Visceral fat is a topic I have been VERY into lately. I feel like it is a true measurement of someone’s health, but also risk factors that really just aren’t talked about in the mainstream yet.
Turns out, by way of catecholamines (adrenaline, epinephrine, etc), fasting may really impact visceral fat directly.
The problem with having excess visceral fat is that it’s more than just unsightly, it may contribute to a fatty liver, the development of insulin resistance and the inability to properly utilize the carbs you consume, as well as a host of other issues…
Which might explain why I was prediabetic when I was super overweight. If I hadn’t begun to utilize fasting, who knows how much worse my health would’ve become… Can’t say for certain…
But I can only guess…
But how does fasting directly target a pot belly?
Well, our visceral fat contains large quantities of beta-3 adrenergic receptors, and when beta-3 adrenergic receptors are “activated” by our adrenaline, this causes our body to begin breaking down and mobilizing our visceral fat to be burned, thereby stimulating fat loss!
And guess what?
When you fast, your adrenaline increases!
You see, not eating for an extended period of time is a stressor for your body. Your body kinda freaks out because it’s not receiving food…
So your adrenaline kicks in and wakes you up as if to say, “all right, let’s go find some food.”
And this makes evolutionary sense because our hunter & gatherer ancestors wouldn’t have survived if long periods without food made them sleepy and lethargic, right?
So because fasting acts as a stressor, it increases our adrenaline levels, which then activates beta-3 adrenergic receptors and stimulates fat loss!
For the record, when you are fasting, you can still consume things like coffee (which actually will spike adrenaline even more), tea, and electrolytes (I usually use LMNT Electrolytes because they are more sodium-centric and because they taste awesome).
If you’re curious to try LMNT Electrolytes, here is a free-sample pack of 8 LMNT Electrolyte Sticks (you just pay shipping):
There is a catch, though…
Our bodies can adapt and become used to stressors. It’s known as the general adaptation response…
If we frequently fast then we become more accustomed to the feeling, and it becomes more familiar and is less of a stress, which results in us producing less adrenaline…
And less adrenaline means less activation of beta-3 adrenergic receptors, resulting in less fat loss! This is not what we want…
In other words, the catch is that fasting needs to be a stressor, meaning it’s done infrequently so that your body doesn’t become used to it!
To give you a real world example, if you try to fast for 16 hours, the first time you do so it may be quite difficult to reach the 16-hour mark without caving and nibbling on some food…
But if you were to fast every single day, eventually, after some time, fasting for 16 hours would become incredibly easy for you as your body adapted to that way of eating and it would become harder to lose weight…
So Tip #1:
Don’t Fast Every Day! Let fasting be the anomaly and the STRESSOR, not the norm!!
Tip #2:
High Intensity Workouts in short bursts can boost adrenaline levels even more. Not too much though. Also, running movements trigger a 30-37% higher catecholamine response over biking (so some sprints, eh)! Good time to sip on those sample pack LMNT Electrolytes, right?
Tip #3:
Coffee and Magnesium. Coffee will help boost epinephrine and cAMP a bit more, but the magnesium may help your brain not feel so jittery as well.
So, now you know that fasting should be implemented infrequently around your regular style of eating in order to spur fat loss, but if you’re looking for more specific instructions, please feel free to check out this video I posted to my YouTube channel explaining how to do this (as well showing some pretty cool studies illustrating how beta-3 adrenergic receptors burn fat)!
