By understanding a little more about how our bodies actually work, we can give ourselves a better chance to lose weight and rid ourselves of those unwanted and unhealthy pounds we may be carrying.
The truth is simple, to lose weight and burn fat; you need to get rid of more calories than you are consuming, nothing new there.
Is weight gain something new or did cavemen get fat?
Of course they did, but only in times when there was plenty of food around - in fact most animals do the same. The fat was stored as fuel that they could then use when times got harder, which in those days, invariably it did. However, we hunt in supermarkets, we have cars to get to places, and in short, we are a lot less active than our ancestors were, so consequently when we eat more calories than we burn by exercise, the extra calories have to go somewhere, so they end up as love handles and bingo wings! Incidentally, we also tend to eat 3 times a day whereas our ancestors didn't; they used their stored fat to get them through.
To understand how this really affects us, we need to know a little about how we store fat.
We store fat in 2 ways, as either White or Brown fat cells.
White Fat: These are the cells where we store fat.
Brown Fat: These cells actually burn fat.
So logic would tell you that if you want to burn fat or lose weight, you need more brown fat cells than white - so how do you go about doing this?
Good News 1
Well, the good news is that your body already contains a recently discovered essential fat burning hormone called IRISIN.
It works in the following way (this this is the exciting bit!)
When you exercise, you muscles release Irisin and it works by turning some of these white fat cells into brown ones.
Good News 2
These new brown cells will continue to burn fat even after you've stopped exercising, so helping you to lose weight.
The research that sits behind this was conducted at Harvard Medical School in 2012, and has shown that this simple process is at work within all of us. The research continues to examine how it could become a future treatment to help us maintain a healthy body weight, and reduce the risk of diabetes.
Good News 3
Now, there is nothing new that exercising on a regular basis is good for the body and the mind and that as we exercise, we can feel changes happening within our bodies.
But what this research suggests is that as you exercise, you can stimulate your own fat burning system, so no need for pills or magic potions.
A programme of regular and moderate exercise will also offer you more protection against many other diseases, including type 2 diabetes, reducing the risk by nearly 60%-more than any medicine yet invented. So, although currently unproven, it is fairly likely that Irisin affects insulin production, as this is the case with mice, so it is likely to be the same with us.
The research into this hormone is continuing, but so far the connections with fat burning are very strong. We produce Irisin as part of our natural metabolic process, but you can potentially increase the amount you produce by making a few changes to your current lifestyles. Your behaviours, your environment, what and how much you consume and your exercise regime are all important factors, but you have an ally within you that can help. You just need to be able to release more of it.
Often, we struggle to find an effective exercise programme to help us to burn fat, or to produce more fat burning Irisin. The 15 minute fat burning furnace is a simple, effective and sustainable way to do this. To view a free video about this and to learn more about this and other great fat burning tips, head over to http://www.shiftmybelly.com/
