5 Simple Steps to Burn Fat without Eating Less

Hi, this is Dr. Mark Hyman. Welcome back to my blog. Wouldn't it be great if you could boost your metabolism without even changing how much you eat? Well, you can. You can actually rev up your metabolic engine, feel more satisfied when you eat, burn more calories and lose more body fat all without changing how much you eat. You see, recent studies show that three key things are in effect here, all of which I discuss in my book, Ultra Metabolism, and all these things can help you burn more fat without changing how much you eat. The first is meal timing and meal frequency. In other words, when you should eat and how often. The second is the role of protein. in controlling the appetite centers in the brain, increasing caloric fat burning and also reducing belly fat and weight. And the third is the role of green tea in turning up your fat burning thermostat. So what do all these three things have in common? Well, they all stem from one central idea, an increase in thermogenesis. That's the creation of heat in the body, literally the turning up of your metabolic fire. Thermogenesis has absolutely nothing to do with calories. You see, instead it's controlled by a number of different interconnected control systems in the body designed to keep us healthy. So let's take a look at the first thing that increases thermogenesis, namely that heat and fire in your body. When and how often you eat, that's meal timing and meal frequency. Whether you eat all your day's food at once or in several meals throughout the day shouldn't affect your Wait, it's all about calories in, calories out, right? Well, no. In fact, a recent study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition looked at the effects of regular meal frequency on fat burning and on insulin sensitivity and cholesterol in healthy obese women. The researchers compared those who ate small, regular, frequent meals, about six a day, to those people who ate less regular meals a day. So what did they find? Well, the results could surprise you. Those people who ate more regular meal patterns showed startling differences. They had actually increased thermogenesis, a faster, hotter metabolism, from what is called the thermic effect of food or TEF factor. This TEF factor makes you feel full. Somehow it triggers the brain to feel satisfied and reduces your appetite. So when you eat regularly throughout the day, you get a slow, steady burn effect from the food. When you eat erratically by skipping meals or snacking frequently or eating away from home or eating late, Like so many of us do, your body gets mixed up signals. This irregular eating pattern leads to a lower energy expenditure or calorie burning than regular meal eating throughout the day. In fact, during the periods that you don't eat, your body's metabolism slows down to conserve energy. It's not just your weight that can suffer. In the same study, the authors found that those who had an irregular pattern of eating had higher levels of cholesterol. and higher levels of insulin, which is the major fat storage hormone. You see, the more insulin that your body makes after meals, the fatter you'll be. Timing also makes a difference too. Studies show that eating breakfast and not eating late can both lead to reductions in body weight independent of calories. So what's so amazing about all this? Well, it has nothing to do even with the content or type of food you eat, simply changing when and how often you eat can have dramatic effects on your metabolism and your weight. Now let's look at the effect of changing meal composition. So that is what happens if you change the ratio of fat and protein and carbohydrate, but not calories. First, recent studies have clearly shown that low fat diets don't work. End of story. What about low carb diets? Well, they do work if you give up carbs, the most important source of health giving compounds in our diet, including vitamins, minerals, fiber, antioxidants, phytonutrients, and more. So this weight loss success comes at a price, your poor health. So low carb diets also give you constipation, bad breath, hemorrhoids, headaches, and even muscle weakness and pain. So what about diets with more protein? Well before I go on, let me clarify that protein can be nuts, seeds, beans, whole grains, omega-3 eggs, wild fish, lean poultry, and other meats. but by no means is a steak and cheese diet. Protein, it also seems, is more thermogenic. See, protein burns hotter than other food sources. So at the end of the day, you've burned off more calories than you store when you eat protein. Don't just take my word for it. Science backs this up. In one study, for example, the participants who got 36% of their daily calories from protein burned 71 more calories a day than those who ate low protein diets. That's about 15% of their calories as protein. Now this may not seem like much, but over a year it's equivalent to an extra 7.4 pounds of weight loss. Here's how it works. Amino acids, which are the building blocks that form proteins, send messages to the areas of the brain that signal you're full. This is called the mTOR signaling pathway. The protein has even more benefits. Eating more good quality protein can help you not only lose weight, but lose it in the right places, your hips and your belly. See, a higher protein diet can help you lower your waist circumference. Your waist to hip ratio, one of the most important measurements in your body, which actually predicts heart disease, cancer, and death better than almost anything. And it also reduces the intra-abdominal adipose tissue, otherwise known as belly fat. But there are a few warnings. People with kidney failure have to be cautious about increasing protein intake. And those with concerns about osteoporosis should focus on plant sources of protein like nuts, seeds, beans, and whole grains, because they have less of an acid content than animal protein, which causes bone loss. Lastly, let's look at the effects of something that has nothing to do with meal timing or meal composition or calories. It's part of a fantastic new class of compounds called polyphenols, powerful plant chemicals or phytonutrients that humans interact with to keep our biology healthy. The same issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition previously mentioned reported about the effects of green tea on metabolism. You see, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world. And I'm not talking about Lipton's tea here, which is the bottom of the barrel in terms of quality. I'm talking about real brewed green tea and the polyphenols it contains, which are called catechins. See, this group of chemicals is so wide in its effects that I'll write more about it later. But for now, let's just look at its metabolic effects. The effects of catechins on metabolism in this double-blind controlled study were twofold. First, the effect of catechins was to increase thermogenesis or calorie burning. People who drank about 690 milligrams of catechins in the form of green tea for 12 weeks every day had lower body weight, lower body mass index, waist circumference, total body fat and subcutaneous body fat. That's without changing their calorie intake. The second effect was green tea's antioxidant properties. And I'm going to describe these more later on. But I want to tell you that the green tea and the catechins not only increased calorie burning but they prevented the damaging effects of free radicals on metabolism. They also showed many other things, but to sum up, this research shows that green tea can affect weight loss in two key ways: by increasing thermogenesis and reducing the damage of oxidative stress on metabolism. So do what you can to incorporate these research findings into your life and lose weight by increasing your metabolism without changing the calorie content of your diet.