Nutrition

By: Travis Stork, M.D.

By Joel Marion, CISSN, NSCA-CPT

LEPTI-WHA??

It’s name is Leptin (derived from the Greek word leptos, meaning “thin”), and it’s without a doubt the most important hormone you probably never heard of.

You see, leptin was only first discovered just over 10 years ago, and as far as weight loss is concerned, that’s extremely recent.

Leptin’s function? To communicate your nutritional status to your body and brain.

Leptin levels are mediated by two things. One is your level of body fat. All else being equal, people with higher levels of body fat will have higher leptin levels than those with lower levels of body fat and vice versa.

Because leptin is secreted by fat cells, it makes sense that under normal conditions there is a direct correlation between leptin levels and the amount of fat you are carrying.

Unfortunately, when you’re attempting to lose fat and begin to restrict calories, conditions are anything but “normal” and the body responds accordingly by lowering leptin levels.

This is because the second mediator of blood leptin levels is your calorie intake. Lower your calorie intake and leptin will fall, independent of body fat.

So, yes, you can be overweight and still suffer from low leptin levels – just go on a diet.

So what happens when leptin levels fall and why the heck does it matter?

Again, under normal conditions leptin levels are normal and the brain gets the signal loud and clear that nutrition intake is adequate. Metabolism is high and the internal environment of the body is one very conducive to fat burning.

Until you start dieting.

Go on a diet and leptin levels quickly plummet (by 50% or more after only one week), sending a signal to the body that you’re semi-starved and not consuming enough calories.

This puts the breaks on metabolism and creates a hormonal environment extremely conducive to fat storage. Thyroid hormones (hormones extremely important to metabolism) respond by taking a dive and the abdominal fat-storing stress hormone cortisol skyrockets measurably.

HELLO belly fat.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, the appetite stimulating hormones ghrelin, neuropeptide-Y, and anandamide all hop on board to make your life even more miserable.

You don’t have to remember any of those names, just remember that when leptin drops, you get seriously hungry.

Despite having a pretty good reason for its reaction, it’s pretty ironic that our bodies are primed for fat loss at every other time except when we are trying to burn fat.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could maintain high leptin levels and a body primed for fat burning while dieting? It would seemingly solve all of our problems.

But in order to do this, we’d have to somehow keep leptin levels high as we attempt to lose those extra pounds.

“HOW ABOUT “SUPPLEMENTING” WITH LEPTIN?”

A couple of problems here: First, leptin is a protein based hormone, which means that it can not be taken orally (otherwise, it would simply be digested). So that rules out a leptin pill.

This leaves the method of “supplemental” leptin administration to injection. And leptin injections DO indeed work, reversing the metabolic adaptations to dieting and “starvation” even while continuing to restrict calories.

In 1996, Ahima et al. used leptin injections to reverse starvation-induced neuroendrocrine adaptations in mice.

“Well, that’s nice and all, but I’m human.” Point taken; research with rodents doesn’t always correlate to similar findings in humans, however…

In 1999, Heymsfield et al. performed a double-blind placebo controlled study analyzing weight loss over a 24-week period in 73 obese humans. Subjects either injected daily with leptin or a placebo (i.e. bogus alternative). At the end of the 24-week period, the leptin group lost significantly more weight than the placebo and a higher percentage of fat vs. muscle.

In 2002, Rosenbaum et al. administered low-dose leptin to subjects (male and female) who had dieted to a 10% decrease in body weight. During the diet period, thyroid hormone levels, 24-hr energy expenditure, and other metabolic markers substantially decreased. The result of the leptin replacement therapy?

“All of these endocrine changes were reversed…”Thyroid output and daily calorie burn increased back to pre-diet levels.

In 2003, Fogteloo et al. showed that leptin injections “tended to reduce the decline of energy expenditure associated with energy restriction, whereas the tendency of energy intake to increase back to baseline levels in placebo-treated subjects was largely prevented in subjects treated with leptin.”

Yeah, that’s a mouthful. Let me put in simple terms: not only did the leptin group experience less of a decline in metabolism, but they were also less hungry, allowing them to more easily stick to the prescribed diet.

In 2004, Welt et al. reported that leptin given to a group of women with thyroid disorder immediately raised circulating concentrations of the thyroid hormones T3 and T4.

In 2005, Rosenbaum and company were at it again, again showing that energy expenditure and circulating concentrations of T3 and T4 all returned to pre-weight-loss levels with regular leptin injections.

So, as theorized, keeping leptin levels high during a diet does indeed solve our dilemma by avoiding the negative metabolic (and perhaps behavioral) adaptations that calorie restriction perpetuates.

The problem?

Daily leptin injections are far too expensive, costing thousands and thousands of dollars per week. So, we can pretty much forget about supplemental leptin as a solution (which is probably moot anyway considering that not too many people are going to voluntarily plunge a needle into their skin daily).

A REAL Solution

Now that we know that leptin injections aren’t going to save us, let’s talk about the possibility of manipulating your body’s natural leptin production.

And I’ve got good news – this can indeed be done, and without involving needles or thousands of dollars. In fact, we’ll swap the injections and mounds of cash out for two things I can guarantee you’re absolutely going to love: more calories and more carbs.

We know that leptin levels decrease by about 50% after only one week of dieting, but fortunately, it doesn’t take nearly that long for leptin to bump back up with a substantial increase in caloric intake.

In fact, research has shown that it only takes about 12-24 hours.

So, the answer to the fat loss catch-22? Strategic high-calorie, high-carb CHEATING.

By strategically cheating with high calorie foods (and yes, even stuff like pizza, ice cream, wings, cookies, burgers, fries, etc), you can give leptin and metabolism a major boost mid-diet which sets you up for plenty of subsequent fat loss when you resume your reduced calorie eating regimen.

This means greater net fat loss week after week, and ultimately, a much more realistic, maintainable way to bring you to the body you truly want and deserve.

So what’s so special about carbs?

Well, leptin, carbohydrate and insulin have been shown to have very strong ties.

Calories alone don’t get the job done, as research shows that overfeeding on protein and fat has little effect on leptin.

In order to get a strong leptin response from overfeeding, there needs to be plenty of carbs in the mix. In fact, the relationship is SO strong that research conducted by Boden et al. at the Temple University School of Medicine shows that leptin levels will not fall even in response to all-out fasting so long as insulin and blood sugar are maintained via IV drip. That’s CRAZY.

Because of this carbohydrate/insulin-leptin relationship, it makes sense that foods combining both carbs and fat (like pizza, burgers, cookies, ice cream, etc) work best for reversing the negative adaptations caused by dieting because of the BIG-TIME insulin response they produce.

THIS is why strategic cheating with your favorite foods is so powerful. THIS is why you truly can use your favorite foods to lose fat faster than you ever could with restrictive dieting. THIS is freedom.

Essentially, it’s everything “typical” dieting isn’t.

With regular dieting, come week two, you’re screwed.

With strategic cheating, you can literally use ANY food you want to *ensure* that you never go a single day without a body primed for fat loss.

The cheat or not to cheat? I think the choice is clear.

By Joel Marion, CISSN, NSCA-CPT

“Arghhhhhhh!”

Ever feel this way? Or maybe a better question is: Ever been on a diet?

Why is dieting so psychologically draining?

Well, for one, it requires change in a major area of our lives—the way we eat—and for most of us, change is a very uncomfortable thing.

Fact is, changing old habits and forming new ones is never an easy task; however, with dieting, it becomes exceedingly difficult given all of the physical adaptations that occur (which we will soon discuss).

Consider what happens in your mind when you go on a diet.

Almost immediately you are faced with an array of cravings. Just the sight or smell of food mentally adds to your already present hunger pangs. You find yourself craving foods that normally you have no desire to eat.

Every time you come in contact with an “off-limits” food item—whether it be on a television commercial, in a magazine, or physically right in front of you—the battle begins.

Do you give into the temptation to experience immediate pleasure, only to be swarmed by overwhelming guilt shortly soon after? Or do you stick it out and allow the anxiety to increase with every day?

It seems like a lose-lose situation—and it is.

And what if you’re not making as much progress as you had hoped? What if you’re seemingly doing everything right and the scale just isn’t moving?

Feelings of frustration, discouragement, and even depression emerge, making you even more inclined to break your diet.

I mean, who wants to sacrifice without being rewarded? At least when you bite into a chocolate chip cookie, the taste is satisfying. But working hard to reap no return on investment? Well that, that just flat out sucks.

There has to be a better way—and fortunately, there is.

The simple truth is this: “diets” can’t work.

If you tried ‘em and failed, you’re just like 99% of the rest of the world, myself included: normal.

You see, any time you restrict calories, you literally “program” your body to fight against your every effort to lose weight.

Not quite making sense? Time for a little history lesson.

Think back for just a minute to the time in which our ancestors roamed the earth. You know, the hunter and gather, feast and famine type days.

For those individuals, survival was king, and in order to survive, they had to do the whole “eating” thing just like us.

Unfortunately, things weren’t quite as easy for this group as they are today. No supermarkets. No drive-through meal deals. Instead, when our primitive ancestors wanted a nice steak, they had to go find it.

This inevitably meant that there were plenty of instances in which our yester-year counterparts went without food for days at a time. And at other times, namely during the winter months, their bodies were forced to get by on very little daily food and calories.

And the reason why they didn’t die? There’s only one—the body’s natural defense against starvation.

Don’t get enough calories for an extended period of time? No problem, the body simply causes ”bad” hormones, fat storage enzymes, and hunger to all increase while “good” hormones, metabolism, and fat burning enzymes all take a dive.

Enter “starvation mode”.

Friend to our ancestors; anything but to the dieter.

You see, dieting, although planned, is nothing more than a lesser degree of premeditated starvation.

Go on a diet—any diet—and it wont be long until the body begins fighting for every ounce of your body fat. You want to lose it; it wants to keep it. And guess what? It wins every time.

Sad scenario, I know.

But what if there was some way to “trick” your body into thinking you aren’t dieting when you actually are?

What if you could essentially “block” the body from entering starvation mode, keeping fat burning at its highest point, week after week?

Well, you can.

And even better news—you can do it by strategically “cheating” on your diet with all your favorite foods.

Is it apple pie that you crave? Chocolate chip cookies (like me)? Or maybe just the freedom to order whatever you want from your favorite restaurant’s menu? Whatever it is, believe it or not, you can actually use those foods to help you lose fat faster.

But it needs to be very strategic, and with Cheat Your Way Thin, that’s exactly what I teach you how to do.

“So how does strategic cheating override the starvation protection mechanism?”

That’s a good question, and one I’m more than happy to answer.

You see, it takes the body about one week of calorie restriction to substantially trigger “starvation mode” and perpetuate the negative adaptations we discussed previously (decreased metabolism, slowed/stalled fat loss, etc).

On the other hand, it takes a much shorter period of time to reverse these trends via strategic practices of “overfeeding” or dietary “cheating”.

Essentially, by incorporating bursts of strategic cheating like I teach in Cheat Your Way Thin, you can literally turn your metabolism into your fat burning slave by ensuring you always have an internal environment primed for burning fat—and you do it with your favorite foods.

Oh, and did I mention just how HUGE that is psychologically?

Thinking back, I can remember when I used to “cheat” only to quickly be overwhelmed by feelings of guilt and failure. Never again. Now when I cheat, it’s planned. And each time I do, I walk away knowing that I just accelerated my progress.

Frankly, it doesn’t get much better than knowing that you just USED your Thanksgiving Dinner AND dessert to speed along fat loss.

Anxiety? Nope. When cravings arise, there is major comfort in knowing that you’ll be able to enjoy that very food in just a few short days when your next cheat session rolls around.

Feelings of discouragement and decreased motivation? Definitely with other diets, but with Cheat Your Way Thin, you’ll actually be excited to step on the scale week after week to view the consistent, steady progress that regular, strategic cheating yields.

Simply put, strategic cheating solves the dietary dilemma by providing you with powerful metabolic benefits and perhaps even more powerful psychological ones.

Finally, a diet that actually WORKS.