How To Use Brown Fat To Lose Weight

The most difficult truth to accept is that the more you diet, the harder it is to shed body fat. When you first drop your caloric intake, the pounds just seem to melt away, at least for a short time. In reality, this is not fat. It’s mostly water weight, plus protein from your muscles.

Problem is, once your caloric deficit kicks in, as you try to get rid of the unsightly blubber, your body actually begins to hold onto the fat for survival and your weight loss comes to a crashing halt.

TRAIN for HER’s strength and conditioning expert Dr Gabriel Wilson shows you how to awaken your body’s dormant fat-burning system to optimise your ability to get leaner.

Not all fat is equal

The reason you can’t easily reduce body fat lies in your genetic code and the survival adaptations made by your body during evolution. You’re primed to store calories to survive because in the past you might not have known where your next meal was coming from – or when. Fortunately, a recent scientific breakthrough has unveiled that the key to reaching your weight loss goals is already naturally present in your body. Problem is, this natural fat burning process typically lies dormant.

Surprisingly, this process involves increasing the activity of a unique type of fat all humans have – brown fat, or brown adipose tissue (BAT), generally found around the neck and back – that actually increases your metabolism and calorie burning. When activated, it alters the way your body uses energy. You see, typically when you consume food, your body tries to store energy in the ‘bad’ fat around your hip, thighs and waist. Instead of storing nutrients in this manner, BAT burns body fat as heat, increasing your fat torching abilities.

Why it burns calories 

Brown fat is full of nerves, high in mitochondria (the primary fuel burning proteins in your body) and has a rich supply of nutrient-transporting veins. Why? Well, when the temperature drops, your body shivers to generate heat. So when you get cold your brain communicates with the brown fat by increasing uncoupling-protein-1 (UCP-1), which turns on the entire BAT fat burning system. When UCP-1 is increased in brown fat you rapidly start to burn body fat, making your adipose (fat) take up nutrients to produce ATP (energy). So brown fat targets these calories and literally burns them off as heat, resulting in an increase in your metabolic rate and your body being warmed when you’re cold.

How to use it 

Scientists have been seeking ways to harness brown fat for years. Fortunately, a West African plant called Grains of Paradise was recently discovered and it proved to do just the trick. Research in the British Journal of Nutrition found that it activated brown fat and hiked up an exerciser’s metabolic rate and fat loss. The good news is: you don’t need to visit Africa to get it because it’s present in limited supplements, namely MuscleMeds Phenbuterol, which helps you burn more energy and lose more fat while you kick back on the couch.

How to activate your brown fat 

1. Turn down the heat. Research in the Journal of Clinical Investigation found that subjects sitting in a 17oC room for two hours a day burnt 108 calories compared to when they were in warmer temperatures.

2. Get some rest, because this increases your melatonin levels which can help increase your fat’s calorie burning efficiency, found research in Obesity Review. It has to be produced by your body naturally, so supplementing won’t do the trick, sadly.

3. Snack on apples. Research at the University of Iowa, US, found that apple peels help activate this type of fat. One a day could really keep the doc at bay.

Find weight loss advice and more in every issue of TRAIN for HER magazine.