Get Old Fast From Body Fat

The granddaddy of all hormones for regulating aging is human growth hormone (HGH). Loss of HGH over time also leads to a decreased ability to burn off food calories as you get older. The result is fat gain.

The Catch-22 of this scenario is that it also works in the other direction. Fat gain suppresses HGH levels, which accelerates aging. It almost seems like you are trapped on a closed loop. Less HGH leads to more fat. More fat leads to less HGH. And the consequence is that you age faster and faster as you gain fat and lose HGH.

The relationship between HGH and overweight was first described in a research article in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism in 1991. The scientists behind this study pointed out that, on average, for men aged 21 to 71 with a normal body mass index, the production rate of HGH decreased by 14 percent with each decade of life. In comparison, each unit of Body Mass Index (BMI) reduced the daily HGH secretion rate by 6 percent.

This means that the drop in HGH secretion rate with an increase in BMI from 21 to 28 corresponds to the average drop going from age 21 to age 45. In other words, all adult men whose BMI classifies them as obese (i.e., 27 units and above) have HGH levels that correspond to men who are at least 20 years older. This leads to high-speed aging and the increasing prevalence of age-related diseases in younger people.

Women are not off the hook just because this study included only men in the experimental group. Indeed, fluctuation levels of estrogen and other steroid hormones in women during monthly cycles and menopause may amplify the consequences of HGH loss. One such consequence is faster fat gain.

The Four Best Solutions

Belly fat loss would, of course, be the most important strategy for enhancing HGH levels and thereby additional fat loss. Even though this sounds logical, the failure rate for long-term fat loss is too high to just willy-nilly direct you to do so, wish you luck, and send you on your way.

Fortunately, the close connection between belly fat and HGH levels opens up the possibility of restoring hormone levels first, which then would lead to fat loss. This can, indeed, be accomplished as follows:

Solution 1. The most direct way to increase HGH levels is to receive HGH replacement therapy. This solution, however, requires medical treatment with a prescription drug. It is also very expensive and generally not covered by health insurance. If you can take advantage of this solution, however, you do not have to do anything else for fat loss.

Solution 2. This and the following two solutions entail the natural enhancement of HGH levels that your body already produces over a 24 hour period. One of the normal spikes in HGH levels comes at about two hours after you get to sleep at night. You can enhance this spike by taking certain amino acid supplements before bedtime. These act as what are called HGH secretagogues, which refers to their ability to induce your pituitary gland to release more HGH. The two most important supplementsl amino acids are L-arginine (2-3 grams) and L-lysine (1 gram).

Other amino acids that enhance nighttime HGH levels include L-glutamine and L-tryptophan. (The latter may also be replaced with 5-hydroxytryptophan, or 5HTP.) Most supplement companies offer products that are formulated specifically as HGH secretagogues, so the right amino acids are easy to find at most nutrition stores.

Solution 3. A high-intensity weight-lifting workout will cause a spike in HGH levels. You can boost this effect with HGH secretagogues, especially L-arginine and L-lysine. In addition, L-glycine will enhance the results of your HGH-boosting workout. Most supplement formulas do not include this particular amino acid, even though good research backs up its use for enhancing exercise.

You can get the best results for boosting HGH through a high intensity workout by taking amino acid secretagogues on an empty stomach, about 1-1.5 hours before your workout.

Solution 4. The most ignored and overlooked strategy for enhancing HGH secretion is related to when you eat. Normally your HGH levels will start to pick up at about 2 hours after meal, increasing to a peak amount at about 4 to 5 hours after eating. At first HGH works with insulin to help metabolize food into muscle building. Once the insulin is almost gone, HGH works solely to mobilize fat for burning as fuel.

The effect of HGH on fat loss is at its greatest more than 4 hours after a meal. Stimulating this HGH spike means that you have to space your meals at least 5 hours apart.

Now here is the absolute best way to boost your post-meal HGH surge: fasting. The mini-fast after 4 hours is helpful. However, fasting from dinner to breakfast the next morning, spacing them at least 12 hours apart (no between-meal snacking!), is much more effective for burning fat because of the overnight fasting.

Recently scientists have been studying the effects of more extensive fasting that is done once or twice per week. They call it intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting has become so important for weight loss, anti-aging, and many aspects of health that any internet search for this phrase will yield tens of thousands of pages.

Accelerating Belly Fat Loss

The best scientific results and the most supportive testimonials on intermittent fasting involve a 24 to 34 hour fasting period once or twice per week. One of the truly appealing aspects of this approach is that it removes a lot of worry about what to eat on non-fasting days, because the beneficial effects of a single fasting period are so powerful. This does not mean that intermittent fasting gives you free license to eat junk food. However, it does mean that you can lose fat, reverse and slow down the onslaught of aging, and enjoy great health and fitness just by using this simple strategy to boost recovery of your own HGH to youthful levels.

Although the concept of intermittent fasting seems simple, you have to really know what you are doing to get optimum benefits from it. Fortunately for you (and me), I have found a resource that provides all you need to know. You can see more details about this resource on a special page that I have for this purpose, here:

Of course, is not really a secret. I just wanted to get your attention. Most weight loss folks, however, don’t seem to know anything about it.

All the best for your belly fat loss,

Dr. D

It occurred to me that the post that I put up on my HCG site would be great information for BellyFatScience, too. So without further ado, take a look at what has being going on the world of science about fat loss hormones.

Here is my link:

Leptin and Fat Loss During the HCG Diet

Pretty remarkable stuff, I’d say!

All the best in effective fat loss,
Dr. D

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Steroid hormones must be balanced for healthy metabolism. Fat loss depends on testosterone levels both in men and women. This article, cited below, explains the importance of testosterone for fat loss.

Testosterone For Fat Loss | The Organic Family

Testosterone is commonly associated with male sexual health and body building, but studies indicate that it plays an important part in the metabolism of fat.

If you have hormone imbalance, you can get back in balance with diet and supplements. The key is to know your starting point. If you are overweight, it is almost a certainty that you are low in testosterone. If you sleep poorly or not enough, the certainty increases. Fat loss happens naturally when you sleep well, eat well, and keep your testosterone levels up.

Great pointer, eh?

All the best in natural health,
Dr. D

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This topic is becoming a not-so-well-kept secret: Excess fat around your belly is a hormone factory that includes estrogen. Yes, this means that the more fat you are carry around, the more estrogen dominant you will become.

Estrogen Dominance in Men – Yup, in Men!

Forget all the fancy commercials about drugs for erectile dysfunction, all the poppycock about penis enlargement, and any other simple-minded approach to making ‘manly’ things work right. The underlying issue is estrogen dominance. And if you are too fat, then you are making yourself worse.

A Couple of Solutions

Of course, everything that you can do to get rid of belly fat is going to be helpful. That is the man theme of this blog. However, you may still reach a plateau and get stuck before you reach your ideal fat composition. I’m going to give you two crucial and overlooked solutions that men either don’t know about or refuse to act on.

Number 1. The first solution is to address your estrogen dominance with a key hormone supplement. (I know, that sounds weird for men). You can do this directly by a daily intake of 10 mg of progesterone, which is the key hormone for opposing estrogen. Women have known about this for decades. This is a significant part of Hormone Replacement Therapy. However, progesterone is a hormone that we men must have in balance, too. The main difference is that men require about half as much as women, so progesterone supplements have been designed for men.

I have been supplementing with progesterone for a few months now, and I already feel the influence on my sleep, energy level, and even my workout results. Several companies make excellent products. The best ones, based on what I see as sound biochemical reasons, are in creams that are delivered in pump dispensers. You can certainly find one at your local nutrition store. Or you can see the products that I have selected as the best at my store site, Doctors Nutrition Center. (Just look at the list of products under Men’s Hormone Balance.)

Number 2. Human Growth Hormone. Forget about what you read regarding professional athletes and the misuse of HGH. The most important thing to know is that this is the master hormone. Your your testosterone and other steroid hormones will go back into balance when your HGH levels increase to youthful levels.

If you are so fortunate as to have an anti-aging doctor who gives you HGH injections, then have at it. For the rest of us, HGH levels respond to certain amino acid supplements, foods, sleep patterns, and types of exercise workouts. I’ve  addressed some of these in the final installment of my report, “5 Steps to a Slimmer and Healthier You.” If you haven’t got your copy yet, do so by subscribing my Belly Fat Science News.

You can also get some good perspective on natural ways to stimulate HGH at my anti-aging page at HerbScientist.com. It is a great place to get started.

All the best in natural health,

Dr. D

Let’s delve into the world of a chemist (me) for a moment and see what we can find that will help you get rid of some fat. Today the topic is plastics, or more specifically, plasticizers. This topic started for me in 1974, while I was still a graduate student. At the time our lab had been buying solvents in plastic bottles because they were so much cheaper than in glass bottles. However, some of the chemical analyses that I was doing at that time were giving me odd results. After a lot of thought about what the problem might be, I got lucky when I noticed that the plastic solvent bottles smelled like … plastic! In hopes of finding out the nature of the odor, I distilled a gallon of methanol from one of the bottles, then noticed a syrupy sludge that was left over. It smelled strongly of plastic. After a quick chemical analysis, I identified the main substance as a compound called dimethyl phthalate. I then learned that this is one of the plasticizing agents that go into making plastic bottles. At the time I thought nothing of it, except from then on I distilled my solvents to rid them of this contaminant.

Fast forward to the 21st century, and plasticizers are now big news. Phthalates, along with a compound called bisphenol A (BPA), have attracted a lot of attention because they leach into plastic containers and cause toxicity in the foods and drinks that contain them.

We are talking about thousands of products. Water bottles are only the most obvious of the plastic containers. Plastic is also found in plastic food containers, in canned foods and drinks that are lined with plastic, in boxes of processed foods, in plastic dishes, and in plastic baby bottles and sippy cups, to name a few. Plastic seems to be almost everywhere.

Plasticizers, Estrogen Dominance, and Fat

The reason that these kinds of molecules are toxic is that they have an estrogenic effect. This just means that they add to the estrogen load even though they are not natural estrogens. So bear with me while a make this point. Natural estrogens, such as estradiol, are steroids. Natural estrogens are not at all similar to BPA and phthalates.

Somehow the human body accepts plasticizers as if they were estrogens, although not perfectly. If you wonder about the effects of non-natural estrogens (called “xenoestrogens”), you are not alone. They are now being blamed for causing estrogen dominance, even in infants, and all of the consequences that come with it. The FDA is doing its usual dance, since plastics are part of a big industry. in 2008 a scientific panel evaluated several research studies on plasticizers and concluded that they do, indeed, pose a significant health risk. At  first the FDA ignored the recommendations to remove plasticizers from contact with foods and drinks, and even claimed that they, “…needed more studies,” to confirm the danger. The danger was so clear already, though, that the FDA finally relented, at least partially. BPA is supposed to be removed at least from containers for baby foods and drinks. Canada and other countries have already seen the light and banned BPA from food and drink containers, so the U.S. is a little slow on this issue.

As you may know by now, estrogen dominance leads to fat gain, and fat gain accelerates estrogen dominance. This is really a dangerous spiral, and it is made worse by plasticizers in your diet. One of the two absolutely best things that you can do to negate the fat-building effects of xenoestrogenic plasticizers is to avoid them. Never cook with plastic,  never cook or reheat food in plastic containers in the microwave oven, never drink water out of plastic bottles … you get the picture. Although this doesn’t sound easy, it can be done if you have enough incentive to get rid of excess fat.

The second, and probably more important, thing to do is make sure you are getting enough progesterone into your system to counterbalance estrogen dominance. This is not necessarily a simple thing to do, so I will be posting much more on this topic very soon. Even if you have no exposure to xenoestrogens, which is unlikely anywhere in the U.S. today, you are most likely deficient in progesterone anyway.

All the best in natural health,

Dr. D

Leptin is a protein whose role is to signal the brain about how much fat you have. The brain’s response is either to tell your body to use up some of your current fat or add more to it. This astounding discovery in 1994 is at the heart of obesity research. However, even though leptin is the master fat hormone, it is not a lone ranger. Your hormone balance depends on many other kinds of hormones, especially including insulin. This is a fascinating story that will help people understand how they got fat and what to do about it based on real scientific research.

I will be posting lots of material here about leptin and how you can take advantage of what scientists are learning about it. If you are in a hurry to get the full story, you can get the definitive book on the topic. The site that the book authors maintain is http://www.masteringleptin.com/.

Eating plans, exercise strategies, supplementation, and everything you can think of can be optimized for leptin metabolism so you can be slim and healthy like you are supposed to be!

Although mastering leptin is not as simple as boosting or supplementing your natural levels, the steps for getting your leptin back into balance are simple, easy, and rewarding.

If you subscribe to my newsletter, you can find out right away how to get your leptin working for you instead of against you.

Dr. D