How to lose fat

How to lose fat

Lower your insulin levels: what happens next will astonish you.

The above diagram is taken from a paper by Jeff Volek and co-authors, Low-Carbohydrate Diets Promote a More Favorable Body Composition Than Low-Fat Diets (pdf). It shows that the breakdown of fat, or lipolysis, is exquisitely sensitive to levels of the hormone insulin. “Small reductions in insulin within the physiological range are associated with a large increase in lipolysis.” You can see that as insulin levels drop into the low normal range, lipolysis increases exponentially, and still more so as levels get below normal.

So, what does this all mean exactly? Insulin is an anabolic hormone, that is, it tells the body to store energy and to grow. However, what it mostly does is tell the body to store fat. The main stimulus for insulin production is dietary carbohydrate. (Protein also stimulates insulin, but to a much lesser extent.) So whenever carbs are eaten, insulin rises and fat loss becomes next to impossible. Eat fewer carbs, and fat loss goes right up. “Small to moderate decreases in insulin can increase lipolysis several-fold, the response being virtually immediate.” The converse situation also holds true: increase insulin and fat storage goes up.

There you have it: how to lose fat. Decrease the carbohydrate content of your diet sufficiently to lower insulin levels, and the body starts breaking down its fat stores.

There are a few other wrinkles. for one, if you do a sustained low-carb diet, be sure to eat enough protein and perform regular resistance exercise in order to minimize the loss of lean tissue, mainly muscle mass. In studies where participants have done this, the weight loss has been almost entirely fat with very little muscle loss; in low-fat diets, by contrast, sometimes as much as half the weight lost is lean mass.

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4 comments

the Revision Division says November 10, 2014

[…] Related: How to lose fat. […]

Sam says November 17, 2014

I’m not trying to be negative. Just saw this study and thought of you.

The Ratio of Macronutrients, Not Caloric Intake, Dictates Cardiometabolic Health, Aging, and Longevity in Ad Libitum-Fed Mice

http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/abstract/S1550-4131%2814%2900065-5

They of course say less protein more carbs. I’ve said before and repeat. Diet is way confusing and I have no idea what the truth is.

I personally know someone who went on the Adkins diet and lost weight and somehow has been able to keep it off. He said he believes it reset his weight point. Of course this is a model of one but anyways.

Fed or fasted workouts? - Rogue Health and Fitness says December 20, 2014

[…] not all broscience – since any protein or carbohydrate in food raises insulin levels. Even small increases in the level of insulin all but abolish lipolysis, the process of fat breakdown. When one is fasting, insulin levels are low, and lipolysis proceeds […]

Short-term fasting + exercise for fat loss says August 23, 2015

[…] combined with fasting results in fat loss is that, when fasting, insulin levels are low, and even slightly higher insulin levels abolish lipolysis, the breakdown of fat molecules. Small reductions of insulin, even within the normal physiological […]

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