Ways to Supercharge Your Fat Burning
by Chris Aceto
Getting lean, or dumping excess body fat, is all about calories. Two standard approaches to ripping up include eating fewer carbohydrates and dietary fat or throwing cardiovascular exercise into your training mix. The former relies on dropping calories from the diet while the latter emphasizes caloric expenditure – burning calories.
The less than standard approach is to maximize thermogenesis. Max this out, and you’ll be able to attain a level of conditioning that is simply, well, not ripped but diced!
Thermogenesis describes the body’s heat generating capacity. While the normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees, a slightly higher temperature, even an-ever-so-slight increase, results in the burning of additional calories. Here, I want to take a look at 7 ways we can get the body to boost its thermogenic potential. When you can keep the temperature even slightly elevated, you’ll burn more body fat and many speculate a higher thermogenic metabolism is more anabolic. That makes sense as a higher body temperature translates into a higher metabolic rate, and a higher metabolic rate supports protein synthesis.
1) Multiple Meals
Here’s the lowdown: Every time you eat, the body experiences a small increase in body temperature – thermogenesis – resulting in an increased metabolism. The irony of dieting is the metabolism can accommodate by burning fewer calories. Eat less and the body’s calorie burning capacity often drops, as does its internal temperature. The solution: radically change your daily meal scheme from 4 to 6 meals to 7 or 8.
2) Emphasize Vegetables
If you’re trying to cut up, eating lots of low calorie veggies is a big plus. Cabbage, broccoli, asparagus, green beans, zucchini, spinach, onions and others not only help you keep a tight check on calories, but also increase the metabolism. These ultra low calorie items are dense in insoluble fiber, the kind that actually requires more calories to digest, than they supply. That is, a cup of spinach at 8 calories can take 9 calories of digestive energy to "get at" the 8 calories found in the cup. The net effect, you fall into a calorie deficit from eating more veggies. Nothing huge mind you, but in the quest for a truly fat-free body, everything becomes important.
3) Get Used To Spicy Food
No kidding. Spicy or hot foods increase the metabolism by increasing thermogenesis. Red peppers, cayenne peppers, hot sauces and any other red pepper based spice or herb amps the nervous system. The result is that your body temperature increases and you burn more calories. Most bodybuilding diets are high in protein and incorporate lots of chicken and turkey breast, egg whites and the occasional extra lean ground beef, but they’re also pretty dull in the flavor department. Crushed red peppers, Thai red chili and lots of Tobasco sauce are not only an insignificant source of calories, but help kick the metabolic rate upwards while adding some zest to what is typically a pretty pale and bland fare.
Ginger’s another tart ingredient that also exerts the same effect. Try biting down on fresh ginger and you’ll see what I mean. Ginger increases heat production in the body helping you to lean down. In fact, Labrada’s Charge features ginger – an important slimming ingredient designed to boost your thermogenic potential.
4) Ephedra-Free Calorie Burners
Caffeine can be considered a thermogenic. It increases the metabolism by stimulating the nervous system. That’s why virgin Joe drinkers claim it provides a jolt and helps ‘em stay awake. One problem with continued use is the thermogenic effect fades. Therefore, caffeine or strong coffee usage ought to be reserved for cutting phases. If you drink it year-round, the fat burning effect will only slip away.
Caffeine and carbs are not a great mix. Caffeine can drag fatty acids out of fat cells facilitate the burning of body fat. The catch is that caffeine, or coffee on an empty stomach, works. Throw in carbs like a bagel or even a bowl of oats and the body responds by outputting insulin, which can override the fat liberating effects of caffeine.
Three ways to use caffeine the right way include a) drink your coffee and wait at least an hour before eating breakfast. This gives the body time to burn some extra fat before the introduction of carbohydrates b) Drink your coffee and hop on the treadmill. c) make a low carb, whey protein shake with instant coffee granules before training and save the high carbs for after training – the best time to
replenish glycogen stores.
Recipe Bonus: Using a blender, mix whey protein, cold water, instant coffee grounds, shaved
ice, non dairy creamer and lots of Equal, a perfect pre-cardio snack to keep insulin levels low and fat burning potential high.
The cousin to caffeine is green tea. While green tea contains smaller amounts of caffeine than coffee, it also contains special polyphenols called catechins which have been shown to boost the metabolic rate. Many ideal fat burning products now combine catechins with caffeine to maximize calorie burning. Charge does so, and, because it’s 100% ephedra free, it’s 100% safe and can be used on a daily basis by the individual following a calorie controlled diet in hopes of eliminating body fat.
5) Overeating
Ok, how do you rip up by overeating? The answer is by alternating an overeating day with consecutive under eating days. Here’s how it works. When an individual eats more calories than he requires, not every single calorie eaten above excess is stored as fat. Some of the excess calories cause a strong increase in thermogenesis resulting in an elevated metabolic rate. One way to take advantage of this effect is to follow a modified low carb diet for 3 days followed by a single day of a high carb intake. During the low carb phase, eat 1 gram of carbohydrate per pound of bodyweight and 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. Keep your fat intake low – limited to the fat naturally occurring in your protein foods. On the high carb day, eat 2.5 to 3 grams of carbs per pound of body weight, keeping the protein fixed at a gram per pound of body weight and low fat. The effect: The single high carb day pumps up thermogenesis. When you return to the modified low carb days, there’s a carryover effect where the metabolic rate remains elevated for 24 to 36 hours. For cutting, it’s a guaranteed step for shedding fat.
6) Niacin
To understand this one, you need to imagine a winter day. Standing out in the cold with a huge thermal lined jacket, your body stays warm. In essence, its temperature stays stable at 98.6F. Take the jacket off and the temperature drops. The body over-compensates by shivering: trying to get moving, shaking anything to increase the body temperature. That’s classic thermogenesis.
Now let’s shift to niacin, a simple B family vitamin. Niacin dilates or opens blood vessels, and to a lesser extent, the skin allowing heat to dissipate or more readily escape the body. The result: the body increases its temperature to make up for the lost heat. Give 15 mgs twice a day a shot. Careful, you’ll feel a ‘flushing effect, that while sometimes uncomfortable, is totally natural. An added benefit is that niacin can increase HDL levels, the "good cholesterol" and helps the body metabolize carbohydrate for energy.
7) The Right Fat
Some fats you need. One kind is called omega-3 fatty acids. Common to fish and flax seeds, this fat helps burn fat when combined with a low calorie diet. One study showed individuals following a low calorie diet and eating fish on a daily basis lost more fat and weight than those who ate the same amount of calories but did not eat fish.
Another kind of fat is called omega-6 fats. These fats help support brown fat burning. Babies are loaded with brown fat. That’s one reason they can eat pound for pound more calories than at any other time in their lives and become leaner. Brown fat burns calories. Adults also have brown fat but in far smaller amounts. Most is located around the spinal column while the rest coats the organs. Omega-6 fats support brown fat’s ability to burn calories.
The final of the important fats is CLA, short for conjugated linoleic acid. This fat seems to turn up the production of a fat burning enzyme called hormone sensitive lipase (HSL). HSL opens up fat cells allowing them to dump fat. While this isn’t a thermogenic effect, there’s no increase in the metabolism overall, it adds to fat loss when combined with thermogenic factors numbered 1-6 above.
