How to Lose Fat with Science-Based Tools

- Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss

science

and

science

-

based

tools

for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. This podcast is independent of my teaching and research duties at Stanford. However, it is part of my desire and effort to bring zero-cost information about science and science-related

tools

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And today we're going to talk about the science of fat loss tools. And fat loss is something that interests a large number of people. Many people want to

lose

fat, many people are athletes who need to

lose

fat. And in general, we know that having too high body fat percentages is not healthy for us. And most people struggle to lose fat. Most people struggled to lose weight in general, but most people especially struggled to lose body fat or what we call adipose tissue. Now this is a big topic on the Internet. There is a lot of controversy.

Today we are going to talk about some things related to fat loss that are powerful for fat loss that I guess most of you have never heard of before. You may have heard of some of them, but I'm guessing you haven't heard of all of them. This episode will be rich in scientific tools drawn from a variety of aspects of the literature, including the use of cold, including brown fat and something called beige fat. We're going to talk about something called NEAT. We're going to talk about all kinds of aspects of fat loss that are governed by your nervous system.

And I think this is an important loophole missing from the fat loss debate. You can hear a lot of information about the role of things like insulin and various diets like ketogenic diets, vegan diets, or Mediterranean diets. And there's great stuff out there, and there's really terrible information out there, and there's a lot of controversy. We did several episodes talking about the role of hormones in metabolism and the role of food in mood and well-being. So if you are interested in those topics, check them out. Today I will touch a little on hormones. Things like insulin and leptin, just a little bit.

But today's episode will mainly focus on how the nervous system, neurons and some of the cells they collaborate with, such as glioma and macrophages, promote or can promote accelerated fat loss. Because it turns out they can. Remember that your nervous system, which includes your brain and spinal cord and all the connections they make to the body's organs, governs everything. It is the on and off switch of the immune system. It is the on and off switch. It is also good for burning fat. And because of that, the nervous system and the role of the brain and other neurons have been largely overlooked in the fat loss debate.

Now, I would be remiss and probably come under quite considerable attack if I didn't recognize beforehand a central truth of metabolic science and also neuroscience, frankly, which is that calories in versus calories out, i.e. How many calories you eat versus how many calories you burn is the fundamental and most important formula in this business of fat loss and weight management in general. There's simply no way around the fact that if you eat many more calories than you burn, you're likely to gain weight. And a good portion of that weight is likely to be fat from adipose tissue.

It's also true that if you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight and a significant portion of that weight will come from body fat. What portion? It depends on a series of factors. But that simple formula is important. In a previous episode, I mentioned the complications with claims that a calorie is a calorie. And in fact, there is evidence that, for example, Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco, talked about how highly processed foods change the way we use food and can lead to greater incidence of obesity and other metabolic syndromes that go against the idea that a calorie is a calorie and that's it.

So a calorie is a calorie as a unit of energy, and we must accept and recognize these calories, that is, the formula of calories ingested versus calories burned. But the portion of calories burned is strongly influenced by a number of things you can control that can speed up or greatly increase the amount of adipose tissue or the proportion of adipose tissue you burn in response to exercise and food. So your hormones are important. Your thermogenic environment, that is, how warm or cold your body is? How cold do you make it, how warm do you make it?

But also your level of metabolism. Your thyroid hormone levels and something that is rarely talked about but is well supported by the scientific literature, how much innervation? That is, how much connectivity there is between the nervous system and fat. Today we're going to talk about the fact that different types of body fat, and there are several types of body fat, are actually innervated by neurons. Neurons connect to body fat and can change the likelihood of that body fat being burned or not. So your nervous system is the master controller of this process and plays an important role in the calories burned and burned component.

As always, let's discuss a little science. I promise not to get too deep into lipolysis and all sorts of things related to fat oxidation. We are going to divide that process into two important steps. And if you can understand those two important steps, the rest of the tools will be very easy to understand and manage. And I think today you're going to get a lot of new tools that you could incorporate into any type of fat loss regimen that will greatly accelerate that process, because it's

based

on quality, peer-reviewed science. Throughout the episode, I'll talk about some behavioral tools.

In fact, I will mainly talk about behavioral tools. I will also talk about compounds, supplements. Many of you like supplements. Some of you aren't, and that's okay. For those of you who are into supplements, an important topic in a discussion about fat loss or other supplements will be the quality of those supplements and the accuracy about what's in those supplement bottles and tablets, etc. I usually mention this at the end of the podcast, but on this podcast we've teamed up with Thorne, T-H-O-R-N-E. Because we believe that Thorne has the highest levels of rigor in terms of the quality of the compounds in his supplements and the quantities of those compounds.

If you want to see what supplements I take, you can go to www.thorne.com/u/huberman. You can see the supplements I take, which will also get you 20% off any of those supplements or 20% off any of the other supplements Thorne makes. Thorne has partnered with the Mayo Clinic and all the major sports teams. So there is a very solid basis for its rigor. Again, it is not necessary to use supplements. I'm certainly not encouraging anyone to use supplements if that's not your thing, but if you are going to use supplements, make sure your supplement source is very high quality.

With that said, I want to start and talk about the various toolsto lose fat and how neuroscience and neurons control fat loss. Before we do that, I want to set the context right and draw some of the key takeaways from previous episodes, because if the foundation of health, the foundation of hormones, and the foundation of metabolism are not correct, it's going to be very difficult. to get the most out of any type of exercise or fat loss protocol. In previous episodes, I talked about the science and details of particular protocols. We don't have time to do that right now and I want to move on to the new material.

However, there are a couple of containers, a couple of items that you need to make sure you're understanding correctly. And if you're not perfect at this, don't worry, most people aren't perfect at that, I'm certainly not perfect at that. But we should all strive to get enough, quality sleep. I did four full episodes on sleep and how to improve sleep through factors like light exposure, temperature, and the right sleep schedule for your so-called chronotype, whether you're a night owl or a morning person. These are the first four or I think five episodes of the Huberman Lab Podcast.

Sleep well, expose light correctly, avoid bright light in your eyes when you want to be asleep, and get bright light in your eyes when you want to be awake. So sleep well. The other thing is essential fatty acids. I talked about this in the food and mood episode, but I also talked about it during the hormone episodes. We need fatty acids. They are vital for many aspects of our health. You don't need to get them from supplements. You can if you want, but you must get them from food. They are essential. There's a reason there's an E as an essential part there.

Of fatty acids, there are several types, but for the antidepressant effects, the levels of fatty acids that will promote good mood and also healthy metabolism and we will begin to move the needle in the right direction in terms of blood-borne cardiovascular factors . The key is to get your EPA levels above 1,000 milligrams per day. So that doesn't just mean taking a thousand milligrams or more of, say, fish oil or krill oil or whatever your preferred source is. It means getting more than a thousand milligrams of EPA, which may require you to eat more essential fatty acids than just a thousand milligrams per day.

That, of course, can be achieved through dietary sources, such as fatty fish, or if you don't like eating fish, you can do so with quality pasture-raised meats. There are other sources of essential fatty acids, of course also of plant origin. So look, those are online. It's really easy to find. But research and literature show that you want to consume more than a thousand milligrams of EPA per day, because that's when it can best support your metabolism and position yourself for good fat loss. Also, for people who have craving problems, they crave sweets all the time, I talked about this in the gut-brain and hormones and food episode.

That you have neurons in your gut that crave, seek out essential fatty acids and crave and seek out amino acids from your food. Now, these aren't supplements you crave per se, you crave those things because that's what your body needs and your brain needs. But those same neurons will respond to sugars. And many people who crave sugar can satisfy that craving by giving the neurons, so to speak, what they really want, which are amino acids and essential fatty acids. That includes EPA, but also things like glutamine and amino acids that can really reduce sugar cravings if you take a teaspoon of that, or even a tablespoon a few times a day.

You have to relax a little, because some people may experience a little gastrointestinal upset due to excess glutamine. But glutamine has also been shown to improve leaky gut symptoms. It is a powerful amino acid. And yes, you can also get it through food. Things like cottage cheese are high in glutamine, etc. And finally, you can't position yourself to have a strong metabolism if your iodine levels are not correct and your thyroid levels are not correct. You can overdo it with iodine. So you don't want to do that. A lot of table salt has iodine added to it, but some people need to add iodine by eating things like seaweed, etc.

But one of the best ways to support the thyroid system and overall metabolism is to make sure we're getting enough selenium. It is sometimes called selenium every day. An easy way to do this is to eat the highest concentration of selenium foods that I know of, which is Brazil nuts, one, two or three of them per day. You will have more than enough selenium to meet the needs of your thyroid. You don't want your selenium to be too high, you don't want a diet too rich in anything. Again, sleep, enough EPA and glutamine if you have problems with leaky gut or sugar cravings can be a big help.

Get your gut microbiome right? I may have missed saying that, but understand your gut microbiome well. That doesn't necessarily mean you should take probiotics. You can do this if you want, but you can also simply eat a serving or two of fermented foods per day, which can be a big help. So things like sauerkraut, kimchi, every culture has a different source or sources of fermented foods, which can really help the gut microbiome, and then making sure that your thyroid hormone is supported by ingesting enough iodine, not too much, and enough selenium. not too much. Well? Sleep, EPA, glutamine, fermented foods, iodine and selenium.

That lays the foundation for how things like exercise, cold, and some of the compounds and other things that we're going to talk about today that I assume will be really new to a lot of you can really increase the burn factor. in the equation of calories ingested versus calories burned. Well? So on the one hand, we have this reality of calories in versus calories burned. However, I would also be remiss if I didn't mention an incredible study by my colleague Alia Crum at Stanford. She is a faculty member, professor in the psychology department. By looking at how they affect beliefs, just thinking can affect the effects of things like exercise on weight loss.

These are simply amazing results. What they did was they took subjects who were hotel service personnel who would clean the hotels and come in and change the bedding and so on. Divide them into two groups. One group was told to move around and do their job duties, meet the standards of the US movement and activity guidelines, etc. And a basic lecture on how movement is good for you, etc. But above all simply that their daily activities met US standards. The other group, however, received a lot of information about how movement and their daily routine were very good for cardiovascular health, could be good for weight loss, etc.

And then they followed these subjects over a period of many weeks. The conclusion of this study was that simply being told that movement is good for your health can lead to weight loss, etc. It led to significantly more body fat loss and the waist-to-hip ratio changes in the direction most people would like. But essentially a slimming down, so to speak. And all kinds of other positive effects on things like cardiovascular health. Simply by knowing that movement and exercise can help various health markers. So this is remarkable and speaks to the power of the nervous system and the power of belief to govern aspects of our body and our physiology that one would otherwise think are outside of our conscious control.

Now, of course, any of you who think scientifically, which I imagine, if you watch this podcast or listen to it, you're probably already thinking, well, maybe they just moved more, or maybe they got up and sat down. What's more, maybe they did something else that was different. And in fact, there is a good chance that they did things differently than the other group, but the mere knowledge that exercise is good for you, that movement is good for you, changed their behavior and their physiology in the direction of greater weight and fat loss. , etc. So the way we think about a given set of activities affects the way we perform those activities.

And the way we think and perform those activities has a real effect on our physiology. So somewhere between the strict rule that governs fat loss and weight loss, which is that if you eat more calories than you burn, you will maintain or gain weight. You will usually gain weight, but not always. If you eat as many calories as you burn, you will usually maintain your weight. And if you eat fewer calories than you burn, you'll typically lose weight. That's the kind of rule for losing fat. And yet we also have these belief effects that show, and this has been replicated over and over again, that the way we think about a process, whether we think it's beneficial or not, can change our physiology. ways that can be beneficial to us.

Somewhere between those two extremes of hardcore metabolic science and belief why there are plenty of protocols based on quality peer-reviewed science and physiology that you can leverage to increase fat loss rates. And that's what we're going to talk about today. I love this topic and it's not that I'm that obsessed with fat loss, but the first scientific project I worked on was thermogenesis and fat loss. I joined a lab as a student and the guy I worked for loved exploring new compounds and how they affected thermogenesis. So we looked at how things like MDMA/ecstasy, antipsychotics, antidepressants and various weight loss medications were on the market.

How did these affect body temperature, fat loss and metabolism? And we had a lot of fun doing it. So if you spot a smile on my face, that's what it's all about. And I also learned a lot, and I also came to really appreciate that this tissue in our bodies, adipose tissue and fat, we think of as just something unfortunate that it's like we're told it's a central energy source if we ever go into a famine and all that is true, etc. You realize that the cells in our body are there as fuel for the furnace of our body, which is our metabolism.

And there is a third player. And that's where it really gets interesting. That the nervous system, the neurons, have the opportunity to increase the intensity of that oven. It has the opportunity to increase the amount of heat we produce and therefore the amount of energy we burn. And I was also really intrigued by something which is, growing up, I think we all know people who can eat a healthy amount and never seem to gain body fat. Or people who seem to eat very little and gain body fat very easily. And that always intrigued me. And it turns out that there are several different factors that relate to that.

But the nervous system is the one we can really control. Both through behaviors and what we eat, but also in terms of what we call thermogenesis. There was one story in particular that I want to touch on that doesn't suggest any protocol. In fact, I'm going to discourage you from following this protocol. Please do not try the compound I am about to describe. One of our favorite things we liked to do in that lab was find rare compounds and test them. And at the time I was reading about thermogenesis and I learned about a compound that was actually discovered in the weapons factories of World War II.

And it was discovered because women in particular who worked in these factories would take a brush and dip it in a compound or paint, and then they would paint the numbers with a stencil on things like bombs and ammunition of various types. And they were losing weight like crazy. It turns out that from time to time they would lick the brush, and then they would come back just to get a sharper tip on the brush, and then they would paint over these various bullets and missiles, and so on. Bombs and so on. And they began to lose all their body fat.

And many of them lost, sorry, they lost a lot of weight, a significant portion of their weight without changing anything else about what they did, what they ate, etc. It turns out that compound is something called dinitrophenol, DNP. And over the years, dinatrophenol, DNP, has gained popularity in some niche cultures, primarily in bodybuilders and athletes, even in the modeling industry. It is an absolutely terrible compound for anyone, because it is highly fatal if the body temperature rises too much. Hyperthermia will kill you. And in fact, many people have died using dinatrophenol as a weight loss medication or trying to use it as a weight loss medication.

But dinitophenol really illustrates a principle which is that your metabolism includes things like thyroid hormone and growth hormone and so on. But your body temperature and the way you use energy are controlled by your system.highly strung. And the way dinatrophenol works is by changing the neurons and the way the neurons that connect to fat change the way fat is burned. So we're not going to suggest, I'm not suggesting that you use dinatrophenol. However, there are other things you can do that can change the relationship between these neurons and your body's fat in ways that can powerfully accelerate fat loss.

And I don't know why we don't hear more about these things, but probably because most of what you see on the Internet focuses more on what you can eat, what you should eat, or what you shouldn't eat. It focuses on exercise regimens which we will also talk about. But the burning factor, your thermogenic environment, is one of, if not the most important factor in this fat loss business. And since I'm a neuroscientist, that's what we're going to talk about. So, let's talk about fat utilization. Let's talk about how fat is converted into energy, which is sometimes also called fat burning.

What I would like you to know is that this is a two-part process. Well? In reality, there are many biochemical steps. And if you log on to the Internet or open a textbook and want to learn about fat utilization, you'll see a lot of chemistry. And I'm happy to delve into that chemistry if you want. But I think most of you are probably interested in knowing what the leverage points are. Where can you exert control over this process in a way that benefits you? So I will focus mainly on them. Well? This is not to upset the fans and I will put in some nomenclature, but here we go.

There are two parts to this process. one, it is fatmobilization. And the second is the oxidation or utilization of fats. Well? So the first thing that has to happen for body fat to be burned or used and reduced is that it has to be mobilized. And that's a process called lipolysis, but I don't really care if you know the name lipolysis, you just have to get that fat out of the position it's in. You have to get it out of the fat cells. Alright? Fat cells can be visceral around our visceral organs or they can be subcutaneous under our skin.

Most people think of subcutaneous fat when they think of fat. So here's the deal. And if you want more details, great, I'll get to that in a moment. But basically stored fat has two parts that are relevant here. It has the fatty acid part, and that is the part that your body can use. And that's attached to something called glycerol and they're linked by a backbone. There's probably too much chemistry for both of them already. But what you want is to break the spine. So if you can remember to mobilize fat, you have to break down the backbone between glycerol and these fatty acids.

Well? This is accomplished by an enzyme called lipase, but you can forget about all that if you want. Remember, we are just trying to mobilize fat. So the first step is to get those fatty acids moving through the bloodstream to get them out of the fat cells. And then they can travel and be used as energy. And that second part, remember that the first part is mobilization. The second part is oxidation. So those fatty acids are a potential fuel. They are just a potential fuel, but you haven't burned the fat yet, you've just taken it out of the fat cells.

They will go to cells that can use them as energy. And once they're inside those cells, they still don't burn. You need to oxidize them. Think that oxidation is the burned part. They must be moved to the mitochondria and can then be converted to ATP for energy. So really zooming out again to make sure I don't lose anyone. You have to mobilize the fat and then you have to oxidize it. In other words, you have to mobilize it and then you have to convert it into energy. If you just mobilize it and don't convert it to energy, don't oxidize it, you can go back to body fat.

And a lot of the things that the nervous system can do is increase fat mobilization, but also fat oxidation. Well? So you have two opportunities to burn more fat, and both opportunities are governed by your nervous system. Through neurons that literally send little cables that we call axons to the fat and release chemicals that provide a stimulus for more fat to be mobilized and then to burn more fat. Well? So we could go into a lot of depth on this, but I'm not going to go much deeper than that, because this is not a lecture on the biochemistry of fatty acid metabolism.

It's about how to burn fat using the nervous system. But remember, there is a mobilization step and then an oxidation step. I think any of you, all of you, should be able to internalize that. Mobilize and then oxidize. Well? Mobilize and then oxidize. So what do these fat-connecting neurons do? What exactly are they publishing? How do they actually increase fat mobilization? And how do they increase fat oxidation? Fat burning. Well, there are a couple of things they post that encourage that process. And the main one you should know is epinephrine or adrenaline. The conversion of these fatty acids into ATP in the mitochondria of cells is favored by adrenaline.

Well? And adrenaline is released from two sources. Adrenaline is released from the adrenal glands, which control our kidneys and lower back. And it is also released from the so-called sympathetic nervous system. Although that name is a bit of a misnomer, because it has nothing to do with sympathy, it has to do with stimulating alertness and promoting body action. There is a big error in the literature that is finally being corrected among those who know. The misconception in the literature is that the adrenal glands and the release of adrenaline are what stimulate fat loss and oxidation. In fact, it was long thought that the adrenaline floating around in your body when you are fasting, because fasting can increase adrenaline or when you exercise intensely or when you are stressed will promote fat oxidation. .

Actually, that is not the case. The adrenaline that stimulates fat oxidation, the burning of fat, comes from neurons that actually connect to fat, not from hormones like adrenaline swimming in your system. It is a local process. And this is very important because it means that what you do, the specific patterns of movements and the specific environment that you create that can stimulate these particular neurons to activate fat, that is, release it, mobilize it and then burn it, is going to be a powerful lever that you can use to increase fat loss. So what have we said so far?

We have said that you have to mobilize and burn fat and that your nervous system is in control of that process. It's not just about calorie deficit. Okay, so let's talk about how to activate the nervous system in a way that promotes more fat release, movement, mobilization, and more fat oxidation. So one of the most powerful ways to stimulate epinephrine, also called adrenaline, from these neurons that connect to fat, and therefore stimulate greater mobilization and oxidation of fat, is through movement. But I'm not talking about exercise. The type of movement I am referring to is extremely subtle.

And some of you may be familiar with this type of movement, but I guess you're probably not familiar with what I'm about to tell you, which is that shivering or shivering is a strong stimulus for the release of adrenaline epinephrine. in fat and increased fat oxidation and mobilization. But shivering isn't just induced by cold, and there are other subtle forms of movement that can greatly increase metabolism and fat loss. There was a group in England during the 1960s and 1970s that discovered a pathway by which subtle forms of movement can greatly increase fat loss. This is the work of Rothwell and Stock.

It is very famous in the thermogenesis literature. And I found out about this early on, when I was a student and I asked, how did you guys figure this out? And that's how the story goes. They were aware that some people overeat and still don't gain weight. Other people overeat even a little and seem to accumulate extra fatty tissue. Now, this is long before all the discussions about the microbiome and hormonal factors, you know, it was long before many of the hormonal factors other than insulin were discovered. What they did was look at people who were overeating and not gaining weight.

And what they observed was that these people made many subtle movements throughout the day. In other words, they were restless. And that's what they call them. I'm not going to do the British accent version of fidgeters. But Roth and Stock were British. What they found were people who overeat but as a result do not gain weight. And in fact, many people who had low levels of body fat had a lot of resting tremor, not the parkinsonian type, but they bounced their knee while they were sitting, when they talked, they made very angular movements, they were kind of electric.

In fact, now in science, I was laughing about this as I dove back into this literature, because the other day I heard a wonderful lecture on a totally different topic from a colleague of mine and we all loved it. He is in Europe and is a tremendously successful scientist. That's why we like to make fun of him. And his every move is incredibly electric and jerky. And he is very thin and eats like a horse. And it fits very well with the discovery of Rothwell and Stock, who discovered that fidgets are people who bounce their knees, people who move their heads while listening, people who nod a lot, people who get up and sit down a lot. . throughout the day, and people who follow that rhythm burn between 800 and 2,500 more calories than the control group in the experiments they observed.

And in fact, there has been a modern look at all of this, and these numbers prove that simply moving a lot, even if they are subtle movements, greatly increases the amount of energy you burn. And people who overeat, people who can eat their second or third donut or donuts and don't seem to gain weight to the same degree, are people who move around a lot even when they're sitting down. They are people who often also move their limbs very quickly. There have even been studies that have explored other things that correlate with fidgets. Fidgeters get up very quickly at the end of a lecture or begin to gather their things very quickly, while non-fidgeters do not.

So dogs like my bulldog Costello are definitely not fidgety. Every movement is incredibly slow and deliberate. Sitting as a process, if you ask him to sit and in slow motion. You ask him to get up and he looks at you, sighs and gets up. Fidgeting is the opposite of that, right? You say, how are you? They go, great. So even sometimes his speech will be accelerated, although not always. But jerky movements, restlessness, etc. And in 2015, and again in 2017, there were studies that explored this, using modern metabolic tracking and actually just moving around a lot, fidgeting, knee bouncing, standing up and walking several times or many times throughout the entire day. day led to considerable fat loss and weight loss when people ate the same amount of food, if they overate, they could compensate and burn off that food.

And if they were trying to lose weight and they incorporated this fidget protocol of deliberately trying to fidget more and move around during the day, walk, get up more quickly, sit down more often, sit down and get up more often. They found that they increased their weight loss considerably, between 20 and 30%. And in some cases, you know, there are always a few people who burn a lot more. It seems to work best in people who are already slightly overweight. So for overweight people, who are somewhat reluctant to exercise, fidgeting could be a good entry point. And 800 to 2,500 calories is a considerable amount of calories if you really think about it.

Now, why am I telling you this? Well, clearly there is a tool to export from this, which is that you can increase the amount of calories burned without having to do additional long runs. I hope people exercise regularly because it is so important for other aspects of brain and body health. But still, we all have limited time and not all of us are so ready to embrace exercise. I have a family member who has slowly been convinced to exercise, but if I told him, for example, that you needed to be more restless, he would probably do it.

This is a powerful way to increase the calories you burn. That's great. And you can think about the protocols. But I want to nest that protocol in what I said before, which is that fat is controlled by these neurons and the epinephrine that they release. You might say, well, how can these little micromovements cause so much calorie burning? And that's where it really gets interesting. Rothwell, Stock, and others they worked with later discovered that these little fidget movements involve certain aspects of our musculature that are nothing like exercise. It is not aboutthese large coordinated or rhythmic body movements, but rather small and subtle restless movements.

And here I'm doing a lot of fidgeting as an example, tapping the pen, this kind of thing. I was probably that kid in class most of the time. And I thought, I try not to do it to irritate people, but I was definitely a knee-jumper. I'm not particularly thin or not. But I was definitely... This is a common activity for me. People who do that kind of thing, it turns out, it's not the kind of calorie burning that we normally think about, like, oh, you'll run, you'll lift weights, you'll swim, you'll do yoga, et cetera. These subtle movements of our central muscles, not only of the core, but of all our extremities and our muscles, those low-level movements, trigger the release of epinephrine from these neurons and stimulate the mobilization of fat.

And then that fat is oxidized at higher rates. And I find this fascinating. I wish more people knew this, that's why I'm telling you today. This has nothing to do with exercising in the traditional way and yet with 800 to 2500 calories per day. That's a considerable amount of oxidized fat. If you are in calorie maintenance mode or if you are undercaloric, that will add additional fat loss. The data in this regard is tremendous. I'll link some studies. If you are really interested in learning about what is called tidy. N-E-A-T which is activity thermogenesis without exercise. CLEAN. So what is the protocol?

Shake. If you are really interested in burning calories and you already exercise, want to burn more or do not have the opportunity to exercise or are reluctant to exercise for any reason, restlessness, movements, jerky movements, standing, walking, pacing , all kinds of nervous activities that were so critical of other people and sometimes ourselves, are actually mobilizing and oxidizing a lot of fat and a lot of energy. And while this probably won't offset chronic overeating, the calorie burn resulting from this is considerable and can most likely offset a meal that has excessive calories or a sort of steady state of overeating.

And it also starts to open up all kinds of thoughts and discussions about when you travel, you tend to eat foods that are out of the ordinary. We tend to eat foods that aren't so great for us, we also tend to be a little more sedentary when we travel, are on the plane, etc. But leaving all that aside, just using something like low level movement. And it's almost like a tremor, but also these select short, small movements of restlessness. I'm doing a lot of these intentionally today. So you have examples that you can use to select if you want.

These can have a significant effect on fat loss and pose a second tool. If they are low, that is, these small movements that we make trigger the release of adrenaline and epinephrine from these neurons of the sympathetic nervous system that innervate fat and increase the mobilization and oxidation of fat. Now, it should make sense why chills are one of the strongest stimuli you can incorporate to stimulate fat loss. Now, chills are almost always associated with the cold. We think about shivering, we think about cold, because when we are cold, we shiver. And there are two ways that chills can increase fat loss.

And there are several ways that you can use chills, you can take advantage of chills, and you can take advantage of the cold to accelerate fat loss. But it has to be done correctly. And most people who use cold, and frankly suggest it as a means to increase fat loss through metabolism, are suggesting exactly the wrong protocol. In fact, the one I'm going to recommend is 180 degrees in the opposite direction of the typical protocol you'd hear about. So let's talk about how to use the cold and how to take advantage of chills as a particularly strong stimulus to increase fat loss by mobilizing and oxidizing these fatty acids.

In recent years there has been growing interest in using cold for a variety of things, such as improving stress tolerance, improving metabolism, and recovery from exercise. I've talked about several of those things and the uses of cold on this podcast. In fact, I did an episode on how to boost performance through palm cooling, cooling the palms of your hands in specific ways or the soles of your feet. And if you're interested in that and how to improve endurance and strength performance, you can watch that episode. But most people expose themselves to the cold by taking cold showers or getting into cold water of some other kind, a lake or river or a cold bath or ice bath.

And they're probably doing it with mixed goals, meaning they'd both like to boost their metabolism and burn fat, as well as improve mental resilience. Starting today, we're talking about accelerating fat loss by using science-based tools. I want to emphasize a study that was published in Nature just a couple of years ago that shows exactly how cold increases metabolism and fat loss. Well? So we have several types of fats. In fact, three types. We have white fat, white adipose tissue and we have brown fat or brown adipose tissue. And there is a third type which is beige adipose tissue.

White fat is the type we traditionally think of as fat, subcutaneous fat. And it is not particularly rich in mitochondria. It is there as an energy storage site and we have to mobilize the fat as we mentioned before and burn it somewhere else. Brown fat exists largely between the shoulder blades and at the back of the neck, between the shoulder blades. And it is rich in mitochondria, which is why it is called brown fat. And brown fat has a particular biochemical cascade by which it can take energy from food, it can basically take food, break it down, and convert it into energy within those cells.

And there are some extra steps involved, but unlike the fatty acids in white fat that have to travel to other places, they are broken down in the mitochondria and converted to ATP, etc. Rather, it is used by the mitochondria. Brown fat is thermogenic. In fact, it can use energy directly. It skips a step and I don't want to get sidetracked by going into all of its biochemistry. Beige fat lies somewhere in between. It's white fat that could be brown fat, because it has some mitochondria, but not as many as brown fat. Now, exposure to cold does several things.

Being cold can allow us to develop mental resilience because being cold of any kind, it doesn't matter if it's a cryochamber, it doesn't matter if it's a cold day and you forgot your sweater or your parka. It doesn't matter if it's an ice bath or you're lying in the snow. The cold causes the release of adrenaline from the adrenal glands. And it causes the release of epinephrine from these neurons that connect to fat. Now, the great effects of cold on metabolism and fat burning will occur through two routes. One is that if you expose yourself to the cold, you have the opportunity to activate brown fat, as well as convert more beige fat into true brown fat.

Basically, it creates a stronger or hotter oven. That's the way to think about brown fat. It's like an oven. And so with this principle we start with calories in versus calories burned. What you are doing is increasing the amount of burning, you are increasing the burning of energy by increasing the intensity of the heat within you, so to speak. Well? I'm speaking somewhat metaphorically here. Now how can you do that? Well, if you soak in cold water, or in an ice bath, or on a cold day, and try to stay calm and resist the chills, you actually short-circuit this mechanism to increase brown fat thermogenesis.

The article published in Nature shows that it is the chills themselves that cause brown fat to increase burning, burning rate and metabolism. And it works like this, when you're cold and you're shivering, the shaking, that low-level movement of the muscle, those little movements trigger the release of a molecule called succinate. S-U-C-C-I-N-A-T-E, succinate. And succinate acts on brown fat to increase brown fat thermogenesis and overall fat burning. In fact, it increases body heat through this brown fat thermogenesis pathway. And also, over time, it can increase the amount of brown fat by converting beige fat into true brown fat.

Now, how much exposure to the cold and how often? That's the key. But first I give you that detail or set of details. Remember that if you resist the chill, you won't get a greater metabolic effect, because you won't get the release of succinate. So if you want your body to heat up and your thermogenic level to increase, you need to shiver. Now we have NEAT, non-exercise activity thermogenesis. So low levels of activity like I described above, which are done away from the cold, may also be done in the cold. In addition to shivering in response to the cold.

Therefore, the chill itself is valuable in triggering the release of succinate. In fact, several drug manufacturers are developing succinate as a possible treatment for obesity. Although it has not yet reached the market in its final form. Succinate is potent for its effects on brown fat. So how many times a week do you need to expose yourself to the cold? It will depend on how much fat you are trying to lose and how much you are trying to increase your metabolism. There are studies that describe positive effects on fat loss when exposed to the cold, either through a cold shower or through an ice bath or other type of cold water.

You don't actually have to have ice, as long as it's cold enough for any time and place, sorry, anywhere from one to five times a week. But it turns out that just one exposure a week can be valuable. The question then is how long to enter that cold environment? And how cold should that environment be? So, first let's talk about how long we should be in that cold environment. The answer here may be a little different than you imagine. Most of you might think, well, if one minute is good, three minutes is better, and if three minutes is better, 10 minutes is better.

But remember that the goal is to achieve shiver-induced succinate release, so that the succinate can trigger brown fat. It turns out that if you want to trigger the chill, what you want to do is go into the cold and then come out of the cold and usually not dry off, and then go back into the cold and come out of the cold, that will definitely stimulate more chills than just going into the cold. So what I'm not talking about is going into a cold environment like an ice bath and waiting until you're shivering and staying there shivering.

Well? You don't want to suffer from hypothermia either. And I want to be clear. You want to get your doctor's approval before doing any of this. When you get into cold water, there are two factors that will determine whether you shiver or not. Probably three, but let's just talk about the main two. One, is how cold it is. So how cold should it be? And look, if you get into water, it is very, very cold. In fact, it may shock your heart. In fact, it can give you a heart attack if it's really cold and you're not adapted to that.

So proceed with caution please. I'm not a doctor and I don't want anyone to get hurt. Cold enough to be uncomfortable is a good starting point. So for some of you it will be 60 degrees, for others it will be 55 degrees, for some of you it will be thirty-something, right? It depends on how adapted you are to the cold, and people vary in terms of how well they tolerate the cold. So what you want to do is find a temperature that you can hit one to five, probably one to three times a week. If you really want this to accelerate fat loss.

And you want to go in until you start shivering, and then you want to go out and not dry off, wait one to three minutes, and then go back out into the cold. Now, you'll notice that when you come back into the cold, it will almost seem calming, it may not actually give you the chills... It may take away the chill you had. So here's a potential type of set rep protocol you can play with. Find a temperature and then cause a chill. That will vary depending on your tolerance to cold and your adaptation to cold.

One to three, maybe five times a week, get in until... Or get in the shower or whatever, until you start shaking. Really tremble. Then after about a minute, go outside, spend one to three minutes outside, but don't dry out, come back inside for one to three minutes, but try to access the chill point again. And you could do three reps of that. So that's three times in and three times out in total. Well? That's a great starting point. And what you don't want to do is build up your cold tolerance so quickly that very soon you can resist the chill, because remember that the chill is the source of the succinate release that will trigger brown fat thermogenesis.

So if you want to see this detailed protocol, you can access it for free on a website which is www.thecoldplunge.com.The Cold Plunge is a company that does cold dives and they were kind enough to give one away to the Human Lab Podcast. But I want to emphasize that these protocols are free. The folks at Cold Plunge are not only interested in marketing their product, but one of their main interests is encouraging people to expose themselves to the cold for specific goals and objectives like fat loss, resilience, etc. Resist inflammation. But their main focus is providing protocols to people and encouraging them to use various types of cold exposure not only through their products, but through cold rivers and jumping in the ocean and things like cold showers, whatever is most convenient. and accessible to several people.

That's why we needed a place where we could host these protocols permanently, and not just for this episode. But what they agreed to do is post the protocols there, they should be very easy to find on their website. We refer to this particular protocol as the Fat Loss Optimization Protocol for lack of a better name. And it's really based on how cold you can use it to induce chills. And again, it doesn't really matter how you access that cold, as long as you access the chill and move from the cold environment to a slightly warmer environment.

So, getting out of the cold shower or ice bath, etc., or getting out of the cold soak and then getting back in. Because it turns out that the body's cooling and rewarming process is where the shivering kicks in. so that's clearly different than just trying to get into the cold and stay in the cold as long as possible. And if you step back a little and think about some examples from life, you will understand why it should be that way. For example, people who swim in cold water a lot have these polar bear clubs, I think they call themselves.

They do these swims in cold water. Sometimes I would see these people swimming to and from Alcatraz and things like that, which seems risky to me. and they tell me that it is very stimulating for the mind and body. Excellent. Sometimes these people are very thin, sometimes not, and they are exposed to a lot of cold. And one of the things that happens is that if you expose yourself to the cold over and over again, you adapt, you adapt to the cold. And when you do that, you no longer get the epinephrine, the adrenaline release from the cold, and therefore you don't get the succinate release, the chills, and the thermogenic effect of brown fat as strongly.

So if you want to use the cold for other reasons, swimming in cold water can certainly be fun. And, you know, as long as you can do it safely, they're great. I have been swimming in cold water for some time. You can use the cold for resilience, etc. But if you want to use cold to increase fat loss, then by starting this shivering process, you will cool down and rewarm yourself, which will speed up or increase the amount of shivering. That will be the way to go. A note on cold and some of the factors it releases.

A few years ago there was a lot of excitement about this hormone called irisin, I-R-I-S-I-N, which was associated with the cold. And there was a lot of excitement about its possible role in increasing metabolism, to the point that people started exploring this as a potential fat loss drug. As far as I know that didn't go anywhere. Over time, science came to view succinate as the primary factor in cold-induced thermogenesis through this brown fat pathway. But if anyone knows of any positive effects of irisin or any signs of irisin that I'm overlooking here, or talking about incorrectly, please let me know.

I would be very curious to learn. Now, I just want to talk a little bit more about brown fat, and talk about a period in your life when you were rich in brown fat, you had a ton of brown fat, and that was when you were a baby. Babies can't shake. These neurons that release epinephrine in the fat are not connected and are not actually present at sufficient levels or in sufficient quantities when you are a baby. And therefore you can't shiver when you're a baby and you can't warm up very well in cold environments. To compensate for that, Mother Nature installed excess brown fat in all of us at an early age that exists again in the upper back, mid-back, and nape of the neck.

Over time, if we don't expose ourselves to cold environments or do other things that make us shiver, we lose a lot of that brown fat, but the interesting thing about brown fat is that there is some evidence that brown fat, like white fat, it can increase in size, but you can also add new cells. Now, there is a bit of controversy. People always say that you can't change the number of fat cells, you can simply reduce or increase their size. Well, it turns out that the epinephrine released by these little nerve endings in the brown fat and succinate circulating in the body can, and I want to emphasize this, can have the effect of increasing the number of brown fat cells, probably by converting these cells from beige fat into brown fat. .

That allows us to become like we were early in our lives, where we metabolized like crazy and stayed warm without shivering. Some people have taken the cold to the extreme, putting ice packs on the back of their neck all day long. I did an episode on testosterone and estrogen, and there's this, let's call it a very niche, I have to imagine a very, very niche culture of people who dress literally, I'm not kidding. They are these ice pack briefs. They have a name that I won't repeat here, but you can find them on Amazon. Those are people who use cold compresses on their body and groin to try to increase things like testosterone.

But also try to increase thermogenesis and try to increase your metabolism. Just remember that if you adapt to the cold, you won't get the fat burning effects to the same degree. So cold is a powerful tool for losing fat, but you don't want to adapt. This is reminiscent of a rule you hear about in resistance exercise and also strength exercise, which is that you should use the minimum effective stimulus to promote growth or progress. So, growth of a muscle or improvements in endurance. If you go 10% farther on a run or 10% faster, you'll probably see an improvement in performance as long as you recover the next time you come back and do the same round of exercise.

You will be able to do more work or complete work more easily, etc. You have adapted. If you do 20% more distance or 20% more weight, you won't necessarily see the same compassionate level of gain or improvement. And the same goes for the cold, if you quickly go from 30 seconds of exposure to 10 minutes of exposure, you are missing the opportunity to get the most fat loss and increase metabolism by increasing it in smaller increments. Well? And this also speaks to the reason for using cold exposure to accelerate fat loss during certain periods, but then maybe not doing it all year round.

If your goal is to lose fat, maybe use it for two or three months in a row and then stop for two or three months in a row, because it's a very powerful boost whenever you feel the chill. Next I'd like to move on to exercise and see how certain times and types of exercise can greatly improve fat loss. Before we do that, I just want to mention a really important reference for those of you who are interested in learning more about how neurons connect to fat. This is definitely an article you might want to check out if you are interested in digging deeper into the literature and reading all the studies.

It's a review. And the title of the review is Neural innervation of white adipose tissue and control of lipolysis. It involves the neuronal innervation of white adipose tissue and the control of lipolysis. It was published in Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology. You can find it for free online. They have the full text available. The first author is Bartness, B-A-R-T-N-E-S-S. It's a great review. And I've talked about a number of things that are mentioned in the review. Follow the references in that review and the reference path as we say, if you are interested in learning more about how neurons control brown fat.

And before we get into the exercise, I also want to highlight something that comes up every few years that is now largely considered a myth, but is actually more interesting than most people might think, which is the topic of stain reduction. You know, in the '80s and '90s, there were a lot of commercials, late-night infomercials, where they talked about downsizing. If you do sit-ups will you lose abdominal fat? If you raise your hips or raise your glutes, you will lose the gluten fat from your hips. And I think now everyone knows, believes that and understands that fat metabolism is something that happens systemically throughout the body.

That some body fats are, in quotes, more stubborn than others. Everyone varies as to where they tend to store fat or lose it last. Number of factors that influence it and, in particular, the hormonal receptors. But now, at least in the scientific literature, spot reduction and the possibility of true fat reduction specifically, from a specific part or area of ​​the body is becoming more of a reality and may be a reality soon, because exercise triggers the activation of these nerve fibers, these neurons that innervate fat. In theory, if you can increase the amount of epinephrine released in those particular fat pads, as they are called, they are actually called fat pads in the scientific literature.

In theory, the mobilization of those specific sites of body fat could be increased. Well? So, because of the new view that modern understanding is that it's not systemically released adrenaline that bathes all of your adipose tissue, but rather your neurons releasing adrenaline and epinephrine locally, that in theory, exercise stimulating the release of epinephrine or exercise along with things like chills. or low-grade jerking movement, or NEAT, non-exercise activity thermogenesis could theoretically lead to a local improvement of fat tissue mobilization. So I think spot reduction will soon be possible using the right technology. What does this mean for you now?

What could you do now with this information? Well, I think it speaks to the fact that if you're going to exercise, doing exercises that involve many different parts and movements of the body probably encourages the maintenance or growth of these neurons that innervate fat throughout the body. What this means is that changing your exercise pattern and performing new types of movements can actually be a way to access so-called stubborn pockets of body fat. Now, there is a bit of speculation in the statement I'm making, but if you think about it, it makes sense. If you adapt too much to a particular pattern of exercise, whether you are undercaloric or not, you are in maintenance, not calories, you are always oxidizing some fat and you are using the neurons that innervate fat in a habitual way.

And very soon this innervation will shut down, because there is no reason why this neuronal innervation of the fat should continue to release epinephrine unless you give it a strong stimulus like cold or restlessness or, in this case, make new ways of doing things. exercise. And there is some anecdotal evidence and I don't even want to call it data, but anecdotal evidence that people who have, quote-unquote, stubborn body fat, if they start adopting new exercise patterns, they can start to access that stubborn fat. pads. And again, fat pads is the correct way to refer to them in the scientific literature.

So today we focus on the fact that fat will be mobilized and oxidized in response to a calorie deficit. But the way your neurons control those fat pockets and those body fat stores gives you a lot more control than you may have ever thought about. So let's talk about movement. And more traditional types of movement, also known as exercise, have been shown to increase metabolism and fat loss to a greater extent depending on whether, for example, you're fasting when you do it or not, whether or not you do your cardio first or your resistance training first.

And this again is in the literature which there's a lot of controversy about, but by digging into all the studies on this, we're finally starting to come to a consensus on when it's best to exercise. And what type of exercise to do if your goal is to lose fat? The topic of exercise is a bit controversial, not as much as nutrition and diet, which we will talk about in a few minutes. But it's particularly interesting, because different types of exercise test the body's musculature and the heart and lungs in different ways, and can have very different effects on things like hormones and metabolism depending on whether it's high intensity or not. moderate intensity or low intensity.

So rather than thinking about weight training versus cardio, I think the simplest and most fluid way to have this conversation about exercise and fat loss is in terms of three general types of training. It really doesn't matter if it's donewith weights or body weight or not. And those are high intensity interval workouts. Something that seems to have gained a lot of popularity in recent years. The so-called HITT, H-I-I-T. High intensity interval training. Sprint interval training. So it will be very high intensity or SIT, or moderate intensity continuous training, M-I-C-T. We have HIIT, SIT and MICT, M-I-C-T.

And we can be a little more precise if you want. I'm not someone who measures my VO2 max or anything like that while I exercise. I usually know if I'm doing something that could continue for a long time, or if I'm doing something that I know will be short duration and high intensity. But if you want to map this to SIT VO2 max, this sprint interval training was defined as bursts of activity greater than 100% of VO2 max lasting eight to 30 seconds interspersed with less intense recovery periods. So this would be running down the field for eight to 30 seconds, then maybe walking backwards for about a minute or two and then running again and then continuing.

So that would be SITTING. HIIT, H-I-I-T is defined as submaximal, so 80 to one hundred percent of VO2 max activity bursts lasting 60 to 240 seconds are interspersed with less intense recovery periods. So on a standard 400-meter track, just to give a visual idea, a four-minute mile would be fantastic for most people, although of course people run faster than that. There are four 60-second laps, but consecutive. I think in my best form or maybe it was in my dreams, I don't remember which one I was able to do 60 seconds around the track, but of course I couldn't achieve that in the second, third or fourth if I did.

That was certainly in fantasy land and not reality. But 60 seconds would roughly equal one revolution around the track, maybe 90 seconds, depending on how fast one runs. So 60 to 240 seconds. MICT is fine. This continuous moderate-intensity training is steady-state cardio, sometimes called Zone 2 cardio these days on the Internet, performed continuously for 20 to 60 minutes at a moderate intensity of 40 to 60% VO2 max. or if you prefer, a heart rate of 55 to 70%. maximum heart rate. Well? So we can think of high, medium and low intensity exercise. Although a low intensity usually means you can carry on a conversation, or you may have to gasp every few steps, while trying to talk and run.

I think that's going to be the most helpful way to have this conversation that we're having now, because there are so many different forms of exercise that people do and intensity is important. Let's ask the question that I think a lot of people ask: is it better? Does this mean that you burn more fat if you exercise on an empty stomach? And fasting in this sense could be that you wake up in the morning, you've been fasting all night, you just hydrate and exercise or sometimes people ingest caffeine, there's controversy about whether or not that quote on quote breaks the fast. .

It has to do with whether or not your caffeine has adapted to something for another episode. In any case that would be on an empty stomach. So you probably haven't eaten anything for anywhere from three to 24 hours or maybe even longer. As you could also fast in the afternoon. If you had lunch at noon and it's four or five or 6:00 p.m. Will you burn more fat if you exercise without eating anything first, without eating calories first? And people have tried to split hairs on this, anyway people say, well, you can get fat fast, because fat and protein don't lead to as big increases in insulin as other things, maybe you can eat some almonds and then keep training.

And, in fact, insulin will prevent fat oxidation. I want to be very clear. The burning of fat in the cell, the movement of the fatty acid into the mitochondria and the conversion of ATP, insulin inhibits that process. However, it has been shown that, at least during short periods of training, it doesn't really seem to matter whether or not you eat before training or not, if your goal is fat oxidation. Now I want to put an asterisk near that, because there are some exceptions. But several studies have been carried out on the matter, and I will read the classics to you.

What they basically did was give people glucose, sugar, to increase their blood sugar level before training or not. And the classic kind of study on this is Al Borg. In 1976, that goes back a long time: glucose reduces fat burning and exercise. And then if you want to search for other studies, they are very easy to find on PubMed. You put in Horowitz 1999, it's another one where they make people drink milk with glucose. Sweet, sweetened milk before exercise, etc. And you can find a number of examples where eating before exercise reduces the amount of fat that is oxidized during exercise.

And you can also find many studies that show that eating during exercise or before exercise will not reduce the amount of fat that is oxidized. However, types of exercise, whether medium, high, or low intensity, are all over the place in these studies. That is why it is very difficult to find an ideal protocol. And then if you look very deep into the literature, you start to find meta-analyses where people have aggregated all the findings and some modern studies that point to some very specific and useful protocols. And here is the rule or protocol that I extracted from that literature.

In a period of approximately 90 minutes of moderate intensity exercise, I want to be clear, approximately or after 90 minutes of moderate intensity exercise. There is a change point where if you ate before exercise, you will reduce, excuse me, you will burn much less fat from 90 minutes onwards than if you had started the training on an empty stomach. So let me repeat that. If it is a moderate intensity exercise, called a zone two cardio type exercise, at the 90 minute point, if you ate before the exercise within one to three hours before the exercise, then you will reduce the amount of fat you will burn. starting from 90 minutes, whereas if you had fasted before exercise, you had not eaten anything for three hours or more before exercise.

After 90 minutes, 90 minutes of exercise, you will start to burn more fat than you would have eaten. Now, 90 minutes of moderate intensity exercise is a lot. So that's a pretty long term. Even if you're running at a pretty slow pace, like a 10 or 12 minute mile, that's a lot of running, that's a lot of swimming. So you have to walk a lot, you have to do a lot of hikes. However, there are people who hike all day, run all day, or walk all day. And if you want to burn more fat per unit of time, you want to oxidize more fat than fasting.

Now, there are also studies that point to the fact that you don't need to wait 90 minutes to get this enhanced fat burning effect. The studies I was able to find that seemed to me to be quality peer-reviewed studies without company or product bias of any kind. These are studies that were largely funded by the federal government in the university context they pointed out the fact that if one does high intensity training, or even very high intensity forms of training like sprints, squats, deadlifts or any type of activity that can Can't be sustained for more than these, you know, eight or I would say up to 60 seconds.

So a set of repeated, repeated weight lifting, if that's done for at least 20 minutes, for example, weight training or weight lifting or this type of thing or kettlebell swings or up to 60 minutes, then we'll get to the change point at which you can burn more fat, if you go on an empty stomach it arrives earlier. And this makes sense because there's nothing sacred about the 90-minute point for medium-intensity Zone 2 cardio. That 90 minute point is the point at which the body transitions from primarily burning glycogen, basically sugar that comes from the muscles or the liver, and you realize that this happens for a while, I'm going to move on to a site of fuel storage. which is in reserve like body fat.

This is going to happen for a while, so I'm going to start tapping into body fat reserves. Now, the fat girl doesn't have any brains there. It is innervated by neurons, but has no thoughts. And you don't actually control this switch with your mind. This is something that has to do with the environment of various hormones. What has to happen is for the insulin to go down enough. So if you ate before exercise you will have an increase in insulin, if you ate carbohydrates you will have a greater increase in insulin, fat and protein, in fact you will have lower amounts of insulin and fasting will give you the least amount of insulin. amount of insulin.

Well, then that turning point will occur at the beginning of the exercise. And if you think about if you did something high intensity for 20, 30, 40 minutes, then maybe lift weights and then go into Zone 2 cardio. If you are fasting, the literature says that you will burn more body fat per unit of time than if you had eaten before or during exercise. So what does this mean? This means that if you want to burn more body fat, if it is in your protocols and you have been approved to do so safely, do intense exercise for 20 to 60 minutes; The higher the intensity, obviously, the shorter it will be, and then you move into Zone 2 cardiovascular.

And if you do it on an empty stomach or medium intensity cardio, I should say. And if you do it on an empty stomach, you will effectively burn a higher percentage of body fat. If you need to eat or like to eat before training, that can work too. And if you train very intensely, you'll likely shift more quickly into the fat-burning pattern as well. Again, this isn't really a question of how long you exercise. It's a question of how intensely you exercise and therefore what fuel source you are getting. I hope I made this clear, but basically you need to deplete glycogen or perform high intensity exercise and then move on to steady state exercise which will allow you to burn more fat.

Or you need to perform medium or low intensity exercise for a long period of time before moving on to burning fat. And in fact it seems that doing all of this on an empty stomach will make it easier to burn more fat in general. But if you can't even exercise, if you're someone who just can't do the training at all, you're not willing to do it or you're incapable of training, unless you eat something, then obviously you eat something. it makes more sense. And what you eat before you exercise is another issue that people argue and fight about whether or not you should do it low carb or high carb, all that.

But in general the topic is very simple. That is, you want insulin levels to be fairly low if your goal is to reduce body fat, if you want to oxidize body fat. So fasting in some cases, fasting with fats and other cases where only fats are ingested. Fats and proteins, in some cases or for some people it will be eating carbohydrates. I am not here to dictate a particular nutritional regimen. That's how the hormonal balance of these things and fat oxidation works. Now, one thing that is very interesting and that cannot be overlooked is the question of how much energy you burn during and after the activity.

And some of you probably already know this, but the whole calories in versus calories out thing, and people counting the number of calories they burn during their aerobic session or during any session is only half of the equation. and it really outshines The most important question is how much of an increase in metabolism does a given exercise generate post-exercise? And we could talk for hours about this, but the simplest way to look at it is: high intensity training, anaerobic training, weight training, sprints, burpees, any type of thing. I don't know, these days I hear that you're not supposed to do burpees and that people think burpees are dangerous.

So I'm not suggesting any particular move here. You have to decide what is right for you. I do burpees. They don't seem to hurt me, but I've heard they're terrible for some people. Anyway, push-ups, sit-ups, whatever that higher-intensity anaerobic exercise is or sprints takes advantage of glycogen stores during movement and we will burn more energy per unit of time than moderate intensity. High intensity burns more than modern intensity. That's simple. The interesting thing is that every study I could find on what happens after that type of exercise showed that the percentage of fat burned after high-intensity exercise is actually higher.

In other words, you burn a lot of glycogen during high-intensity exercise. And then after exercise, post-exercise oxygen consumption, as it's sometimes called, increases. We know that after training intensely, post-exercise oxygen consumption increases sometimes for up to 24 hours. And it is during that period of time that more fat and not glycogen is oxidized. Now, the interesting thing is that the opposite is also true for people who perform prolonged bouts of low or moderate intensity exercise. These are usually things like running, swimming, cycling, etc. So, 60, 90 minutes, twohours, maybe even people training for marathons or half marathons, when they stop training, they burn more glycogen, more carbohydrates, even though they were burning more body fat per unit of time during low intensity exercise.

So there is this type of investment. High intensity burns more glycogen during activity and more body fat afterwards. Moderate to low intensity burns more percent, more body fat is oxidized than glycogen during actual exercise, then more glycogen. So I don't want this to get too complicated. The point is that you should choose exercise that you enjoy and that you will do regularly, but it seems that high intensity exercise followed by moderate intensity exercise will be optimal for burning fat in general. Because when we look at the percentage of body fat burned and the overall increase in basal metabolic rate, moderate and high intensity training followed by low intensity training or even just followed by getting back to life will be the best way. continue burning body fat due to the ways it increases basal metabolic rate.

This could be summarized as a simple protocol where three or four times a week you do a high intensity workout followed by nothing or a low intensity workout, especially if you can do it on an empty stomach. And I just have to mention that none of this stuff about fasting has to do with performance. If you want to perform really well, it's for performance reasons and you want it, you know, for a sport or a competition, not for body fat purposes. Well, then all of this goes away and is modified so it is ideal to eat for performance.

But what we're talking about today is how to optimize body fat loss. So train at moderate to very high intensity and then moderate to low intensity, or train at moderate to high intensity and then move on with your life. And in fact, I have a friend who uses this strategy. He really likes the train and doesn't usually follow protocol because he is a very busy person. So he trains intensely for 20 or 30 minutes with weights or just bodyweight movements doing a lot, he does burpees and pushups and sit-ups and pull-ups and he just moves around and does a circuit type of training.

But when he's breathing really hard, the goal he always says is: I want to breathe hard for 30 minutes every day. And then you hydrate, drink coffee, and start your day. And he walks, he takes calls, he carries his children and he does all these kinds of things that keep him very busy, which is like low-intensity work. So I think now you understand the principle. But all of you should ask yourself as scientists. Why would certain exercise patterns lead to more or less fat loss? I mean, it can't just be about energy consumption. We already established that.

And again it has to do with neurons. It has to do with how we engage the nervous system. So while non-exercise activity induces thermogenesis, NEAT, restlessness, and cold can induce thermogenesis when performing tense movements or low-level movements. Big movements that are very high intensity, meaning they require a lot of effort, release a lot of adrenaline and epinephrine from our neurons and signal particular types and amounts of thermogenesis and fat oxidation, while low intensity exercise, low or moderate intensity. , walking, running, cycling, where you can do it easily, there is not much adrenaline release. So adrenaline, also known as epinephrine, is actually the last common pathway by which any movement, whether it's a low-level thrill or not, whether it's lifting a bar, running up a hill, or going on a long bike ride.

Adrenaline is the effector of fat loss. It is the trigger end, it is the effector. So now I want to focus our attention on compounds that increase epinephrine and adrenaline, as well as compounds that act outside the adrenaline and adrenaline pathway to increase fat loss rates. I almost always save compounds and supplements and things like that for last, because I think people should first look for behavioral tools and an understanding of the science before looking for a supplement or something in particular that they can extract from the diet. . This is mainly to try to get people away from the magic pill type of phenomenon or the idea that there is a magic pill because there really isn't one.

And, frankly, there never will be. But there are some compounds that can considerably increase the oxidation and mobilization of fats. And understanding which compounds increase oxidation or mobilization can be very useful if your goal is to accelerate fat loss. There are things that people can ingest that will allow them to oxidize more fat. And that occurs mainly by increasing the amount of epinephrine that is released from the neurons that innovate fatty tissue. One of the most common is one you may already be using: caffeine. It is well established that caffeine can improve performance, if you are adapted to caffeine.

I talked about this in a previous episode, so I want to make sure I'm very clear about it. If you are not used to drinking caffeine and suddenly decide that I am going to have a big cup of coffee before training, you will vasoconstrict yourself and limit performance. So that's performance. However, if you're adapted to caffeine, there's this kind of interesting phenomenon where caffeine ingestion serves more to enhance performance, both by increasing alertness and by dilating the vasculature and allowing for greater blood flow. Now, caffeine to burn more fat, oxidize it and mobilize it is interesting.

It can be effective in doses of up to 400 milligrams. You have to be careful if you are sensitive to caffeine. Some people take a tiny amount of caffeine and their mind goes crazy and they feel very uncomfortable. It can have cardiovascular effects in some people or hypertension, etc. So consult with your doctor. But 400 milligrams is roughly equivalent to one and a half cups of coffee or two cups of coffee. Nowadays, coffee contains much more caffeine. So if you go to a typical coffee shop and buy a medium sized one, that would have about a gram of caffeine, which is why if you're a regular caffeine user and you don't get that gram of caffeine in your coffee every day, It will give you a headache.

It may cause constriction and dilation of blood vessels in complicated ways, but it will give you a headache. Some people like the way they feel by drinking 100 to 200, 300, or 400 milligrams of caffeine before a workout. And in fact, that will lead to increased fat oxidation. It will do this because you will release more epinephrine and adrenaline. So let's put this in the context of what we said above. Let's say you normally do Zone 2 cardio, so you go for a moderate-intensity run for about 30 to 60 minutes. I think the current recommendation guidelines in the United States are for people to do 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise five days a week for 150 minutes.

If your goal is to improve or maintain the health of the cardiovascular system. 80% of people in the United States don't do that, or anything like it. We are well below the threshold of what the government has recommended. In this case, I think the government's recommendations are quite good. That can always be done better, of course. But 80% of people don't even do that. However, simply using logic and understanding how epinephrine and adrenaline are affecting this fat oxidation process. If you went out for 15 minutes and drank caffeine before you went out, yes, you would probably oxidize more fat per unit of time.

Can you compensate for the exercise you're not getting by simply drinking caffeine? Well, probably if you were just talking about fat loss, if that caffeine makes you really nervous, right? The amount of calories you burn in a 30-minute run, unless the run is very intense and you're wearing a weighted vest and you're uphill, isn't that great, is it? Then you'll probably hit somewhere in the area of ​​400 to 500 calories burned. But I've said it before, and there is now plenty of data to support that fidgeting for a day can burn between 800 and 2,500 calories per day. So you could say, well, fidgeting is better than running, ah, but it doesn't trigger the activation or positive health effects of the cardiovascular system.

So fidgeting alone can be great, but you need to exercise for other reasons. Caffeine can increase the amount of fat you burn at any duration of exercise. And it can change the percentage of fat that is oxidized compared to glycogen. Unless you take that caffeine and it stimulates you so much that you're training very, very intensely. The bottom line is that if you like caffeine and can use it safely, ingesting between 104 milligrams of caffeine before exercise, 30 to 40 minutes before exercise, can be beneficial when it comes to fat oxidation that burns more body fat. . So that's caffeine.

There are a number of other things that have existed over the years that are on this path, things like ephedrine, which is now illegal in most states, I think maybe all states, because people are I was dying from taking ephedrine, because they were getting hot. too much. Interestingly, it was not the direct effects on the heart that caused the heart attack. It can be triggered through adrenergic receptors. If you must know, it increases body temperature and heat. Now, those drugs turned out to be dangerous, because people overheated and died. There was also the great Fen-Phen fad.

It was a drug that released fenfluramine, which was actually quite effective as an anti-obesity drug, a treatment for obesity that also had to be banned. FDA approval was removed because again people were dying from cardiovascular effects. I don't know if people were overheating too. So what is the solution? If caffeine is the kind of entry point for most people when using compounds to increase the rate or percentage of fat loss in exercise and even at rest, what are some of the other things that are useful and interesting? Well, in terms of tools that are actionable and have reasonable safety margins, I've talked before about something called GLP-1.

This is something that can be triggered by ingesting yerba mate, which is a tea, and I guess since I'm half Argentinian, we grew up drinking mate. I think I had been drinking mate since I was three or four years old. I do not recommend it for children. I don't think children should have caffeine. But I did it anyway and I continue to drink mate. Mate increases GLP-1. GLP-1 is in the glucagon pathway. So let's quickly go back to our biochemistry. As you remember, fat is mobilized from body reserves and then burned. It is oxidized in cells.

Actually, it needs to be converted into ATP. And those fatty acids are essentially converted to ATP in the mitochondria of the cell. High insulin prevents this from happening and glucagon facilitates that process. Glucagon facilitates that process by increasing GLP-1. The short conclusion is that mate increases GLP-1 and yes, it increases the percentage of fat you will burn. Increases fat burning. And that is especially true, according to scientific literature, if mate is ingested before any type of exercise. So if you want to burn more fat, drinking mate before exercising is good. Drinking it at rest when you are not exercising will also help shift your metabolism toward greater fat burning by increasing fat oxidation.

Now, there's a whole category of pharmaceuticals that are being developed right now that are either in late-stage trials or used for the treatment of diabetes that take advantage of this GLP-1 pathway. They have various names and there are people on the Internet who sell these things. They are prescription medications and I want to emphasize that they are prescription medications and obviously you don't want to use any of these without a prescription and without a requirement. They appear to be effective in the treatment of certain types of diabetes and cause quite significant weight loss and reduction in appetite.

So this is kind of a modern version of GLP-1: GLP-1 metabolism pharmaceuticals are drugs like somatics, I can never pronounce this. I can't seem to pronounce many things. Semaglutide is the way I would pronounce it. S-E-M-A-G-L-U-T-I-D-E. Semaglutide, but it's not pronounced like that. But semaglutide is the way it is described on the internet. In any case, this compound increases GLP-1. Actually, in some cases it is an analogue of GLP-1 and they have various types of trade names. Therefore, the GLP-1 pathway is interesting. Most people, including me, are not interested in taking a prescription medication to increase GLP-1, I do it by ingesting mate.

I just take the mate leaves, add water and drink it. What's interesting, something that isn't often discussed, is that you can increase the amount of GLP-1, you can basically reuse the tea. The first time you drink it it can be very, very intense. And in fact, some people find that mate almost tastes like burnt leaves. It's too intense. You don't want the water to be too hot.But I learned this trick from a friend. You can reuse the leaves over and over again, probably for about a day before they go bad. And by doing that, you start to extract more and more compounds from the yerba mate leaf that increased the GLP-1.

So it's a great thing. You can get a greater effect. So what I usually do is I make about 16 to 30 ounces and just drink it throughout the day, and I like it before I workout. Some people who don't like mate might prefer something like guayusa, which is spelled G-U-A-Y-U-S-A. G-U-A-Y-U-S-A, Guayusa who is from Ecuador, despite the fact that the United States put an end to it. Is from Ecuador. And it is a sweeter tasting tea. It does not have any sweetener, but the leaf of the guayusa plant is sweeter than that of mate. Sometimes I mix the two and then make tea with that.

There is no Guayusa companion or sponsor of the podcast. These are just tools to increase GLP-1 and fat oxidation. And again, semaglutide is the prescription version of the heavy artillery stimulant GLP-1, and again should only be explored with a prescription. So those are the compounds that actually increase fat oxidation directly. There will be a number of things that will affect insulin and glucagon and cause the body to burn more fat. We talked about a lot of these during the hormones episode. We've alredy talk about that. We did a whole episode on hormones and metabolism. And so, for example, berberine, which comes from a plant, or metformin, are compounds that are now increasingly used to lower blood glucose.

They are very potent at lowering blood glucose, which will lower insulin because the job of the hormone insulin is essentially to control glucose in the bloodstream. Therefore, there is a huge gallery of compounds that will reduce insulin and therefore can increase fat oxidation. And that's because, as I mentioned before, fat oxidation, this conversion of fatty acids to ATP in the mitochondria, is inhibited by insulin. So if you keep insulin low, you will increase that process. Which brings us back to square one on the question of diet and nutrition. There's really strong evidence from the Gardner Laboratory at Stanford and other labs that show that when you look at different diets, you look at low-fat diets, you look at high-fat diets, you look at ketogenic diets, you look at intermittent fasting, as long as people follow your particular diet.

It doesn't really matter what diet you follow. You can still be in a calorie deficit and lose weight. However, adhesion is always a problem. So what I always say is that you should use the eating plan that is obviously beneficial for your health, but that allows you to comply with the particular nutrition protocol, right? If you can't stick with something, then it's not worth it. But from a purely scientific point of view, keeping insulin low also has an advantage. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to consume zero carbs. I've talked before about my preferred way of eating is to reduce or not consume carbohydrates throughout the day to stay alert and release adrenaline and the concentration that comes with it, etc., and the ability to think and move and do all the things. things I need to do during the day.

And then I eat carbohydrates at night because they make the transition to sleep easier. That's what works for me. But when insulin is low, your system is able to oxidize more fat. And that's why I think a lot of people see benefits in low-carb or moderate-carb diets, because when insulin is low, you're able to oxidize more fat. Both during exercise and at rest. And I should mention, because I mention often and it's appropriate to mention that if you're interested in looking at the effects of caffeine, mate, guayusa and things like that, GLP-1, you want to learn more about them.

You can go to this wonderful website that is free www.examine.com. You can add yerba mate, we will describe the three studies that show an increase in fat oxidation, both during exercise and at rest, and as a consequence, of course, an increase in metabolic rate. One thing that is interesting about mate is that it causes a slight decrease in heart rate for reasons that still elude me. There's only one study that shows heart rate goes down slightly, which is pretty good because if, when I drink too much caffeine, my heart rate goes up, maybe that would increase my restlessness and my fat burning, but I don't like the feeling. . from having my basal heart rate too high.

I like my heart rate to go up during exercise, but not when I'm resting or working all day. And for some reason that I don't understand, mate has the effect of increasing fat oxidation but slightly reducing heart rate. So that's interesting. And it probably helps explain the subjective experience I have had that the partner has a pleasant and even mild stimulant. It is not as powerful a stimulant as caffeine from coffee or other sources. Although if you drink too much mate it will also make you nervous. And there's one more compound that I think we should discuss in terms of increasing fat loss, and that's carnitine or acetyl-L-carnitine, they're in the same pathway.

Now we can return to our basic knowledge of fat mobilization and oxidation. After fat is mobilized and converted into cells, it needs to be oxidized. So, literally, the burning of fat and its conversion into energy is achieved and facilitated by the elevated presence of glucagon, LPG increases that process and insulin is low. And we talked about some ways to control insulin both in this episode and in the previous episode. L-carnitine and acetyl-L-carnitine in particular facilitate the oxidation of fats. Helps convert fatty acids into ATP. And in fact, supplementing L-carnitine can increase fat loss. That has been proven.

At what dose? Well, people typically take between 500 milligrams and two grams per day in divided doses. Some people who are really extreme are taking injectable L-carnitine; I certainly haven't tried it. I confess that I have used it in pill form from time to time but partly because of the fat oxidation effects, but also because of the other effects it usually has. So, exploring the effects that acetyl-L-carnitine has, it has a wide variety of effects on cellular metabolism. It can reduce ammonia in the blood, which is actually a pretty strong effect. It can reduce things like C-reactive protein, which is what you want to control C-reactive protein levels.

You don't want them too high. May slightly lower blood glucose. I can slightly increase HDLC, the good form of blood lipids, and slightly reduce overall cholesterol. And as I mentioned, you can slightly modify the pathway that involves glucagon, so you get a considerable effect, not a huge effect, on fat oxidation, so you can improve fat oxidation rates. It has a number of other effects, some of which I talked about during the month about hormones and that sort of thing. It has strong effects on pregnancy rates and sperm quality. Clearly, carnitine does many different things and many different cells.

It is affecting sperm motility. There are a lot of studies to back it up. Slight reductions in blood pressure and it has these interesting effects of reducing fatigue during exercise, reducing inflammatory markers like interleukin 6. So it has a number of effects that are generally, quote, positive or at least in the direction of things you might want. . And I must emphasize May. You certainly don't need acetyl-L-carnitine to lose fat, but now that you understand the cellular process by which fat is mobilized and oxidized, it should make sense that if L-carnitine is important for converting fatty acids into energy, then it has sense to complement L-carnitine.

Acetyl-L-carnitine is the type of L-carnitine or the form of L-carnitine, I should say, that is most easily transported and used by the body. This is why we sometimes distinguish between L-carnitine and acetyl-L-carnitine. Once again, we have covered an enormous amount of material. We've talked about the science of fat loss and, in particular, we've explored this topic from the perspective of the nervous system. How neurons and, in particular, the release of things like adrenaline and epinephrine can facilitate the mobilization and oxidation of fats. We are talking about NEAT, restlessness, this movement without exercise that can considerably increase calorie burning.

And why is it like this. We're talking about shivering, another form of non-exercise movement that can actually increase both caloric expenditure due to shivering, due to movement, as well as increase thermogenesis (the heating of the body through things like brown fat), and even conversion . from white fat to brown fat, which is good if you want to oxidize the fat. We talked about cold as a particular shiver-inducing stimulus and how to use moving in and out of the cold as a way to stimulate shivering and prevent cold adaptation to continue oxidizing and burning fat, if that's your goal.

If you want to check out the protocols for that, at www.thecoldplunge.com and in the coming weeks we'll be adding more protocols to that website not only for fat loss, but also for things like resilience, reducing inflammation, et cetera. So be sure to check them out again, they are totally free. He talked about exercise. How, instead of thinking about cardio or weight training, maybe we should look through the lens of this adrenaline system and how it interacts with fat stores and think about low, medium or high intensity exercises. Whether or not we show up fasting or not.

It turns out that reaching that level on an empty stomach can be helpful if you start with high-intensity movements and then move on to lower-intensity exercises. If you are going to do long duration exercise, it probably doesn't matter unless you exercise for more than 90 minutes, whether you eat or not. We talk about caffeine as a stimulant and stimulus for the release of epinephrine and adrenaline as a way to access greater fat metabolism. And we're talking about compounds that come from things like yerba mate and guayusa tea, this GLP-1 pathway that can trigger increased fat oxidation to such an extent that pharmaceutical companies are now developing compounds specifically to increase GLP-1. for the treatment of diabetes and obesity. .

But you can take advantage of the GLP-1 pathway by ingesting things like mate or guayusa if that interests you. And then we talked about L-carnitine and how L-carnitine itself is critical for fat oxidation within individual cells. The conversion of fatty acids into energy. And why can having low insulin and things like high or at least sufficient L-carnitine and glucagon levels facilitate fat burning and fat oxidation? So we covered a lot of material. I realize that's a lot of protocols that don't... The little list that I just gave there doesn't even begin to address all the details and nooks and crannies that we discussed.

I hope you found this conversation interesting in understanding fat loss and how to lose fat faster and lose more of it, if that is your goal. As well as just understanding the biology of fat metabolism from a different perspective, from the perspective of the nervous system. If you are enjoying this podcast and benefiting from the information you are learning, please subscribe on YouTube. That really helps us a lot. There is also a notifications button you can press that will notify you every time we post new content. We post new episodes every Monday, but sometimes we post bonus material in between.

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