3 Advanced Fat Loss Tips

3 Advanced Fat Loss Tips

Suppose you have been dieting for some time. Weight is being lost but it has slowed down a bit. You are being miserable from eating the same stuff every day.

Well done first of all. Not many have the courage to do that.

Now for pushing it a little further, I wanted to give you some tips that will really help you get rid of the final pounds.

At this point, I have to let you know that these tips are not for an average person that is just starting out his journey to fat loss. You should already have created a solid diet plan.

The fundamentals need to be in place and then as you go, you need to make micro adjustments to optimise the process.

Another reason for the basics to be in place, is that you will always have second thoughts about some stuff, regarding your diet. Like “should I eat now or later?”, “is it good that I am eating carbs at night?”, etc.

I recommend, first you put the effort to know about calories, macros and training and then come check this guide.

Lastly, if you don’t know the basics, anything more advanced will do more harm than good as it will probably confuse you.

So you are among the few? The ones with the iron will that won’t stop until they get what they want?

Cool, don’t worry. We got you covered.

The whole guide and tips come entirely from the book of Lyle McDonald called “The Stubborn Fat Solution”, with very few additions.

So before we go into the tips, we need to know a little bit about the process of fat loss in a cellular level.

Primer on Fat Loss

Fat is being burnt in 3 steps:

  • Mobilization
  • Transportation
  • Oxidation

So mobilization means getting the fat out of the fat cell and into the bloodstream, as free fatty acids. Basically fat is turning into triglycerides and then it is transformed into free fatty acids[1].

We need to do that if we need to use our fatty tissues for energy, and lose them eventually.

A minute technical detail, is that we don’t quite lose our fatty cells, but we shrink them. Up to a level where they have insignificant mass. Their total number decreases very slightly.

Just for the sake of information, fat cell production ends somewhere in our childhood. As adults, we have a pretty stable amount of fat cells. But we can totally change their volume, hence our health and appearance.

Next comes transportation, where the free fatty acids are being transferred to the muscles and the liver. There they would be converted to glucose, to be used for energy.

Then the last part, oxidation. It happens when muscle and liver cells actually take up those free fatty acids, via the mitochondria (where the energy production of the cell happens).

For each phase to happen, our body needs to be in an appropriate hormonal state. For mobilisation, we need to have low blood sugar and low insulin levels. This happens when we eat very few carbohydrates (proteins can raise insulin too, fats no).

Transportation needs good blood flow in the adipose tissue (fat cells). Something funny is that women preferentially increase blood flow on the hips after consuming a meal while men’s bodies have a preference for the belly.

The other major factor for the transportation to happen is the type of adrenoreceptors that exist in our fat cells. Adrenoreceptors or adrenoceptors are receptors that bind with specific hormones and make the transportation out of the fat cell and into the bloodstream, possible.

The two major types of adrenoreceptors, are Alpha and Beta (alpha-receptors, beta-receptors). Alphas inhibit fat loss while betas promote it[2].

For the sake of simplicity, although different alpha (1-2) and beta receptors(1-2-3-4) types exist, we only need to deal with alpha-2 and beta-2. These are the only types that affect fat loss and I will refer to them when I write alpha and beta.

In general, different types of body fat and in different places (belly, hips, arms) have different levels of receptors, which in effect controls if we have good blood flow on this area or not.

Some areas may have 9 times more alpha-receptors than beta-receptors[3]. Hence the stubbornness of the fat in these places.

Lastly, oxidation happens when we have high levels of carnitine in our blood. But don’t get your hopes up yet, carnitine supplements don’t really work effectively in raising our carnitine levels[4].

Carnitine is being produced in the liver when we consume enough lysine and methionine (amino acids) through our diet. Just a reminder, amino acids are being derived from protein.

So you guessed it right, dietary protein helps in the oxidation of the fat. Probably now you start to understand how all these low carb, high protein diets seem to work under the hood.

The only thing I have to remind you at this point is that fat loss is a systemic process. We can do some stuff to increase blood flow in certain areas but that’s only it. Spot reduction is not really possible. Because the greatest part of the fat loss process, is the levels of different hormones in our blood. And blood travels all over the body.

So if your body prefers to burn fat from a specific part, then it will start there and then move to the more stubborn parts.

Enough with the biology stuff, let’s go with the easily applicable tips for fat loss.

Tip #1 Fewer carbs

We can’t stress this enough, carbs, in general, inhibit fat loss. Basically carbs, raise insulin levels and fat mobilisation can’t happen with elevated insulin.

On the other side, low carb diets make the alpha-receptors inactive. In a way, we inhibit the inhibitor(alpha-receptors) with having low insulin.

Tip#2 Cardio/ Aerobic training after Heavy Weight training

The reason is quite simple really. Heavy weight training, is making our body release adrenaline. This in effect, makes our liver pump out the remaining glycogen, to be used for energy quickly, and in consequence, it lowers our blood sugar.

You could also do intervals instead of heavy weight training. In general, a very strenuous type of exercise that will make our body release adrenaline exponentially. This happens only on the very acute type of training.

We need to reach the lactate threshold, where adrenaline is really kicking in.

The downside of the intense exercise, for fat loss, is that it raises lactate concentrations, which inhibits fatty acid release and fat oxidation. Also, high-intensity exercise is making our body, to prefer glucose for energy (from the liver and the muscle), rather than fatty acids.

So this might be confusing, but high levels of adrenaline both promote and inhibit fat loss in a way.

The takeaway from this is that high intensity is required to pump adrenaline and get rid of the glucose and lower our blood sugar.

Then something magic happens. By resting only for 5 minutes, after  reaching the lactate threshold, all the fatty acids are being released into the bloodstream.

At this point, if you follow up your training, with low-intensity cardio, a brisk walk for example, it starts the process of transportation of fatty acids, since now we have lower blood sugar levels. This “not so intensive” exercise, doesn’t require muscle or liver glycogen, so the body uses as an energy source the now available fatty acids.

Here comes fat metabolization.

Tip#3 Yohimbine HCl

Yohimbine actually increases blood flow by inhibiting the alpha-receptors. Simple as that. It helps in the fat transportation by giving us better blood flow.

Avoid the herbal type of yohimbine, it may have some bad side effects like anxiety, sweats or too much stimulation.

As always, please consult a physician or other qualified health care professional, before taking any supplements.

Yohimbine, depending on the individual, can cause high blood pressure, rapid heart rate, cold sweating or even insomnia.

Lastly, yohimbine is not having the proper effect when our body is high on insulin. So yohimbine needs practically an empty stomach to work.

Probably the best case would be to have a stimulant like caffeine (again if it doesn’t cause any problems to the individual) and yohimbine in the morning, especially just before a low state cardio session.

The effective dose for this scenario is 0.2mg/kg[5]. For an individual of 80kg, that would be 16mg.

Lastly, the preferred version of the supplement would be the Yohimbine HCL. It has fewer side effects.

Conclusion

Remember the tips:

  • Low carbohydrate diet
  • Heavy intense training, followed by low-intensity training
  • Supplement with yohimbine on an empty stomach (if it doesn’t cause any problems)

As always remember to always have a diet plan in place and take the occasional break when you need to. Create an account on Dutrition and make one, if you haven’t already.

Do you have any insights you would like to share or any questions regarding fat loss? Why don’t you make a comment about it?