5 UNUSUAL THINGS YOU CAN DO TODAY… TO LOSE FAT FASTER. Part A

I get asked every day what is the fastest way to lose weight?

How can I get that extra edge?

What else can I do?

It’s a new year and we all want to lose a few kilos –   here are some strategies you may not have heard of, that will give you an edge to lose weight quicker and improve your health without, starving or flogging yourself.

“Biohacking” is the term of the century. If you haven’t heard of it then like me, you are not a Silicon Valley Fortune 500 CEO!  The aim of biohackers is to turn back the clock and defy age – you got it, get the best body, have the best brain, the most productive work practices, the most soulful life, and to be so healthy that you live forever.

Today I share with you my top 10 UNUSUAL tips to biohack your body to lose weight fast. These are science backed, tried and tested and yep…they actually work.

Whilst this may sound all new age and Pollyanna –health and nutrition science is constantly evolving and has come a long way the last few years.  Losing weight and being of optimal health is no longer just about fasting, cutting carbs and doing copious amounts of burpees.   Bro science and well intentioned trainers are being replaced by health hackers, metabolic and hormonal researchers and a more intelligent approach to weight loss.

Fat loss is a complex issue and years of coaching experience has taught me that it cannot be solved with diet and exercise alone.

My meal plan programs https://www.prometaboliclife.com/meal-plans/ are not restrictive “diets” they are nutrition and lifestyle plans to improve metabolic rate, nourish your body and achieve hormonal balance.   I constantly teach my clients that weight loss is not just about what you eat or how many calories you burn – today In part A I share five of these more unusual strategies that will give you the edge to greater success.

1. Sunlight

Research has found that sunlight can help burn body fat by causing fat cells to shrink.

The research, published in the journal of Scientific Reports, examined the effect of sunlight on white fat cells.   Sunlight stimulates your mitochondria to make more energy. The sunlight penetrates through your skin and into your cell where it stimulates an enzyme in the mitochondria to increase energy production.   There is a concept called “human photosynthesis” that suggests our ability to create energy (ATP) depends on exposure to photons of light.

While sunlight stimulates energy production, darkness has the opposite affect. It causes the mitochondria to shrink and to produce less energy.

When the sun rises or sets it gives off the most red light, this is great for biohacking our body, metabolism, energy, fat burning and health.

 “When the sun’s blue light wavelengths — the light we can see with our eye — penetrate our skin and reach the fat cells just beneath, lipid droplets reduce in size and are released out of the cell. In other words, our cells don’t store as much fat.”

said study senior author Peter Light, Ph.D., a professor of pharmacology and the director of UAlberta’s Alberta Diabetes Institute. “

Insufficient sunlight has been linked to fat storage..

https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/sunlight-may-help-break-down-fat-cells-under-your-skin/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5086738/

https://daveasprey.com/sunlight-shrinks-fat-cells/

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320592#:~:text=How%20sunlight%20’burns’%20fat&text=%E2%80%9CWhen%20the%20sun’s%20blue%20light,t%20store%20as%20much%20fat.%E2%80%9D

2. EARTHING

Earthing is considered the “new weight loss diet”.

Touching the ground, barefoot is known as “earthing” or “grounding”.  Earthing will improve metabolism and reduce stress – two significant factors that affect weight loss.  Research has also shown that earthing will decrease inflammation and improve overall health.    Again whilst sounding Pollyanna have a read of the research or even better try spending a week walking bare foot outside for 30minutes and let me know how you feel.

https://www.earthingnederland.nl/afvallen?Lng=en

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/drkaren/2019/09/16/can-earthing-help-you-lose-fat

3. Sleep MORE

SLEEP MORE TO WEIGH LOSS.   Research has now made a direct association between poor sleep and weight gain.   Even If you had the very best diet and training program, if you don’t get enough sleep you simply will not lose weight.   In fact study after study shows that not enough sleep will result in weight gain and reduce any of the the benefits of dieting.

https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/164/10/947/162270

When your body is sleep-deprived, it suffers from “metabolic grogginess.” The term was coined by University of Chicago researchers who analyzed what happened after just four days of poor sleep—

Within just four days of sleep deprivation, your body’s ability to properly use insulin (the master storage hormone) becomes completely disrupted. In fact, the University of Chicago researchers found that insulin sensitivity dropped by more than 30 percent

https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/news/new-study-helps-explain-links-between-sleep-loss-and-diabetes

“Here’s why that’s bad: When your insulin is working well, fat cells remove fatty acids and lipids from your bloodstream to prevent them storing as fat. When you become more insulin-resistant, fats (lipids) circulate in your blood and pump out more insulin. Eventually, excess insulin ends up storing fat in all the wrong places, such as tissues like your liver, and your belly.”

Lack of sleep also makes you crave more food.  Research published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism found that sleeping less than six hours triggers the area of your brain that increases your need for food while also depressing leptin and stimulating ghrelin.

https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/89/11/5762/2844744

When you don’t sleep enough, your cortisol levels rise. This is the stress hormone that is frequently associated with fat gain.

And it gets worse.

“Lack of sleep also pushes you in the direction of the foods you know you shouldn’t eat. A study published in Nature Communications found that just one night of sleep deprivation was enough to impair activity in your frontal lobe, which controls complex decision-making.”

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3259

Lack of sleep makes it harder for your body to recover from exercise by slowing down the production of growth hormone—your natural source of anti-aging and fat-burning that also facilitates recovery.

Getting a good night’s sleep plays is essential for successful weight loss. When you sleep, your body regulates the levels of the two hormones involved in appetite control. Ghrelin is the hormone responsible for making you feel hungry, and leptin lets you know that you are full.

When you lose out on your sleep, ghrelin levels rise while leptin levels fall. This results in increased hunger the following day. Not a great place to be when you are trying to diet.

A large, nationwide study carried out in the UK found that people who slept for longer had a better metabolic profile than those who slept less. Specifically, longer sleep was associated with lower body mass index and waist circumference, and higher levels of HDL – the “good cholesterol”. Better sleep was also shown to decrease levels of CRP, a blood marker which indicates chronic inflammation. It also had a positive effect on thyroid hormone levels which impact metabolism .  And as I always say fat loss favours a fast metabolism.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101004211637.htm

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-full-night-s-sleep-appears-to-be-a-key-part-of-healthy-weight-loss

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0182195

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/08/17/sleep-more-weigh-less.aspx

4. Cold showers

Fitness enthusiastic and those wanting an edge to burn more fat are all tapping into the power of cold by taking a 3 minute cold shower each morning.    This activate “cold thermogenesis”, where in cold temperatures, the body produces heat by burning fat in the hips, stomach, buttocks and legs.

 Research has shown that cold showers (and exposure to cold in general), in addition to increasing metabolic rate directly, stimulate the generation of brown fat. Brown fat is a specific type of fat tissue that in turn generates energy by burning calories.

Once brown fat cells are activated, they release two hormonesm irisin and FGF21. These hormones then burn white fat tissue and help you lose weight.

Finnish longevity studies have also shown that cold thermogenesis / cryotherapy / cold showers are great for weight loss and blood flow.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-05/cold-shower-may-be-secret-to-fat-burning/5238938

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325725

5. Eat Pro-Thyroid sugars

Simple sugars to boost metabolism.   Your metabolism is the key to whether you burn fat or store fat.

Losing weight is NOT about cutting calories, carbs or fasting.   You will get the greatest results when you eat food that increases your metabolism.

Metabolism is controlled by the amount of T3 thyroid hormone that is present in the blood.    When the thyroid gland does not produce enough T3, metabolic rate is altered and without a constant flow of sugars (glucose), the liver cannot convert T4 to T3, the active thyroid hormone that is essential for metabolic rate, cellular respiration and fat burning.

Natural sugars found in fruit are in fact powerfully metabolic and NOT fattening as the magazines would have us belive

“We’ve been so ill informed that it’s come to the point where even fruits, those nourishing, restorative, pro-metabolic, digestible (and delicious) jewels of nature, are damned.  We’re told carbs are carbs, sugars are sugars, ignoring the fundamental biochemistry of all the very different carbohydrate forms.  Whole grains are so wrongly glorified while orange juice is put on par with Pepsi.  And where has this gotten us?  Fat, diabetic, hypothyroid, inflamed, adrenalised and reproductively-challenged.”

http://www.thenutritioncoach.com.au/anti-ageing/defending-fruit-and-other-noncomplex-carbs/

In order to lose weight efficiently and fast –  healthy, natural sugars should be part of your nutrition.

Simple sugars from fruits and juices are the most delicious and nourishing Pro-metabolic food.  This means they do just that, upregulates thyroid functioning, resulting in faster fat burning and a healthier body.

https://www.prometaboliclife.com/i-no-longer-cut-carbs-to-get-lean/

and of course a shout out about my PRO METABOLIC MEAL PLANS that will help you burn fat fast and healthily by eating nourishing, delicious sugars from fruit, juice and honey.

https://www.prometaboliclife.com/12-week-metabolic-thrive-meal-plan/

As a coach, over the years I have seen too many dieters destroying their metabolism, health, wreak havoc with their hormones and then NOT being able to lose any weight at all.   It does not need to be this way.   Both with my online meal plans and with my personal clients I teach a way to eat that increases metabolism, to make weight loss more efficient,

If you want to learn more about how to improve metabolic rate for faster, easier, healthier fat burning have a browse of my blogs, read about my meal plans or dont hesitate to message me

https://www.prometaboliclife.com/meal-plans/

The Pro-Metabolic 12-week meal plan program focus on eating food that helps upregulate T3 production and avoids foods that slows it down.  This is a great place to start to heal metabolic and hormonal issues.    My Pro-Metabolic nutrition plans include simple sugars such as ripe tropical fruit, juices and raw honey, saturated fats like coconut oil, quality dairy and quality proteins such as shellfish and gelatin.

Check back in a few days for Part B of my unconventional fat loss tips.