the middle of the back, and the back of the neck.
link |
Over time, if we don't expose ourselves to cold environments
link |
or do other things that make us shiver,
link |
we lose a lot of that brown fat.
link |
But what's interesting about brown fat
link |
is that there's some evidence that brown fat,
link |
just like white fat, can both increase in size,
link |
but that you can also add new cells.
link |
Now, this is a little bit controversial.
link |
People always say you can't change the number of fat cells.
link |
You can just shrink them or increase their size.
link |
Well, it turns out that epinephrine released
link |
from these little nerve endings in brown fat
link |
and succinate circulating in the body may,
link |
and I want to underscore may,
link |
have the effect of increasing the amount of brown fat cells
link |
probably by converting these beige fat cells into brown fat.
link |
So that allows us to become much as we were early in life
link |
where we metabolized like crazy
link |
and we'd heat ourselves up without shivering.
link |
Some people have taken the cold thing to the extreme,
link |
putting ice packs on the back of their neck
link |
throughout the day,
link |
did a episode all about testosterone and estrogen,
link |
and there's this, let's just call it a very niche,
link |
I have to imagine very, very niche culture of people
link |
who are wearing literally, I'm not joking,
link |
they are these cool pack ice pack underpants.
link |
They go by a name that I'm not going to repeat on here,
link |
but you can find them on Amazon.
link |
Those are people that are using cold packs on the body
link |
and on the groin to try and increase things like testosterone
link |
but as well to try and increase thermogenesis
link |
and trying to increase their metabolism.
link |
Just remember, if you become cold adapted,
link |
you're not going to get the fat burning effects
link |
to the same degree.
link |
So cold is a powerful tool for fat loss,
link |
but you don't want to adapt.
link |
This is reminiscent of a rule that you hear about
link |
in endurance exercise and in strength exercise as well,
link |
which is that you want to use the minimal effective stimulus
link |
to promote growth or progress,
link |
so growth of the muscle or improvements in endurance.
link |
If you go 10% further on a run or 10% faster,
link |
you will likely see an improvement in performance
link |
provided you recovery the next time you come back
link |
and do that same round of exercise.
link |
You'll be able to do more work
link |
or complete the work more easily, et cetera.
link |
If you do 20% more distance or 20% more weight,
link |
you won't necessarily see the same commiserate level
link |
of gain or improvement.
link |
And so likewise with cold,
link |
if you're quickly moving from 30 seconds of exposure
link |
to 10 minutes of exposure,
link |
you're overlooking the opportunity
link |
to get the most fat loss and increase in metabolism
link |
by stepping it up in smaller increments, okay?
link |
And this also speaks to the rationale
link |
for using cold exposure to accelerate fat loss
link |
for certain periods,
link |
but then maybe not doing it year round
link |
if fat loss is your goal.
link |
Maybe use it for two, three months at a time
link |
and then stop for two, three months at a time
link |
because it is such a potent stimulus
link |
provided you engage in the shiver.
link |
Next, I'd like to move to exercise
link |
and how particular timing and types of exercise
link |
can vastly improve fat loss.
link |
I just want to mention a really important reference
link |
for those of you that are interested
link |
in learning more about how neurons connect to fat.
link |
This is certainly a paper that you'd want to look at
link |
if you're interested in diving deep into the literature
link |
and reading all the various studies.
link |
It's a review and the title of the review
link |
is neural innervation of white adipose tissue
link |
and the control of lipolysis.
link |
That's neural innervation of white adipose tissue
link |
and the control of lipolysis.
link |
It was published in Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology.
link |
You can find that free online.
link |
They have the full text available.
link |
The first author is Bartnes, B-A-R-T-N-E-S-S.
link |
It's a great review.
link |
And I've talked about a number of things
link |
that are mentioned in the review.
link |
Follow the references in that review
link |
and the reference trail, as we say,
link |
if you're interested in learning more about
link |
also how neurons control brown fat.
link |
And before I move to exercise,
link |
I also just want to highlight something
link |
that comes up every few years
link |
and has largely been considered myth now,
link |
but that is actually more interesting
link |
than most people might think,
link |
which is this issue of spot reduction.
link |
In the 80s and 90s, there were a lot of commercials,
link |
late night infomercials where they would talk
link |
about spot reduction.
link |
If you do sit-ups, will you lose abdominal fat?
link |
If you do hip raises or glute raises,
link |
will you lose glute and hip fat?
link |
And I think everybody now believes that
link |
and understands that fat metabolism
link |
is something that happens systemically throughout the body,
link |
that some body fat is quote unquote,
link |
more stubborn than others.
link |
Everyone varies in where they tend to store fat
link |
Number of factors that influence that
link |
and in particular hormone receptors.
link |
But now, at least in the scientific literature,
link |
spot reduction and the possibility
link |
of real true spot reduction,
link |
reductions in fat in a targeted way,
link |
a body part or body area targeted way
link |
is becoming more of a reality and may be a reality soon
link |
because exercise that triggers the activation
link |
of these nerve fibers, these neurons that innervate fat,
link |
in theory, if you can increase the amount
link |
of epinephrine released at those particular fat pads,
link |
as they're called, they're actually called fat pads
link |
in the scientific literature,
link |
in theory, you could increase mobilization
link |
from those particular body fat sites.
link |
So because the new view, the modern understanding
link |
is that it's not adrenaline released systemically
link |
kind of bathing all your fat tissue,
link |
but rather it's neurons releasing adrenaline,
link |
epinephrine locally, that in theory,
link |
exercise that stimulates the release of epinephrine
link |
or exercise coupled with things like shiver
link |
or low grade shaking movement or the NEET,
link |
the non-exercise activity thermogenesis could in theory lead
link |
to local enhancement of mobilization of fat tissue.
link |
So I think that spot reduction actually will soon
link |
be something that's possible
link |
using the appropriate technology.
link |
What does this mean for you now?
link |
What could you possibly do with this information now?
link |
Well, I think it speaks to the fact
link |
that if one is going to engage in exercise,
link |
that doing exercises that involve lots
link |
of different body parts and movements
link |
is likely to encourage the maintenance
link |
and or growth of these neurons
link |
that innervate fat throughout the body.
link |
What this means is changing up the pattern of exercise,
link |
engaging in novel types of movements
link |
may actually be one way that one can access
link |
these so-called stubborn body fat pads.
link |
Now there's a little bit of speculation
link |
in the statement that I'm making,
link |
but if you think about it, it makes sense.
link |
If you become very adapted
link |
to a particular pattern of exercise,
link |
whether or not you're subcaloric or not,
link |
you're in maintenance calories or not,
link |
you are oxidizing some fat always,
link |
and you're utilizing the neurons that innervate fat
link |
in a regular way and pretty soon,
link |
this innervation is going to shut off
link |
because there's no reason why this neural innervation
link |
of fat should continue to release epinephrine
link |
unless you give it a strong stimulus like cold
link |
or the fidgeting or in this case
link |
to do novel forms of exercise.
link |
And there's some anecdotal evidence
link |
and there I don't even want to call it data,
link |
but anecdotal evidence that people
link |
who have quote unquote stubborn body fat,
link |
if they start to adopt new patterns of exercise,
link |
they can start to access those stubborn fat pads.
link |
And again, fat pads is the correct way
link |
to refer to these in the scientific literature.
link |
So what we're focusing on today is the fact
link |
that fat indeed will be mobilized and oxidized
link |
in response to a deficit in calories,
link |
but that the way that neurons control those fat pads
link |
and those body fat stores afford you a lot more control
link |
than perhaps you ever previously thought.
link |
So let's talk about movement
link |
and the more traditional kinds of movement,
link |
AKA exercise, has been shown to lead
link |
to increases in metabolism and fat loss,
link |
to greater degrees, depending on whether or not,
link |
for instance, you're fasted when you do it or not,
link |
whether or not you do your cardio first
link |
or your resistance training first.
link |
And this is, again, in the literature
link |
for which there's a lot of controversy,
link |
but in digging through all the studies on this,
link |
we're finally starting to arrive at a consensus
link |
of when is best to do exercise
link |
and what types of exercise to do if your goal is fat loss.
link |
The topic of exercise is a kind of controversial one,
link |
not as controversial as nutrition and diet,
link |
which we will talk about in a few minutes,
link |
but it's a particularly interesting one
link |
because different types of exercise
link |
engage the musculature of the body
link |
and the heart and the lungs in different ways
link |
and can have vastly different effects
link |
on things like hormones and metabolism,
link |
depending on whether or not it's of high intensity,
link |
moderate intensity, or low intensity.
link |
So rather than think about weight training
link |
versus cardiovascular exercise,
link |
I think the most simple way,
link |
the most fluid way to have this conversation about exercise
link |
and fat loss is in terms of three general types of training,
link |
whether or not it's done with weights or body weight
link |
doesn't really matter.
link |
And those are high intensity interval training,
link |
something that seems to have gained a lot of popularity
link |
in recent years, so-called HIIT, H-I-I-T,
link |
so high intensity interval training,
link |
sprint interval training,
link |
so that's going to be very high intensity or S-I-T,
link |
or moderate intensity continuous training, M-I-C-T.
link |
So we've got HIIT, SIT, and MICT, M-I-C-T.
link |
And we can get a little bit more precise if you'd like.
link |
I'm not somebody who measures my VO2 max or anything
link |
while I exercise, I generally know
link |
whether or not I'm doing something
link |
I could continue for a very long time
link |
or whether or not I'm doing something that
link |
I realize is going to be of short duration, high intensity.
link |
But if you'd like to map this to VO2 max,
link |
SIT, this sprint interval training
link |
was defined as all out,
link |
greater than 100% of VO2 max bursts of activity
link |
that lasts eight to 30 seconds,
link |
interspersed with less intense recovery periods.
link |
So this would be sprinting downfield for eight to 30 seconds
link |
then maybe walking back for about a minute or two
link |
and then sprinting again and then continuing.
link |
So that would be SIT.
link |
HIIT, H-I-I-T, is defined as submaximal,
link |
so 80 to 100% of VO2 max bursts of activity
link |
that lasts 60 to 240 seconds
link |
interspersed with less intense recovery periods.
link |
So on a standard 400 meter track,
link |
just to give us a little bit of a visual,
link |
you'll one, a four minute mile would be fantastic
link |
although people run faster than that, of course.
link |
So that's four 60 second laps,
link |
but that's back to back to back.
link |
I think in my best shape or maybe it was in my dreams,
link |
I don't recall which,
link |
I was able to do 60 seconds around the track,
link |
but of course I couldn't get that
link |
on the second or third or fourth.
link |
If I did, that was certainly in fantasy land and not reality
link |
but 60 seconds would be about one revolution
link |
around the track, maybe 90 seconds,
link |
depending on how fast one is running.
link |
So 60 to 240 seconds, MICT, okay?
link |
This moderate intensity continuous training
link |
is steady state cardio,
link |
sometimes called zone two cardio these days
link |
which is performed continuously for 20 to 60 minutes
link |
at moderate intensity of 40 to 60% of VO2 max,
link |
or if you prefer heart rate,
link |
55 to 70% of max heart rate, okay?
link |
So we can think about high, medium,
link |
and low intensity exercise.
link |
Although low intensity usually means
link |
that you could carry on a conversation
link |
or maybe you'd have to gasp every few steps or so
link |
while trying to talk and run.
link |
That's, I think, going to be the most useful way
link |
to have this conversation that we're having now
link |
because there's so many different forms of exercise
link |
that people do and intensity is important.
link |
Let's ask the question that I think many of people
link |
are wondering about, which is, is it better,
link |
meaning do you burn more fat
link |
if you do your exercise fasted?
link |
And fasted in this respect could be
link |
that you wake up in the morning,
link |
you've been fasting all night,
link |
you just hydrate and you exercise,
link |
or sometimes people will ingest caffeine,
link |
there's controversy as to whether or not
link |
that quote unquote breaks the fast,
link |
has to do with whether or not your caffeine adapted
link |
something for another episode.
link |
In any case, that would be fasted.
link |
So probably not having eaten anything
link |
for anywhere from three to 24 hours or maybe even more.
link |
As you could also be fasted in the afternoon
link |
if you had lunch at noon and it's four or five or 6 p.m.,
link |
is it, will you burn more fat if you exercise
link |
without eating anything first,
link |
without ingesting any calories first?
link |
And people have tried to really split hairs
link |
on this every which way.
link |
People say, well, you can fat fast
link |
because fat and protein doesn't lead
link |
to as great increases in insulin as other things.
link |
Maybe you can have a few almonds and then still train.
link |
And indeed, insulin will prevent fat oxidation.
link |
I want to be really clear.
link |
The burning part of fat in the cell,
link |
the movement of the fatty acid into mitochondria
link |
and the conversion to ATP, insulin inhibits that process.
link |
However, it's been shown
link |
that at least for short periods of training,
link |
it doesn't really seem to matter
link |
whether or not you eat before training or you don't
link |
if your goal is fat oxidation.
link |
Now, I want to put an asterisk near that
link |
because there are some exceptions,
link |
but there were several studies done
link |
that, and kind of the classic ones of these,
link |
I'll read out to you.
link |
What they basically did is they gave people glucose sugar
link |
to increase their blood sugar before training or not.
link |
And the kind of classic study of this is Alborg et al.
link |
So in 1976, so it goes way back,
link |
which is that glucose reduces fat burning and exercise.
link |
And then some other studies, if you want to look these up,
link |
they're very easy to find on PubMed.
link |
You put in Horowitz, 1999, Lee et al. is another one
link |
where they have people drink milk with glucose in it.
link |
So sweet sugary milk before exercise, et cetera.
link |
And you can find a number of examples
link |
where eating before exercise reduces the amount of fat
link |
that's oxidized during the exercise.
link |
And you can also find a lot of studies showing
link |
that eating during exercise or prior to exercise
link |
will not reduce the amount of fat that's oxidized.
link |
However, the types of exercise,
link |
whether that was medium intensity or high intensity
link |
or low intensity is all over the map for these studies.
link |
So it's very hard to target an ideal protocol.
link |
And then if you look really deep in the literature,
link |
you start to find meta-analyses
link |
where people have actually aggregated all the findings
link |
and some modern studies where it points
link |
to some very specific and useful protocols.
link |
And so here's the rule or the protocol
link |
that I extracted from that literature.
link |
At a period of about 90 minutes
link |
of moderate intensity exercise, I want to be clear,
link |
at about or after 90 minutes of moderate intensity exercise,
link |
there's a switchover point
link |
whereby if you ate before the exercise,
link |
you will reduce, excuse me, you will burn far less fat
link |
from the 90 minute point onward
link |
than you would if you had gone into the training fasted.
link |
So let me repeat that.
link |
If it's moderate intensity,
link |
so-called zone two cardio type exercise,
link |
at the 90 minute point,
link |
if you happen to have eaten before the exercise
link |
within one to three hours prior to the exercise,
link |
then you reduce the amount of fat
link |
that you will burn from 90 minutes onward.
link |
Whereas if you had fasted prior to the exercise,
link |
you hadn't eaten anything for three hours or more
link |
prior to the exercise,
link |
at the 90 minute point, 90 minutes of exercise,
link |
you will start to burn more fat
link |
than you would had you eaten.
link |
Now, 90 minutes of moderate intensity exercise is a lot.
link |
So that's a pretty long run.
link |
Even if you're running at a pretty slow pace,
link |
like a 10 or 12 minute mile, that's a lot of running.
link |
That's a lot of swimming.
link |
So that's a lot of walking.
link |
That's a lot of hiking.
link |
However, there are people who are going out hiking all day
link |
or running all day or walking all day.
link |
And if you want to burn more fat per unit time,
link |
you want to oxidize more fat,
link |
then you would do that fasted.
link |
Now, there are also studies that point to the fact
link |
that you don't have to wait to 90 minutes
link |
in order to get this enhanced fat burning effect.
link |
The studies I was able to find
link |
and that looked to me like quality peer reviewed studies
link |
with no company bias or no product bias of any kind.
link |
These are studies that were largely funded
link |
by the federal government in the university context
link |
pointed to the fact that if one does high intensity training
link |
or even the very high intensity forms of training
link |
like sprints or squats or deadlifts
link |
or any kind of activity that can't be maintained
link |
for more than these eight or I would say up to 60 seconds.
link |
So a set of lifting weights, repeated, repeated.
link |
If that's done for anywhere from 20 minutes,
link |
so weight training or powerlifting
link |
or these kinds of things or kettlebell swings
link |
or up to 60 minutes, well then the switchover point
link |
in which you can burn more fat
link |
if you go into that fasted comes earlier.
link |
And this makes sense because there's nothing holy
link |
about the 90 minute point
link |
for medium intensity zone two cardio.
link |
That 90 minute point is the point in which the body shifts
link |
over from mainly burning glycogen, basically sugar
link |
that comes from muscles or the liver
link |
and realizes this is going on for a while.
link |
I'm going to shift over to a storage site fuel
link |
that is in reserve like body fat.
link |
This is going to happen for a while.
link |
So I'm going to start tapping into body fat stores.
link |
Now fat doesn't have a little brain there.
link |
It is innervated by neurons, but it doesn't have thoughts.
link |
And you don't actually control this switch with your mind.
link |
This is something that has to do with the milieu
link |
of various hormones.
link |
What has to happen is insulin has to go down far enough.
link |
So if you ate before the exercise
link |
you'd have an increase in insulin.
link |
If you ate carbohydrates
link |
you'd have a bigger increase in insulin.
link |
Fat and proteins indeed will have lower amounts of insulin
link |
and fasting will give you the lowest amount of insulin.
link |
Well then that switchover point is going to come earlier
link |
And if you think about it
link |
if you were to do something high intensity
link |
for 20, 30, 40 minutes
link |
so maybe lift weights and then get into zone two cardio.
link |
If you were fasted, the literature says
link |
that you're going to burn more body fat per unit time
link |
than if you had eaten before or during the exercise.
link |
So what does this mean?
link |
This means if you want to burn more body fat
link |
if it's in your protocols
link |
and you have been approved to do this safely
link |
exercise intensely for 20 to 60 minutes
link |
the higher the intensity
link |
obviously the shorter that bout is going to be
link |
and then move over into zone two cardio.
link |
And if you do that fasted
link |
or the medium intensity cardio, I should say
link |
and if you do that fasted
link |
then indeed you will burn a higher percentage of body fat.
link |
If you need to eat or you like to eat before you train
link |
that also can work.
link |
And if you train very intensely
link |
you're likely to shift over
link |
to the fat burning pattern more quickly as well.
link |
So again, this isn't really an issue
link |
of how long you exercise.
link |
It's an issue of how intensely you exercise
link |
and therefore what fuel source you're drawing from.
link |
So hopefully I've made that clear
link |
but basically you need to deplete glycogen
link |
or through high intensity exercise
link |
and then move to a steady state exercise
link |
that will allow you to burn more fat
link |
or you need to perform a medium intensity
link |
or low intensity type exercise for a long period of time
link |
before you shift over to burning fat.
link |
And indeed it seems that going into all that fasted
link |
will facilitate the burning of more fat overall.
link |
But if you can't even get to the exercise
link |
if you're somebody who just can't do the training at all
link |
you're unwilling to or you're incapable of training
link |
unless you eat something
link |
then obviously eating something makes the most sense
link |
and what you eat prior to exercise
link |
that's a whole other biz that people argue about
link |
and fight about whether or not you should go into it
link |
with low carbohydrates or higher carb or all of that.
link |
But in general, the theme there is very simple
link |
which is that you want insulin levels to be pretty low
link |
if your goal is body fat reduction
link |
if you want to oxidize body fat.
link |
So fasting in some cases, fat fasting in other cases
link |
where you're just ingesting fats,
link |
fat and protein in some cases
link |
or for some people it will be eating carbohydrates.
link |
I'm not here to dictate a particular nutrition regimen
link |
that's just how the hormone balance of these things
link |
and fat oxidation works.
link |
Now, one thing that's very interesting
link |
and cannot be overlooked
link |
is this issue of how much energy you burn
link |
during and after the activity.
link |
And some of you probably already know about this
link |
but the whole business of calories in versus calories out
link |
and people counting the number of calories they burn
link |
during their aerobic session
link |
or during their whatever session
link |
is only one half of the equation
link |
and it really eclipses the more important issue
link |
which is how much of an increase in metabolism
link |
does a given exercise create after the exercise?
link |
And we could talk for hours about this
link |
but the simple way to view this
link |
is that high intensity training,
link |
anaerobic training of weight training, sprints, burpees
link |
any kind of thing.
link |
I don't know, these days I see,
link |
I hear that you're not supposed to do burpees
link |
that people think burpees are dangerous.
link |
So I'm not suggesting any particular movements here.
link |
You have to decide what's right for you.
link |
I do burpees, I don't seem to be injured from them
link |
but I hear that they're terrible for some people.
link |
So anyway, pushups, sit ups, whatever it happens to be
link |
that anaerobic exercise that's of higher intensity
link |
or sprints taps into glycogen stores during the movement
link |
and will burn more energy per unit time
link |
than moderate intensity.
link |
High intensity burns more than moderate intensity.
link |
That's straightforward.
link |
What's interesting is that all the studies
link |
that I was able to find on what happens
link |
after that type of exercise
link |
showed that the percentage of fat that you burn
link |
after high intensity exercise is actually greater
link |
in other words, you burn a lot of glycogen
link |
during the high intensity exercise
link |
and then after the exercise,
link |
the post-exercise oxygen consumption
link |
as it's sometimes called goes up.
link |
We know this after you train intensely
link |
that post-exercise oxygen consumption goes up
link |
sometimes for up to 24 hours.
link |
And it is during that period of time
link |
that you oxidize more fat, not glycogen.
link |
Now what's interesting is that the reverse is also true
link |
for people that do long bouts
link |
of low or moderate intensity exercise.
link |
So typically this would be things like running,
link |
swimming, biking, et cetera.
link |
So 60, 90 minutes, two hours,
link |
maybe even people that are training for marathons
link |
or half marathons.
link |
When they stop training, they burn more glycogen,
link |
more carbohydrate, even though they were burning
link |
more body fat per unit time
link |
during the low intensity exercise.
link |
So there's this kind of inversion.
link |
High intensity burns more glycogen during the activity,
link |
more body fat afterwards.
link |
Moderate to low intensity burns more percentage-wise,
link |
more body fat is oxidized than glycogen
link |
during the actual exercise.
link |
Afterward, it's more glycogen.
link |
So I don't want this to get too complicated.
link |
The point is you should pick exercise that you like,
link |
that you're going to do regularly,
link |
but it does seem that the high intensity exercise
link |
followed by moderate intensity exercise
link |
is going to be optimal for fat burning overall
link |
because when you look at the percentage of body fat burned
link |
and you look at the overall increase
link |
in basal metabolic rate,
link |
moderate and high intensity training
link |
followed by low intensity training,
link |
or even just followed by going back into life
link |
is going to be the best way to continue to burn body fat
link |
because of the ways that it increases basal metabolic rate.
link |
Now, this could be distilled into a simple protocol
link |
whereby three or four times a week
link |
you do high intensity training followed by either nothing
link |
or followed by low intensity training,
link |
especially if you're able to do that fasted.
link |
And I should just mention that none of this stuff
link |
about fasted is about performance.
link |
If you want to perform really well,
link |
this is for reasons of performance
link |
and it's for a sport or a competition,
link |
it's not for body fat purposes,
link |
well, then all of this kind of falls away
link |
and is modified by what's ideal to eat for performance.
link |
But what we're talking about today
link |
is how to optimize body fat, body fat loss.
link |
So train moderately to intensely to very high intensity
link |
and then moderate to low intensity
link |
or train moderate to high intensity and then go about life.
link |
And in fact, I have a friend who uses this strategy.
link |
He likes to train intensely and not that often protocol
link |
because he's a very busy person.
link |
So he'll train for 20 or 30 minutes intensely with weights
link |
or just body weight movement, doing a lot of,
link |
he does burpees and pushups and sit ups and pull ups
link |
and just kind of moving and kind of circuit type training.
link |
But where he's breathing really hard,
link |
the goal he always says is I want to breathe hard
link |
for 30 minutes every day.
link |
And then afterwards he hydrates and drinks coffee
link |
and moves into his day and he's walking around
link |
and taking calls and carrying around his children
link |
and doing all these kinds of things
link |
that keep him really busy
link |
with kind of like low intensity work.
link |
So I think you get the principle now,
link |
but you should all be asking yourselves
link |
as scientists of yourselves,
link |
why would it be that certain patterns of exercise
link |
would lead to more or less fat loss?
link |
I mean, it can't just be about the energy burned.
link |
We already established that.
link |
And again, it has to do with the neurons.
link |
It has to do with how we engage the nervous system.
link |
So while non-exercise activity induced thermogenesis,
link |
NEAT, the fidgeting, and cold can induce thermogenesis
link |
by engaging shiver type movement or low level movements,
link |
big movements that are of very high intensity,
link |
meaning they require a lot of effort,
link |
deploy a lot of adrenaline epinephrine from our neurons
link |
and signal particular types and amounts
link |
of fat thermogenesis, fat oxidation.
link |
Whereas low level intensity exercise,
link |
low or moderate intensity exercise,
link |
walking, running, biking, where you can do that easily,
link |
there's not very much adrenaline release.
link |
So adrenaline and AKA epinephrine
link |
is really the final common path
link |
by which movement of any kind,
link |
whether or not it's low level shiver
link |
or whether or not it's lifting a barbell,
link |
sprinting up a hill or doing a long bike ride,
link |
adrenaline is the effector of fat loss.
link |
It's the trigger and it's the effector.
link |
So now I want to turn our attention
link |
to compounds that increase epinephrine and adrenaline,
link |
as well as compounds that work outside
link |
the adrenaline epinephrine pathway
link |
to increase the rates of fat loss.
link |
I almost always save compounds and supplements
link |
and things of that sort to the end,
link |
because I do believe that people should look first
link |
towards behavioral tools
link |
and an understanding of the science
link |
before they look toward a supplement
link |
or a particular thing that they can extract from diet.
link |
This is mainly to try and shift people away
link |
from the kind of magic pill phenomenon
link |
or the idea that there is a magic pill,
link |
because there really isn't
link |
and frankly there never will be.
link |
But there are some compounds
link |
that can greatly increase fat oxidation and mobilization
link |
and understanding which compounds
link |
increase oxidation or mobilization
link |
can be very useful if your goal is to accelerate fat loss.
link |
There are things that people can ingest
link |
that will allow them to oxidize more fat.
link |
And that occurs mainly by increasing the amount
link |
of epinephrine that is released from neurons
link |
that innervate fat tissue.
link |
One of the more common ones
link |
is one that you may already be using, which is caffeine.
link |
It's well-established that caffeine can enhance performance
link |
if you're caffeine adapted.
link |
I talked about this in an earlier episode,
link |
so I want to make sure I'm very clear about this.
link |
If you are not used to drinking caffeine
link |
and you suddenly decide I'm going to drink
link |
a big cup of coffee before training,
link |
you will vasoconstrict and you will limit performance.
link |
So that's performance.
link |
If you're caffeine adapted, however,
link |
there's this kind of interesting phenomenon
link |
where ingestion of caffeine serves more
link |
as a performance enhancer, both by increasing alertness,
link |
but also by way of dilating vasculature,
link |
of allowing more blood flow.
link |
Now, caffeine for burning more fat,
link |
for oxidizing and mobilizing more fat
link |
is an interesting one.
link |
It can be effective at dosages up to 400 milligrams.
link |
You have to be careful if you're caffeine sensitive.
link |
Some people have just the littlest bit of caffeine
link |
and their mind goes crazy and they're very uncomfortable.
link |
It can have cardiovascular effects for some people
link |
with hypertension, et cetera.
link |
So please check with your doctor.
link |
But 400 milligrams is roughly a cup and a half of coffee
link |
or two cups of coffee.
link |
Nowadays, there's a lot more caffeine in coffee.
link |
So if you go to a typical cafe
link |
and you were to get their medium size,
link |
that would have close to a gram of caffeine,
link |
which is why if you're a regular caffeine consumer
link |
and you don't get that gram of caffeine
link |
in your coffee each day, you will get a headache.
link |
It can cause constriction and dilation of blood vessels
link |
in ways that's complicated, but you'll get a headache.
link |
Some people like the way they feel,
link |
drinking 100 to 200, 300,
link |
maybe in 400 milligrams of caffeine before training.
link |
And indeed that will lead to increased fat oxidation.
link |
It will do that because you will release
link |
more epinephrine and adrenaline.
link |
So let's just place this in the context
link |
of what we said previously.
link |
Let's say you normally do zone two cardio.
link |
So you're going out for a moderately intense run
link |
for 30 to 60 minutes or so.
link |
I think the current recommendation guidelines in the States
link |
are that people engage in 30 minutes
link |
of moderate intensity exercise five days a week
link |
for, so that's 150 minutes,
link |
if their goal is to improve or maintain health
link |
of the cardiovascular system.
link |
80% of people in the United States fail to do that
link |
or anything close to it.
link |
We are way below threshold
link |
for what the government has recommended.
link |
In this case, the government recommendations, I think,
link |
One could always do better, of course,
link |
but 80% of people aren't even doing that.
link |
However, just using the logic and the understanding
link |
of how epinephrine, adrenaline is affecting
link |
this fat oxidation process.
link |
If you were to go out for 15 minutes
link |
and you drank caffeine before you went,
link |
yes, you will probably oxidize more fat per unit time.
link |
Can you compensate for the exercise you're not doing
link |
just by drinking caffeine?
link |
Well, probably if you were just talking about fat loss,
link |
if that caffeine makes you fidget a lot, right?
link |
The amount of calories that you burn in a 30 minute run,
link |
unless the run is very intense
link |
and you're wearing a weight vest and it's up a hill,
link |
it's not that great, right?
link |
But you probably get somewhere
link |
into the 400, 500 calories burned area.
link |
But I said earlier,
link |
and there are a lot of data now that support
link |
that fidgeting for a day can burn anywhere
link |
from 800 to 2,500 calories a day.
link |
So you might say, well, fidgeting is better than running.
link |
Ah, but it doesn't trigger the activation
link |
and the positive health effects of the cardiovascular system.
link |
So fidgeting alone can be great,
link |
but you need exercise for other reasons.
link |
Caffeine can enhance the amount of fat that you burn
link |
in any duration of exercise,
link |
and it can shift the percentage of fat that you oxidize
link |
compared to glycogen, unless you take that caffeine
link |
and it ramps you up so much
link |
that you're training really, really intensely.
link |
The bottom line is if you like caffeine
link |
and you can use it safely,
link |
ingesting somewhere between 100 and 400 milligrams
link |
of caffeine prior to exercise,
link |
somewhere between 30 to 40 minutes before exercise
link |
can be beneficial if we're talking about fat oxidation,
link |
burning more body fat.
link |
So that's caffeine.
link |
There are a number of other things that have existed
link |
over the years that are in this pathway,
link |
things like ephedrine, which is now illegal in most states,
link |
I think maybe in all states
link |
because people were dropping dead from taking ephedrine
link |
because they were heating up too much.
link |
It's interesting, it wasn't direct effects
link |
on the heart causing heart attack.
link |
It could trigger by way of adrenergic receptors,
link |
if you'd like to know,
link |
increases in body temperature and heat.
link |
Now, those drugs turned out to be dangerous
link |
because people were overheating and dying.
link |
There was also the big Fen-Fen craze.
link |
There was a drug that was released, fenfluramine,
link |
which actually was quite effective as an anti-obesity drug,
link |
a treatment for obesity.
link |
That had to be outlawed as well.
link |
It was, FDA approval was removed because again,
link |
people were dying because of cardiovascular effects.
link |
I don't know if people were overheating on it as well.
link |
So what is the solution?
link |
If caffeine is the kind of the entry point
link |
for most people of using compounds to increase the rate
link |
or percentage of fat loss in exercise and even at rest,
link |
what are some of the other things
link |
that are useful and interesting?
link |
Well, in terms of tools that are actionable
link |
and have reasonable safety margins,
link |
I've talked before about something called GLP-1.
link |
This is something that can be triggered
link |
by the ingestion of yerba mate, which is a tea.
link |
And I guess because I'm half Argentine,
link |
they grew up drinking mate.
link |
I think I was drinking mate
link |
from the time I was about three or four years old.
link |
I don't suggest that for kids.
link |
I don't think kids should be ingesting caffeine.
link |
But anyway, I did it and I still ingest mate.
link |
Mate increases GLP-1.
link |
GLP-1 is in the glucagon pathway.
link |
So let's just quickly return to our biochemistry.
link |
As you recall, fat is mobilized from body fat stores
link |
and then it's burned up, it's oxidized in cells.
link |
It actually needs to be converted into ATP.
link |
And those fatty acids are essentially converted into ATP
link |
in the mitochondria of the cell.
link |
High insulin prevents that from happening.
link |
And glucagon facilitates that process.
link |
Glucagon facilitates that process through increases in GLP-1.
link |
The short takeaway is mate increases GLP-1
link |
and yes, increases the percentage of fat that you'll burn.
link |
It increases fat burning.
link |
And that is especially true, it turns out,
link |
from the scientific literature,
link |
if you ingest mate prior to exercise of any kind.
link |
So if you want to burn more fat,
link |
drinking mate before exercise is good.
link |
Drinking it at rest when you're not exercising
link |
will also help shift your metabolism
link |
toward enhanced burning of fat by increasing fat oxidation.
link |
Now there's a whole category of pharmaceuticals
link |
that's being developed right now
link |
that are in late stage trials
link |
or are in use for the treatment of diabetes,
link |
which capitalize on this GLP-1 pathway.
link |
They go by various names
link |
and there are people on the internet
link |
who are selling these things.
link |
They are prescription drugs.
link |
And I want to emphasize that they are prescription drugs.
link |
And you obviously wouldn't want to use any of these
link |
without a prescription and a requirement.
link |
It does seem that they are effective
link |
for the treatment of certain kinds of diabetes
link |
and lead to fairly significant weight loss
link |
and reduction in appetite.
link |
So this is kind of the modern version of GLP-1
link |
is pharmaceuticals of GLP-1 metabolism
link |
are drugs such as semaglutide.
link |
I can never pronounce this.
link |
Can't seem to pronounce many things it seems.
link |
Semaglutide is the way I would pronounce it.
link |
S-E-M-A-G-L-U-T-I-D-E.
link |
Semaglutide, but that's not the way you pronounce it.
link |
But semaglutide is the way
link |
that it's been described on the internet.
link |
In any case, this compound increases GLP-1.
link |
It's actually a GLP-1 analog in some cases
link |
and they go by various types of trade names.
link |
So the GLP-1 pathway is interesting.
link |
Most people, including myself,
link |
are not interested in taking a prescription drug
link |
to increase GLP-1.
link |
I do it through the ingestion of mate.
link |
I just get the mate leaves, pour water over it and drink it.
link |
What's kind of interesting that's not often discussed
link |
is that you can increase the amount of GLP-1
link |
by, you can essentially reuse the tea.
link |
The first time you drink it, it's going to be very,
link |
In fact, some people find that mate,
link |
it almost tastes like burnt leaves.
link |
You don't want the water to be too hot.
link |
But I learned this trick from a friend.
link |
You can reuse the leaves over and over again,
link |
probably for about a day before they go bad.
link |
And in doing that, you start to extract
link |
more and more of the compounds
link |
from the mate leaf that increased GLP-1.
link |
So it's kind of cool.
link |
You can kind of get an increased effect.
link |
So what I'll typically do is make
link |
about 16 to 30 ounces of it
link |
and just sip it throughout the day.
link |
And I do like it before I train.
link |
Some people who don't like mate
link |
might prefer something like guayusa,
link |
which is spelled G-U-A-Y-U-S-A.
link |
G-U-A-Y-U-S-A, guayusa,
link |
which is from Ecuador, despite the USA ending to it.
link |
It's from Ecuador.
link |
And it's a sweeter tasting tea.
link |
It doesn't have any sweetener in it,
link |
but the leaf of the guayusa plant
link |
is sweeter than the mate plant.
link |
I sometimes will mix the two
link |
and then make the tea with that.
link |
There's no mate or guayusa sponsor of the podcast.
link |
These are just tools to increase GLP-1 and fat oxidation.
link |
And again, the semaglutide is the prescription version
link |
where it's kind of the heavy artillery GLP-1 stimulant.
link |
And again, should be only explored with a prescription.
link |
So those are the compounds
link |
that really increase fat oxidation directly.
link |
There are going to be a number of things
link |
that impact insulin and glucagon
link |
that are going to shift the body toward more fat burning.
link |
We talked about a lot of these
link |
during the episode on hormones.
link |
We talked about it,
link |
we did a whole episode on hormones and metabolism.
link |
And so for instance, berberine, which comes from a plant
link |
or metformin are compounds that are now
link |
in kind of growing use for reducing blood glucose.
link |
They are very potent at reducing blood glucose,
link |
which will reduce insulin
link |
because the job of the hormone insulin
link |
is to essentially manage glucose in the bloodstream.
link |
So there are a huge gallery of compounds
link |
that will reduce insulin
link |
and thereby can increase fat oxidation.
link |
And that's because, as I mentioned before,
link |
fat oxidation, this conversion of fatty acids into ATP
link |
in the mitochondria is inhibited by insulin.
link |
So if you keep insulin low,
link |
you're going to increase that process,
link |
which brings us full circle back
link |
to the issue of diet and nutrition.
link |
There is really solid evidence
link |
from the Gardner lab at Stanford and from other labs
link |
showing that when you look at different diets,
link |
you look at low-fat diets, high-fat diets,
link |
keto diets, intermittent fasting.
link |
Provided people stick to their particular diet,
link |
it doesn't really matter which diet you follow.
link |
You can still get a caloric deficit and you get weight loss.
link |
Adherence, however, is always an issue.
link |
And so what I always say is
link |
that you want to use the eating plan
link |
that is obviously beneficial to your health,
link |
but the one that allows you to adhere to whatever it is
link |
that the particular nutrition protocol is, right?
link |
If you can't stick with something,
link |
then it's not very worthwhile.
link |
But from the purely scientific standpoint,
link |
there's also an advantage to keeping insulin low.
link |
Now that doesn't necessarily mean
link |
you go to zero carbohydrate.
link |
I've talked before about my preferred way of eating
link |
is to go low or no carbohydrate throughout the day
link |
for alertness, to get that adrenaline release
link |
and the focus that goes with it, et cetera,
link |
and the ability to think and move
link |
and do all the things I need to do during the day.
link |
And then I eat carbohydrates at night
link |
because it facilitates the transition to sleep.
link |
That's what works for me.
link |
But when insulin is low,
link |
you do place your system in a position to oxidize more fat.
link |
And so that's why I think a lot of people do see benefit
link |
from lower carbohydrate or moderate carbohydrate diets
link |
because when insulin is low,
link |
you are in a position to oxidize more fat,
link |
both from exercise and at rest.
link |
And I should mention, because I often mention
link |
and it's appropriate to mention
link |
that if you're interested in looking at the effects
link |
of caffeine, of mate, guayusa, things of that sort, GLP-1,
link |
you want to learn more about those,
link |
you can go to this wonderful website,
link |
which is free, examine.com.
link |
You can put in Yerba Mate.
link |
It will describe the three studies
link |
that show increased fat oxidation,
link |
both during exercise and at rest.
link |
And as a consequence, not surprisingly,
link |
an increase in metabolic rate.
link |
One thing that's interesting about mate
link |
is it causes a slight decrease in heart rate
link |
for reasons that still escape me.
link |
There's a single study showing
link |
that heart rate is slightly reduced,
link |
which is kind of nice
link |
because if when I drink too much caffeine,
link |
my heart rate goes up,
link |
maybe that would increase my fidgeting and my fat burning,
link |
but I don't like the feeling
link |
of having my basal heart rate being up too high.
link |
I like my heart rate elevated during exercise,
link |
but not when I'm just kind of resting
link |
or working throughout the day.
link |
And for some reason that I don't understand,
link |
there's an effect of mate of increasing fat oxidation,
link |
but reducing heart rate just slightly.
link |
So that's interesting and it probably lends itself
link |
to my, explains the subjective experience that I've had
link |
of that mate is kind of a nice, even, mellow stimulant.
link |
It's not this really supercharged stimulant
link |
like caffeine from coffee or other sources.
link |
Although if you drink too much mate,
link |
it will also make you jittery.
link |
And there's one more compound
link |
that I think we should discuss
link |
in terms of increasing fat loss,
link |
and that's carnitine or acetyl-L-carnitine.
link |
They lie in the same pathway.
link |
We can return to our basic knowledge now
link |
of fat mobilization and oxidation.
link |
After fat is mobilized and makes it into cells
link |
and needs to be oxidized,
link |
so literally the burning of fat
link |
and conversion of it into energy,
link |
that is accomplished and is facilitated
link |
by the presence of glucagon being elevated,
link |
GLP increases that process,
link |
and insulin being low.
link |
And we talked about some ways to manage insulin,
link |
both in this episode and in previous episode.
link |
L-carnitine and acetyl-L-carnitine in particular
link |
facilitates fat oxidation.
link |
It helps convert fatty acids into ATP.
link |
And indeed supplementing L-carnitine can increase fat loss.
link |
That's been shown.
link |
Well, people ingest anywhere from 500 milligrams
link |
to two grams per day in divided doses typically.
link |
Some people who are really extreme
link |
are taking injectable L-carnitine.
link |
I've certainly not tried that.
link |
I confess I have used it in pill form from time to time,
link |
but in part because of the fat oxidation effects,
link |
but also because of the other effects
link |
that it tends to have.
link |
So in exploring the effects that L-carnitine has,
link |
it has a huge variety of effects on cellular metabolism.
link |
It can reduce ammonia in the blood.
link |
That is actually a quite strong effect.
link |
It can reduce things like C-reactive protein,
link |
which is you want C-reactive protein levels to be managed.
link |
You do not want them too high.
link |
Can slightly reduce blood glucose.
link |
It can slightly increase HDLC,
link |
the good form of the blood lipid,
link |
and slightly reduce overall cholesterol.
link |
And as I mentioned,
link |
it can slightly modify the pathway involving glucagon
link |
such that you get a considerable effect,
link |
not a huge effect on fat oxidation.
link |
So it can improve fat oxidation rates.
link |
It has a number of other effects,
link |
some of which I talked about during the month on hormones
link |
and that sort of thing.
link |
It has strong effects on rates of pregnancy
link |
and sperm quality.
link |
So clearly carnitine is doing lots of different things
link |
in lots of different cells.
link |
It's impacting sperm motility.
link |
There are a large number of studies supporting that.
link |
Slight reductions in blood pressure.
link |
N has these interesting effects on reducing fatigue
link |
during exercise, reducing inflammatory markers
link |
like interleukin-6.
link |
So it has a number of effects that on the whole
link |
are quote unquote positive,
link |
or at least in the direction of things that you may want.
link |
And I should emphasize may.
link |
You certainly don't need acetyl-L-carnitine
link |
in order to lose fat,
link |
but now that you understand the cellular process
link |
by which fat is mobilized and oxidized,
link |
it should make sense that if L-carnitine is important
link |
for converting fatty acids into energy,
link |
then supplementing L-carnitine makes sense.
link |
Acetyl-L-carnitine is the type of L-carnitine
link |
or the form of L-carnitine, I should say,
link |
that is transported and utilized most easily by the body.
link |
And so that's why sometimes we distinguish
link |
between L-carnitine and acetyl-L-carnitine.
link |
So once again, we've covered an enormous amount of material.
link |
We've talked about the science of fat loss.
link |
And in particular, we've explored this topic
link |
from the perspective of the nervous system,
link |
how neurons, and in particular,
link |
the release of things like adrenaline, epinephrine,
link |
can facilitate fat mobilization and oxidation.
link |
We talked about NEAT, fidgeting,
link |
this non-exercise type movement
link |
that can greatly increase caloric burn and why that is.
link |
We talked about shiver,
link |
another form of non-exercise movement
link |
that can really increase both caloric expenditure
link |
due to the shiver, due to the movement,
link |
as well as increased thermogenesis,
link |
the heating up of the body through things like brown fat,
link |
and even the conversion of white fat to brown fat,
link |
which is a good thing if you want to oxidize fat.
link |
We talked about cold as a particular stimulus
link |
to induce shiver and how to use getting into and out of cold
link |
as a way to stimulate shiver and avoid cold adaptation
link |
so that you continue to oxidize and burn fat,
link |
if that's your goal.
link |
If you want to check out the protocols for that,
link |
they're at thecoldplunge.com.
link |
And in weeks to come,
link |
we're going to be adding more protocols to that website,
link |
not just for fat loss, but for things like resilience,
link |
reducing inflammation, et cetera.
link |
So be sure to check those out.
link |
Again, those are totally cost-free.
link |
Talked about exercise,
link |
how rather than thinking about cardiovascular
link |
or weight training exercise,
link |
that we should perhaps look through the lens
link |
of this adrenaline system
link |
and how it interacts with fat stores
link |
and think about low, medium, or high intensity exercise,
link |
whether or not we show up to that fasted or not.
link |
Turns out showing up to that fasted can be useful
link |
if you start with high intensity movements
link |
and then move into lower intensity type exercise.
link |
If you're going to go long duration,
link |
it probably doesn't matter
link |
unless you're exercising longer than 90 minutes,
link |
whether or not you eat or not.
link |
We talked about caffeine as a stimulant
link |
and a stimulus for epinephrine and adrenaline release
link |
as a way to access more fat metabolism.
link |
And we talked about compounds that come from things
link |
like yerba mate and guayusa tea,
link |
this GLP-1 pathway that can trigger increased fat oxidation
link |
so much so that the pharmaceutical companies
link |
are now developing compounds specifically to increase GLP-1
link |
for treatment of diabetes and obesity.
link |
But you can leverage the GLP-1 pathway
link |
through the ingestion of things like mate or guayusa
link |
if that's of interest to you.
link |
And then we talked about L-carnitine
link |
and how L-carnitine itself is critical
link |
for the fat oxidation within individual cells,
link |
the conversion of fatty acids to energy
link |
and why having your insulin low
link |
and things like L-carnitine and glucagon levels
link |
high or sufficient at least
link |
to can facilitate the burning of fat, fat oxidation.
link |
So we covered a lot of material.
link |
That's a lot of protocols.
link |
I realize, and that didn't,
link |
the little list I just gave right there
link |
didn't even begin to get into all the details
link |
and corners that we discussed.
link |
I hope you found this conversation interesting
link |
both for sake of understanding fat loss
link |
and how to lose fat more quickly
link |
and to lose more of it if that's your goal,
link |
as well as simply to understand the biology
link |
of fat metabolism from a different perspective,
link |
from the perspective of the nervous system.
link |
If you're enjoying this podcast
link |
and you're benefiting from the information
link |
that you're learning, please subscribe on YouTube.
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That really helps us a lot.
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There's also a notifications button that you can hit
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We release new episodes every Monday
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If you could subscribe on Apple and or Spotify,
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The comments section on YouTube
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We do read, I do read through all the comments.
link |
It takes me some time.
link |
I sometimes fall a little bit behind
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Other ways to support the podcast
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As well, we have a Patreon.
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And at Patreon, that will allow you to support the podcast
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at any level that you like.
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I've mentioned supplements during the podcast.
link |
If you're interested in taking supplements,
link |
you might want to check out Thorne, T-H-O-R-N-E.
link |
We've partnered with Thorne
link |
because they have the highest levels of stringency
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in terms of the quality of the ingredients they use
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If you want to see the supplements that I take,
link |
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link |
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And you can get 20% off any of the supplements
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That's Thorne, T-H-O-R-N-E dot com slash U,
link |
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And last but not least,
link |
I want to thank you for your time and attention today
link |
and thank you for your interest in science.
link |
I'll see you next time.