The balance between the effects of your body’s fat burning hormones and fat storing hormones is the determining factor in whether or not you lose weight. While the individual fat buring hormones are greater in number than the fat storing hormones, the fat burners are weaker. As a matter of fact, the entire effects of all of the fat burning hormones combined can be completely negated by a high level of insulin, the most powerful of the fat storing hormones.
It is important to understand how the hormones that burn and store fat work and the various factors that influence the balance and effects of these hormones. Understanding these hormones will allow you to discover the mistakes you may be making in your weight loss efforts and to make the necessary changes in your approach to maximize your fat burning.
The primary fat burning hormones are thyroid hormone, adrenailne (epinephrine), glucagon, testosterone, growth hormone, and insulin-like growth factor. A full discussion of how each of these hormones works would be quite lengthy and is beyond the scope of this article, but there are some basic concepts you can apply that will assist you in promoting the effects of the fat burning hormones.
The three main factors involved in the stimulation of the release of the fat burning hormones and to enhance their effects are diet, exercise, and sleep.
The dietary aspects of maximizing your fat burning hormones may not be what you think. With regards to enhancing the effects of these hormones, the main consideration is promoting the health and functioning of the liver. The liver is responsible for the conversion and activation of many hormones, including the ones that promote fat burning. If the liver gets overworked, it cannot do its job as efficiently as possible, and the effects of the fat burning hormones decline as a result. While most people are aware that excess alcohol consumption and medications can be bad for the liver, many are unaware that a diet that is too high in fat and/or animal protein can also put excessive strain on this vital organ.
Perhaps you or someone you know has tried the Atkins diet and did well at first, but then hit a point where the weight loss stopped. This is actually to be expected because the Atkins diet is very hard on the liver over the long-term. While the low-carb aspect of it is good, the excessive fat and animal protein, particularly combined with the lack of healthy nutrients from vegetables and fruits, will make the liver tired and sluggish, and the result is decreased effectiveness of the fat burning hormones.
While there are other aspects of diet to be considered with respect to minimizing the effects of the fat storing hormones and providing lose weight help, the main concept here is to eat a diet that maintains the health of the liver.
In addition to diet, the proper form of exercise is critical to maximizing the work of the fat burning hormones. Controversy exists about what type of exercise is best to promote fat burning. While most current research indicates that low intensity, high duration exercise at your target heart rate is the most effective type of exercise for fat burning, there is an important distinction that needs to be made between the fat burned during an exercise session and the overall fat burning effect of an exercise session.
During the exercise session itself, low intensity, long duration exercise does burn more fat than high intensity, short duration exercise. The overall fat burning effects of high intensity exercise are considerably greater than for low intensity exercise though, even when the low intensity workouts are much longer. This is because high intensity exercise stimulates the production of certain fat buring hormones and increases the body’s metabolic rate. Increased fat burning continues for about a day or so after the workout. In the case of low intensity exercise, the fat burning effects mostly stop when the workout ends. This means that a high intensity exercise session can produce many times the fat burning effects of a low intensity exercise session.
One of the reasons that high intensity exercise stimulates metabolism is that it stimulates the release one of the fat burning hormones called growth hormone. The liver converts growth hormone to something called insulin like growth factor, which stimulates fat burning to keep your blood sugar levels steady when you go for long periods without eating. If you are like most people, you probably consistently go the longest time without eating when you sleep. When you don’t get enough sleep, you don’t produce as much insulin-like growth factor, and you won’t burn as much fat.
So, how much sleep do you need? For most individuals, about 7 hours of sleep per night will be adequate for maximum fat burning hormone effects. By the way, nighttime sleep is much more effective for producing fat burning than daytime sleep. Because of the effects of light on the pituitary gland, nighttime sleep results in better production of growth hormone. People who work the night shift are advised to make their sleeping area as dark as possible for their daytime sleeping.
To sum things up, in order to maximize the effects of your fat burning hormones, the best action steps are to eat a healthy diet that supports the function of the liver, to do high intensity exercise, and to get adequate sleep. Failure to do so will decrease the effectiveness of your fat buring hormones and frustrate your efforts to lose weight.
To get a free copy of Dr. Best’s Ebook that explains how hormones effect weight loss, visit his website and download The Total Solution For The Weight Loss Impaired.