Sneak Extra Activity Into Your Day
Pace around your office while talking on the phone or run into the bank to cash your check instead of using the drive-thru. When researchers at the Mayo Clinic fed a group of volunteers an extra 1,000 calories a day over the course of eight weeks, they found sedentary individuals gained eight times more weight than those who fidgeted a lot during the day.
How To Get Started Now
How do you start? Simple. Tomorrow, make lunch your first meal. If you stop eating at 8pm and dont eat until noon the next day, thats sixteen hours of fasting perfect for stimulating growth hormone, which boosts metabolism, builds muscle, and slows aging.
The fact that you sleep through the majority of your fast makes it relatively painless. If youve trained your body to expect food every two hours, then you might feel hungry the first few times you try fasting. But it will all be in your head.
Running just on the fat stored in their bodies, most Americans could walk from New York to Florida without technically needing a bite to eat. Give yourself a week or two for your body to relearn how to run on fat, and youll find fasting gets easier.
While fasting, youre liberated from having to think about food so you can spend your energy elsewhere.
That little voice that usually nags every few minutes, Hey, is it time to eat? I think its time to eat! now has a response that works every time. Theres an epic feast coming tonight, you might say. No need to bother me until then. After all, you have important things to do today.
The best day for your first fast is your day off, perhaps Sunday, so you wont fall prey to the stress of the workday.
Do your best to get plenty of sleep and have a satisfying feast the night before your first fast to keep cortisol in check.
How Long Does It Take To Start Burning Body Fat
But low liver glycogen isnt the entire story as you can still gain weight on keto or stall with fat loss.
Your body starts breaking down stored fat for energy when it needs to compensate for a caloric deficit. That can happen by consuming fewer calories or burning more than needed for maintaining daily energetic requirements.
Therefore, the fastest way to start burning body fat is to deplete your liver glycogen in a fasted state with some exercise and then continue to eat low carb afterward. With this routine, you can expect to tap into your body fat stores within 12 hours of not eating and you can lose body fat after eating at a caloric deficit for the day.
If you refill your liver glycogen with carbohydrates, then youd have to burn through that liver glycogen again before you can get back into ketosis fat burning mode. With this routine, you can expect to lose body fat by the end of the day if you eat at a caloric deficit.
Thats why youll be burning primarily your own body fat while fasting youre not eating and your liver glycogen is empty .
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How To Beat False Hunger
True hunger is generally experienced in the body and brain, not in the stomach. If you get light-headed or weak, or your workout suffers, youre probably fasting too much.
It may take some practice, but once you reconnect with the feeling of true hunger, you can follow your bodys lead and eat whenever the feeling strikes.
Whenever you get hungry, ask yourself:
- Am I thirsty? Drink water and cravings may subside.
- Have I had my fill of greens and fiber today? Go for a salad, veggies, or a green smoothie.
- Am I emotional or bored? Wait twenty minutes, go for a walk, or exercise.
- Did I drink alcohol recently? Your body is probably tricking you into thinking youre hungry because your insulin is out of whack.
- Have I eaten my fill of protein today? Grab some.
- Did I eat sugar, grains, fried food, or other carbage? Your insulin and blood sugar are unstable. You probably dont need more food. Wait it out.
- Have I exercised today? Try it and you might find youre not hungry anymore.
- Am I fasting too much? Go ahead and eat. Bonus if you make raw green veggies the first thing to hit your belly.
What Happens To The Metabolism
When you eat the body spends a few hours processing food, burning what it can from what you just consumed.
The natural sugars in any meal that arent immediately needed for energy are stored in the liver as glycogen. When maximum glycogen storage has been achieved, the body then stores this energy as fat. Glycogen stores are the first fuel source the body will turn to for energy. When glycogen is depleted the body will then turn to the energy stored in fat cells.
When you are in a fasting state your body doesnt have a recently consumed meal that it can burn as energy. Instead it uses your stored fat as its primary energy source.
In general it takes between 6 to 8 hours for the body to burn through its glycogen supply.
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Eat Plenty Of Protein
The easiest change you can make to your diet to lose belly fat is to eat enough protein. There are several reasons for this. Increasing your protein intake increases satiety. In most cases, if youre not hungry, you wont eat. Therefore, increasing satiety can result in effortless weight loss.
Moreover, eating enough protein throughout the day ensures you maintain your metabolically active mass even when you eat at a calorie deficit. If you push your muscles to failure through resistance training, you can even build muscle while burning belly fat by eating enough protein. Bio-available protein sources include legumes, dairy products, game meat, eggs, and lean seafood.
Can Your Body Access Its Body Fat
The human body is an incredibly adaptive organism that tries to maintain its survival by storing all excess energy whether into its bones, muscle tissue, body fat, stem cells, and other storage sites.
Given how many people suffer from obesity or metabolic disorders, the problem isnt lack of energy. There are a lot of people struggling with dieting and losing weight as well they feel as if theyre starving, hit a plateau, cant stay consistent, or even lose muscle instead of fat.
From a bioenergetic perspective, you shouldnt get hungry or feel tired up until youve really run out of your body fat stores, which is virtually impossible. Even very lean people have tens of thousands of calories in their adipose tissue. The problem has to do more with how that storage gets used, or much rather, not used.
Therefore, if you want to burn body fat faster, then you have to condition your body to become better at burning fat and using it as energy.
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What Happens If Your Liver Runs Out Of Glycogen
When the liver gets depleted of energy, its going to switch its metabolic gear from running on glucose into provisioning energy with fatty acids and ketone bodies.
- Fatty acids that can be used as energy are called triglyceride molecules with many carbon atoms. Your adipose tissue is a deposit for stored triglyceride molecules. If you start burning body fat youre releasing those triglycerides into the bloodstream and burning them off for energy.
- Ketone bodies are energy molecules that get created as a by-product of fatty acid metabolism. With low glycogen stores, the liver ramps up its production of ketone bodies so they could provide an alternative fuel source to glucose in the brain. After keto-adaptation, the brain can meet up to 70-80% of its energy demands with ketones.
Most tissues of the body like muscles and cells can run very well on triglycerides but some organs like the heart and brain need either glucose of ketones.
Ketone bodies can be created from either dietary intake OR by not eating anything . Thats the difference between endogenous ketosis and exogenous ketosis .
Having more ketones in the blood doesnt mean youre burning more body fat its just indicative of how many ketone bodies are in your blood at that particular time. To start burning body fat, youd naturally want endogenous ketosis when your liver glycogen is depleted, youre under higher energy demands and youre not putting more fuel into your body than needed.
Can You Use Intermittent Fasting To Get Rid Of Stubborn Belly Fat
Do you spend countless hours diving deep into internet holes trying to find trustworthy sources to tell you what you should and shouldnt be eating? I get it – the internet is FULL of conflicting media messages that promise too-good-to-be-true weight loss messages that can be achieved only weeks before your wedding.
Frustrating, right? Intermittent Fasting has gained quite a bit of media attention over the past several years as a promising way to lose weight. I have had so many women ask about this topic and the science behind it.
So, heres my go-to guide on whats happening on a metabolic level during intermittent fasting. Read on to find out if you should or shouldnt use intermittent fasting to get rid of stubborn belly fat on your weight loss journey.
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Dangers Of Fasting For Weight Loss
When you dramatically reduce your calorie intake, you will lose weight. But it can also cause all kinds of health problems, including muscle loss. Further, when you start fasting, your body goes into conservation mode, burning calories more slowly.
Keep in mind that the initial weight lost on a fast is primarily fluid or “water weight,” not fat. And when you go back to eating, any lost weight usually gets a return ticket back. Not only do most people regain weight lost on a fast, they tend to add a few extra pounds because a slower metabolism makes it easier to gain weight. Worse, the weight that is regained is likely to be all fat — lost muscle has to be added back at the gym.
Continued
Side effects of fasting include dizziness, headaches, low blood sugar, muscle aches, weakness, and fatigue. Prolonged fasting can lead to anemia, a weakened immune system, liver and kidney problems, and irregular heartbeat. Fasting can also result in vitamin and mineral deficiencies, muscle breakdown, and diarrhea. When you drink laxative concoctions during a fast, there is an increased risk of fluid imbalance and dehydration.
The risks get more complicated and severe the longer you stay on a fast, or if you repeatedly go on fasts.
But Wont I Get Hungry
One of the benefits of intermittent fasting is that your body rapidly adapts to the new style of eating. If you deliberately skip breakfast each day, the hormone ghrelin adapts to this, meaning you wonât feel hungry until your ânormalâ eating time. It takes a few days for this entrainment to set in, but once youâve gotten used to eating your first meal of the day at lunchtime youâll never be hungry at breakfast again!
This benefit is seen best in those who choose to fast each and every day. The exact duration of your own personal fast can change , but it needs to be over 12 hours long to start seeing the benefits mentioned above. Women normally get a little hungrier than men , so 14 hours is a good option for women, whereas men can usually fast for 16 hours without any hardship.
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Mix Up Your Movements
When you lift, perform supersets in which you alternate between sets of lower-body exercises and upper-body exercises. That way your lower body rests while your upper body is working. This allows you to work your muscles maximally with very little downtime between sets for a faster, more effective workout, says Craig Ballantyne, C.S.C.S.
What Fasting Does To Your Body
Essentially, fasting cleanses our body of toxins and forces cells into processes that are not usually stimulated when a steady stream of fuel from food is always present. When we fast, the body does not have its usual access to glucose, forcing the cells to resort to other means and materials to produce energy.
Also Check: How Much Weight Do You Lose With Intermittent Fasting
Drink Black Coffee During The Fasting Period
It is said that drinking black coffee when you’re not allowed to eat or during your fasting window, may fasten fat burn and weight loss. However, we’re not sure of the scientific veracity of this claim it is believed that drinking the beverage makes up for the fasting slump and curbs appetite, making it easier for the dieter to prolong their fast.
Intermittent Fasting for weight loss: Drinking black coffee may fasten fat burn and weight loss.
The String Test Uses Waist To Height Ratio To Test For Obesity
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Potbelly, spare tyre, middle-aged spread, alcohol belly or the unsightly paunch however you may refer to it, belly fat is not only annoying, it can be harmful to ones health. When it comes to getting rid of visceral fat, one diet that has proven effective is intermittent fasting. How does it work?
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Why The Experts Say If Works
Now for the science talk. Why has intermittent fasting been so successful for me when everything else I’ve tried has failed me? Aside from this being a sustainable lifestyle, certified dietitian Leslie Langevin, MS, RD, CD, of Whole Health Nutrition says that intermittent fasting “gets your body out of ‘storage mode’ and mobilizes fat stores for energy.” This means that without having a constant food source, your body will dip into the fat it already has stored as its energy source, and in my case, that fat was in my belly.
Dr. Daryl Gioffre, a celebrity nutritionist and longevity expert who specializes in the alkaline diet, adds that when you fast for 16 hours, “Your blood sugar and insulin levels lower,” and the human growth hormone increases. He says this increases your metabolic rate , and when this happens, your body has no other choice but to start burning your body’s stored fat for energy.
He goes on to say that “belly fat can be stubborn to lose because the abdominal area contains more alpha-2 receptors that slow down your ability to burn fat, compared to beta-2 receptors that increase your fat burning potential.” IF is powerful because lower insulin levels “activate your b-2 receptors and shut down your a-2 receptors, allowing you to burn targeted fat in your belly area.”
Help You Get Rid Of Sugar Cravings
Interestingly, its been shown that overweight people have very high levels of leptin, yet few who struggle with weight will tell you they rarely feel hungry. The body is yelling at the brain to stop eating, but the brain has become deaf to the signals. This happens by the same mechanism that leads to insulin resistance: consistent overexposure to high levels of the hormone.
Fasting, and in particular when combined with decreased sugar consumption, allows the brain to clean out its ears and properly hear leptin calling.
In short, when the blood sugar and insulin release are in balance, you are less likely to crave food and sweets.
Moreover, you are more likely to prefer proper food instead of junk, when you have limited your intake of food to a specific time frame.
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Easy To Add To Your Diet
Brussels sprouts make a healthy addition to any diet and are easy to incorporate into side dishes and entrées.
People often enjoy them roasted, boiled, sautéed or baked.
For a simple side dish, first cut off the ends of the Brussels sprouts. Mix the sprouts with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper, and then roast them on a baking sheet until theyre crispy.
Brussels sprouts can also be added to pasta, frittatas or stir-fried dishes for a flavorful and nutritious dinner.
Summary: Brussels sprouts are simple to prepare and you can enjoy them in a variety of delicious side dishes and main courses.
When Does Your Body Start Burning Fat
Before you can start burning stored body fat, you need to deplete the livers glycogen stores as to signal the requirement for burning more energy.
Your liver controls most of the metabolic processes that determine your daily thermodynamics and energy expenditure. The liver glycogen mediates those pathways and its almost like a signaling molecule, or much rather a signaling repository.
How fast youre going to start burning body fat depends on your bodys overall energy demands and how fast youre going to burn through that liver glycogen.
- There are 100150 grams of glycogen in the liver which takes about 1824 hours of fasting to be depleted
- There are 300-500 grams of glycogen in the muscle cells. However, muscle cells have a different function than the liver. Liver glycogen regulates energy homeostasis and blood sugar whereas muscle glycogen is used for energy production under high energetic demands i.e. sprinting, lifting weights, HIIT, ultramarathon etc.
Liver glycogen depletion occurs just by mere virtue of staying awake as it constantly transmissions energy to the brain and other vital organs. Muscle glycogen gets tapped into only if you exceed 65% of your VO2 max and thus switch over from burning fat into burning glycogen.
Check out my FREE Body Mind Empowerment Handbook to know how to exercise like this!
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