Fat burning foods – what are they really? Actually, the whole notion is silly. Foods do not burn fat. Metabolic redirection makes more sense.

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Fat Burning Foods – No Such Thing

The common phrase that I hear is that your body is like a furnace. If that is the case, then how do you get a furnace to selectively burn just one of the fuels that are stored in it? It would be like storing oil, wood, and coal in a furnace, then adding some kind of magical ‘food’ that makes it burn just one of them. Silly, isn’t it?

It might make more sense if the ‘furnace’ had a liver, some muscles and bones, a pancreas, digestive and circulatory systems, a few hundred hormones, a brain, etc., etc. Oh, and maybe a few trillion tiny compartments (cells). And whatever else that could be built and controlled by about 30,000 genes.

My point is that we are WAY more complicated than the simplistic comparison with a furnace. The way we metabolize foods is biological, not fire-ological. (Okay, I made up that word … you can use it if you wish.)

The Key: Metabolic Redirection

This is also a phrase that I made up, although it underlies everything that happens to our bodies every day. Metabolic redirection depends on what, when, and how much we eat, on dozens of lifestyle factors, and on age. Regarding weight loss, or more accurately, fat loss, the goal is to redirect metabolism to break down stored fat, to store less fat, and to build lean body mass (muscle).

Foods can help you do that. Indeed, your ‘eating style’ (i.e., what, when, how much) may be responsible for as much as 80 percent of anything that you do for managing your metabolism. In fact, what you eat and when you eat are vastly more important than how much you eat (see How Many Calories Should I Eat Is Misguided).

The extent to which foods can help you redirect your metabolism depends on a long list of factors, the main one of which is…

Hormone Balance

This is an extensive topic, which I address in more detail in my Belly Fat Book (no charge). This includes more than 150 steroid hormones, the two most famous being estrogen and testosterone, as well as a whole slew of neurohormones and protein hormones (e.g., insulin, leptin, growth hormone).

If all you did was to pay attention to how to maintain hormone balance – specifically, to correct hormone imbalance – by eating right, then you would be on the right track. I’m going to assume that you have or will be reading about that in my book.

For now I’m just going to give you one pointer about achieving hormone balance. It is this:

Men and women: You are more than likely estrogen dominant.

Two ways to address this issue are: 1) reduce excess stored fat, since fat cells are little estrogen factories; and, 2) reduce the xenoestrogens that you are exposed to every day.

Xenoestrogens are foreign substances that act as estrogens in your body. They are not steroids. They can be as simple as bisphenol-A (BPA), phthalates, or plasticizing agents that leak into plastic containers (water bottles, foods and beverages in cans that are lined with plastic [almost all are!]), and many other common sources. Here is a short list of other sources:

• Petrochemically-derived pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides
• Car exhaust
• Solvents and adhesives such as those found in nail polish and polish remover, paint and paint remover, and glues
• Emulsifiers and waxes in soaps and cosmetics
• Chemicals used for dry cleaning
• Fabric softeners, air fresheners, and petrochemically-based perfumes
• Noxious odors coming from glues, fiberboard, new carpeting, and new paint
• Nearly all plastics
• Industrial waste such as PCBs and dioxins (VERY dangerous toxins!)
• Meat from livestock fed estrogenic drugs to fatten them up
• Synthetic estrogens and progestins that have been flushed down the toilet and have reached our drinking water and food chain (these are even being found in wild-caught fish!)

It may seem like a tall order to avoid all of these sources. Just do whatever you can.

Regarding the misguided concept of fat burning foods, the idea is really to make your foods work better for the metabolic redirection that you seek. Reducing your xenoestrogen exposure will go a long ways toward managing your estrogen dominance and redirecting your metabolism. Eating right will have a much more beneficial impact on your body fat composition when you do so.

Clarifying fat burning foods,

Dr. D

The leptin hormone is a protein whose role is to signal the brain about how much fat you have, unless you have leptin resistance. Then all bets are off and you are doomed to get fat no matter how little you eat or how much you exercise. Here is what you should know about leptin.
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What is the Leptin Hormone?

The brain’s response to leptin 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, leptin supplements, 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.

By the way, taking leptin as a supplement or an injectable drug is not an option. Drug companies are working on this approach right now. However, boosting leptin levels artificially is ineffective because of the problem of leptin resistance.

Leptin Information in Belly Fat Book

You will find more pointers on leptin and what to do about making it work better for you in my Belly Fat Book, which you find out more about and request as a free download at that link.

All the best with leptin hormone and leptin resistance,

Dr. D

Hi, Dr. Dennis Clark here, talking about belly fat science, based on the research I’ve done in the medical literature on how you get fat, or more importantly how to get rid of it. One thing that I get asked about over and over is people are really curious about HGH, human growth hormone. I want to reiterate that you do not buy HGH over the counter. It’s a prescription drug. However, there are certain key things that you can do to get your own body to make more or to release more into the system. One way is to supplement with products that are called HGH secretagogues. All that means is that the HGH that’s stored in your pituitary gland is forced to be released into your body in the presence of these secretagogues. There are all kinds of formulas. Sometimes they’re expensive. Sometimes they’re not. Sometimes they’re worthwhile, and sometimes they’re not. I’m going to tell you the most important ingredient to look for, and sometimes you can even use it all by itself to get the effect. And that is the simply the amino acid, L-arginine. L-arginine is available in powder form so you take anywhere between two to five grams of arginine per day, preferably on two occasions: one before you go to bed at night so you can enhance your nighttime HGH spike and another, if you’re a weightlifter or do some kind of heavy exercise, then take arginine or a secretagogue containing a lot of arginine one hour before you go work out, preferably on an empty stomach. And you’ll get a maximum boost of your HGH like you wouldn’t believe. Those are the two key things that I use for boosting my own HGH level. They’re simple as possible. Sleep is one. Everyone can get sleep. You’ve just got to make sure you get good sleep. Taking arginine before that or taking arginine before a good hard workout is going to help you accomplish that. Yes, arginine is the simplest and probably the most cost-effective supplement that you can use for boosting your own growth hormone naturally. Other amino acids and supplements serve to boost the effects of arginine as well. Take a look at the details in my free belly fat book, which you can download now at BellyFatScience.com.

All the best with getting rid of fat,

Dr. D

Hi, Dr. Dennis Clark here with my next part on my segment about belly fat and how to get rid of it. I want to give you a pointer here that is one of the most crucial things you can do for getting your growth hormone to work the way it’s supposed to. Unfortunately, as you age, starting at about age 25, the amount of human growth hormone that you produce and release into your body starts to drop slowly until, when you’re in your forties and fifties and then in your sixties, it’s at a really super low level. And that’s the hormone that you want to enhance as much as possible to get your youthful skin back, your youthful shape back, and everything to work right, the way it did when you were younger. The simplest thing that you can possibly do to balance out and boost your HGH levels naturally is just to get good sleep. If you don’t go to sleep at the same time every night, and if you don’t sleep solidly all the way through the night, then you’re going to miss the opportunity for an HGH spike that comes starting at about two hours after you get to sleep. All you have to do is get a good night’s sleep on a regular basis and you’ll get a boosted HGH on a diurnal level on a daily basis just by getting good sleep. That’s the simplest possible thing you can do. No exercise, no supplements. You can make it better with exercise and supplements. However, start with getting good sleep. That’s the best thing you can do. Yes, sleep is a remarkable equalizer for all kinds of things related to good health, and maximizing your growth hormone release by just getting good sleep is one of them. You can find out more about what you can do to boost your HGH levels naturally in detail in my free belly fat book, which you can download now at BellyFatScience.com.

All the best with getting rid of fat,

Dr. D

Hi, this is Dr. Dennis Clark again, research scientist, talking to you in my next phase, my next segment, on belly fat science based on the research I’ve done in the medical literature about how to get rid of belly fat. Today I want to talk about the importance of making your hormone, leptin, work for you. As I mentioned in one of my other videos, leptin is called the master fat hormone. When leptin is working for you the right way, there is no way you can gain excess fat or maintain that fat belly. Here’s the most important key for getting your leptin metabolism working for you to metabolize fat the best possible way. What you want to do is get leptin to mobilize fat, or create a signal for mobilizing fat, in between meals for the longest stretch of spacing between meals that you have on a regular basis, and that is between dinner one evening and breakfast the next day. The way hormones work after a meal and the way they cycle, you’ll actually get to a point nine to ten hours after you eat, until you get all the food gone and all the metabolism in the right place between meals except for one thing. At that point, nine to ten hours after you eat is when fat metabolism goes into high gear. If you’re in the habit of eating a late night snack or eating after dinner, or not waiting at least twelve hours between dinner and breakfast the next day, then you are not getting the benefits of enhancing the leptin hormone that’s supposed to work for you in metabolizing fat the way it should. Yes, it’s pretty simple to maximize the effects of your leptin by just changing your eating pattern, taking advantage of the natural balance and cycling of your master fat hormone. You can find out more about how to do this, and what you do to counteract that in your lifestyle by reading my belly fat book, which you can get for free and download at BellyFatScience.com.

All the best with getting rid of fat,

Dr. D

Hi, this is Dr. Dennis Clark coming to you in my series on belly fat research based on the research that I’ve done in the medical literature to find out how you can get rid of belly fat. This aspect of my report here, I want to tell you about the kind of food that makes you fat faster than any other kind of food that you can put in your mouth. It’s a certain kind of carbohydrate that’s know as fructose or fruit sugar. It’s all over the place. It’s in almost every food. It’s called high fructose corn syrup. I will call that, as far as health and fat goes, I will call that an evil food. There is research to show what happens to the metabolism of fructose as soon as it goes into your body. It is evil. You do not want to have fructose in your diet as an additive in foods like high fructose corn syrup. It’s okay as a fruit sugar because it comes in fruit. There are other kinds of cautions that I’ll give you about eating fruit or eating foods that have the wrong kinds of carbohydrates or the right kinds of carbohydrates for you to get rid of fat. I talk about these things in more detail and you can find out about them in my book, “5 Steps to a Slimmer and Healthier You.” Well, if I seem a little passionate about fructose, there’s good reason for it based on science. It’s really important to know what foods are doing you damage and what foods you really should have. Find out more details about what to eat and what not to eat in my free belly fat book, which you can download now at BellyFatScience.com.

All the best with getting rid of fat,

Dr. D

Hi, this is Dr. Dennis Clark again and I want to talk some more about my research on belly fat science that I’ve found in the medical research literature on how to get rid of belly fat. One of the most important hormones that I want to talk about is called human growth hormone, or HGH. And I want to give you a tip about HGH to be wary of as a big caution. Even though it’s a crucial hormone to get in balance and to produce more of to make all of your metabolism and every aspect of your life better, I’m going to tell you this. There are companies that sell supplements that are called HGH. I guarantee you they contain no HGH whatsoever. There is no supplement store, no nutrition store, no health store that sell over the counter HGH. This is a prescription substance that has to be handled by a medical doctor, and it has to be prescribed for specific reasons. Not all doctors are able to do that or are willing to do that. HGH, however, can be boosted in lots of different ways. I talk about how to do that naturally, without actually getting your doctor to write you an expensive prescription for HGH. There are natural ways to do it. You can supplement, you can increase your diet, you can do certain exercises. You can even sleep better and boost your HGH. These are the kinds of details I provide in my book, “5 Steps to a Slimmer and Healthier You.” As you can see, growth hormone is a key component of any kind of metabolic balance that you want to achieve for weight loss and general health. To see more details about how to do that, then take a look at my free belly fat book, which you can download now at BellyFatScience.com.

All the best with getting rid of fat,

Dr. D

Hi, Dr. Dennis Clark here. I want to talk to you a little bit more about the hormone balance that is important for getting rid of belly fat. There is a hormone that is called the master fat hormone. The name of this hormone is leptin. Leptin is produced in your fat cells and is transported to the hypothalamus of your brain, where it supposed to carry a signal as to how much fat you have. Unfortunately, if you get so fat from eating so much that the signal is overdone, your hypothalamus turns off. It’s like it doesn’t hear the signal whatsoever. You become resistant to leptin. When you become resistant to leptin, your internal signaling system for storing fat is so out of whack that you will put on fat even though you already have too much. It’s really crucial to do what you have to do to balance the hormone leptin so the master fat hormone can do its work so you can metabolize your fat and be slim and trip like you are supposed to. I talk about this in more detail. There are lots of things that you can do in your lifestyle and in your diet to make your leptin not work for you. Therefore, you have to undo those things or do other things to get the leptin to work for you the way it is supposed to. This brief video just gives you an idea of the importance of leptin as the master fat hormone. Get an idea of what you can do about it, what you do to get it to work right, or what you do that makes you fat if it’s not working right, then take a look at the details in my free belly fat book, which you can download now at BellyFatScience.com.

All the best with getting rid of fat,

Dr. D

Hi, this is Dr. Dennis Clark again, with my next segment on belly fat science based on the medical literature, the research that I’ve done on how to lose belly fat. I’m about ready to go out and play golf on a beautiful sunny morning in Arizona, so I thought I’d give you my thoughts on this topic before I go. It has to do with your steroid hormone balance. You have probably more than 150 steroid hormones that your body makes naturally. The two most famous ones are testosterone and estrogen. Particularly, those two are effective in governing how your body composition is. You’ll lose testosterone as you get older. You can do some things supplementally to take care of that and boost that. However, the most important thing that happens to people on a routine basis, and I mean men as well as women, is that we all become estrogen dominant. When we get a little fatter, the fat cells make estrogen, and the effect of having more estrogen makes more fat. It’s a vicious circle, so the more fat you have the more estrogen you have, the more estrogen you have the more fat you have. What that means is that it is crucial to get your estrogen balance under control, and there are ways to do that with creams or supplements that are important. And I talk about that in my book, “5 Steps to a Slimmer and Healthier You.” I want to give you one pointer today, though, that may be the easiest thing to do. We don’t know how exactly important it could be for every single person. However, there are foreign estrogens in the environment that I want to tell you about, at least I want to tell you about one of, and just tell you to avoid it. It is called BPA. It’s part of plasticizing agents that go into making plastic bottles that you get bottled water in. There are all kinds of plasticizers that go into plastic containers that you can be exposed to in your diet. There are plastic liners in canned goods. There are plastic containers of all kinds. I just wanted to give you a little tip about that. If you want to affect your estrogen balance in a good way, get rid of those things in your lifestyle. In fact, if you drink bottled water, the best thing I do is dump the bottle water out and refill it with fresh water from my home. The substance that you have to avoid, BPA, is going to cause your estrogen balance to go in the wrong direction. That’s just a little tip for the day. As you can see steroid hormones are a key for metabolic balance. To get an idea of what you can do for getting your steroid hormones in balance for lifestyle and even supplements, go ahead and look at the details in my free belly fat book. You can download it now at BellyFatScience.com.

All the best with getting rid of fat,

Dr. D

Hi, Dr. Dennis Clark here again, in my series on getting rid of fat. I want to talk today about hormone balance and its importance in balancing your metabolism so that you don’t get fat, or if you do so you can get rid of that fat as quickly as possible. I want to reiterate that when I say hormones, I include two or three hundred different kinds of molecules in your body that we call hormones. Testosterone and estrogen are two of the most important ones that you think of that you probably already know about relative to your metabolism. Those are important to keep in balance as well, along with about 150 other steroid hormones that are similar chemically to testosterone and estrogen. In addition to that, there are things that I call neurotransmitter hormones, the things that make your brain work a little bit better. How your brain works relative to the balance of those neurotransmitters is crucial for keeping a balance of your metabolism as well. And finally, protein hormones, which include insulin and leptin and human growth hormone…I’ll have a lot to say about these in my book, and all hormones. The book is called, “5 Steps to a Slimmer and Healthier You.” As you can see hormone balance is a key for getting your metabolic balance in the right place for fat loss. See what else you need to know about hormone balance in my free belly fat book, which you can download now at BellyFatScience.com.

All the best with getting rid of fat,

Dr. D