Fat Burners PART 1 : The Truth... So There!

Fat Burners: PART 1 of 2   The Truth... So There!

As a trainer I have seen fitness trends come and go. The same applies to supplements that assist in  fat loss... It used to be chromium, then it was Ephedra, and then some things got banned... In any case, people are still looking for something to help with weight loss, and after twenty years of being in the gym, and spending a lot of time in a classroom, I as a trainer have come to one conclusion.

There is no such chemical as a fat burner.

                         The only chemicals that" burn fat" actually do three things not related to fat burning

                The Three Things they do are not every effective 

Oh, there is a fourth caveat

You have to gain an understanding of basic science

 if you want the science of fat removal to work for you.

 I am going to keep this simple, so that you figure out what works , and save some money. You will not save time,so go sit up straight and learn the following:

Every reaction or process in the body , Including Fat Loss, is controlled Indirectly by a feedback loop. In simple nonscientific English  

1. if you want something to change you stimulate it 
2. but the stimulation actually triggers something else 
3. which in the end controls the original process. Therefore
4. Nothing is direct.*

You just learned a new concept that controls most of the processes in the human body.Nothing is Direct.  Welcome to your negative feedback loops. These loops are a series of steps.

Got it?  steps 1-4 are there to protect the human body from doing something stupid like dying from thesupplement that raises your blood pressure by increasing your oxygen concentration capacity, therefore effectively thickening your blood (Ephedra)

Because we never know where that weak blood vessel that could burst is located , the American Government banned a supplement that acts too much like your own epinephrine. Ephedra  goodbye!  

If you are paying attention, notice that something that acts like your own epinephrine  facilitated weight loss. What about your own epinephrine? Every body has this chemical. How does it work?

Epinephrine works in a Negative feedback Loop, and then if the loop is repeated often enough, weight loss usually results. As long as other things are not inserted into the loop it should work forever right?

 Not quite. In fact the loop gets attenuated . At some point the same chemical no longer gets the desired response.  The loop has adjusted. More about that later. Instead stare at this picture of a negative feedback loop. Knowledge is power.  

Using this simple example of temperature regulation, there more the loop is run, the more the person gets used to heat. Well, the more you use a fat burner that effectively stimulates your body to sweat, use calories etc, supposedly the easier it should be to lose weight. 

But it is not easy to lose weight Why?? The weight loss negative feedback  loop is not simple . 

Like all protective survival loops it connects with other system loops. Think like a body engineer :

that weight loss  epinephrine (fight or flight)  loop a runs parallel 

to weight loss loop B (caffeine stimulation) 

which runs parallel to weight loss loop C  ( the B vitamins and lock and key reactions in metabolism) 

which intersects weight loss loop D (feeling full and telling your brain?)

You expect to drop one thing in here and get all these loops to work together??? HA!

The most you can hope for, after studying this basic physiological principle of causing things to WORK is to know that effects happen because a loop can do the work until its worn out !

Chemically, a feedback loops twists, turns and  doorknobs  (also known as the active sites) are actually quite beautiful . A real system of loops is an  important factory that is trying to produce a sleeker you., a cooler you, a safer you, a heart beating you all at the same time. Whew!!!  

Cool Loop Pix

Putting a demand on one loop can throw some of the other loops out of whack.  Then when the change (supplement ) is all absorbed  the level is such that   the loop does not work too well either and that is not a good thing.!!  You should be able to get your body to switch to another of those paralleled loops, without tweaking it  chemically . The only way to do that is the old fashioned way--work out.!!

Here is an effective use of the feedback loops built into the Human Body :

 Let the brain learn a pattern  then the brain controls  all the loops that look like they make weight loss happen.  The old school gym guys understood this :  you look sweaty, you feel sore, you got a pump due to water entering muscle (repair work) so you got several systems to work and if the systems got rest, the body got built.   

Of course not everybody wants to get built, but we are not talking about size here. We want fat loss. 

The Fat Loss rules based on the physiology of the Human Body 

1. Fat loss is actually stimulated when several negative feedback loops get to take turns playing like instruments in an orchestra. 
2. Fat loss tends to be cumulative if the brain gets used to working out and likes the patterns of working out (which is why sports are  a great way of staying in a fat loss mode ) 
3. Fat loss can be kick started by stimulating a loop but the real effect of stimulating a loop  often is too hard to control/maintain. (re- read that sentence under the cool loop pix)
4. Until there are some very effective loop regulators designed and tested by other Humans (not rats)  the only effect a loop stimulator has is to make you feel less tired so you tend to work out harder. Once that wears off--- its pain. and if you do the right thing- fat loss.  

Control is what you are after in Fat loss. 

The only thing you can control is the intensity of the exercise to produce just the right amount of soreness to force all those loops to repair the soreness. That repair work actually burns the fat calories, but only if you rest. 

The rule is to never work out on a sore body part. This does not negate No Pain No gain- in fact it supports it. The pain goes away, Therefore the gain is resulting in  a more sensitive repair loop. The fat calories are burned making the repairs, so eating better is key, and sleeping well is essential.

The repair loop is the most complex loop system of them  of all. However if you regularly workout effectively enough to use this repair loop, fat disappears. You want this explained ? It would take too long. Seriously, if you want those kind of answers get your science on and start by studying processes in the Physiology Coloring Workbook
http://www.betterworldbooks.com/physiology-coloring-workbook-id-0679778500.aspx

Then hit the gym on a schedule that maximizes

what you have learned about how your body responds to exercise. You may need a trainer to plan and design that for you.

Just know this - the science ain't there yet to make an effective fat burner-

If you do not believe me  AND  think there is a                                    plug and play supplement read this:

http://www.simplyshredded.com/fat-burners-hype-and-lies.html 

*Nothing is direct. Pregnancy is the exception. Pregnancy is directly triggered and  the processes that foster it stimulate growth , therefore pregnancy is the rare Positive feedback loop system in the human body.  We also eknow that pregnancy adds fat and weight to the system because it is supposed to.