if you want to lose body fat what is the
easiest but also most effective thing
you can do
i am ronan i am the head of the health
and fitness department at mind valley
and in the beginning of
2019 we asked ourselves this question so
we made an experiment we got around 10
000 people in a facebook group and we
said what is the
biggest or the best cost benefit in
terms of something that is easy
something that is effective that we can
do together with these 10 000 people
that will help them burn body fat and
the results were amazing after a whole
month there were people losing more than
20 pounds and up to this day i still
receive messages from that people who
started back then in 2018 saying hey i
actually now i'm
on 60 pounds and counting
before i tell you exactly what this
strategy is i wanted to imagine
something something different imagine
that you go
grocery shopping
and you just arrived home and you are
full of bags full of food
there are three things that you can do
with the food that you just bought
there's a small little portion that you
put on top of the table because this is
what you're gonna eat right now
the biggest majority you put inside the
fridge because maybe this is what you
eat tomorrow or later on when the fridge
is full
then the remaining food you put in the
freezer
these
are the things that you only are going
to eat
if you empty the fridge
and so
the body works in a similar way
we have storage systems for nutrients so
let's say that you have a meal right now
there are three things that can happen
to the nutrients of that meal or the
energy that comes from it
there is a small portion that is going
to be burnt right now for you to live
and experience this moment
then there is a majority of that that is
going to be stored and you have one
storage system called your glycogen
storages this is where most of the
carbohydrates go either inside of the
liver but the liver is a small little
organ so when the liver is full the rest
of the glycogen goes to to your muscle
mass
but when the muscle mass is full
of glycogen then the remaining energy
goes to your fat cells
so it's more or less if your glycogen
storage inside your muscles in your
liver works as the fridge in the kitchen
analogy
and your fat your adipose tissue works
more or less like the freezer
and so a meal
to your body
is more or less like grocery shopping is
to your kitchen analogy
now think about this
if you do grocery shopping very often
it's very
unlikely that you empty the fridge
and if you don't empty the fridge
it's very unlikely that you start to
empty the freezer
and the body works more or less a
similar way if you're always eating
you don't get to empty your glycogen
storage so it's a lot harder to start
pulling energy from a fat from the
adipose tissue
and so one of these strategies that you
use here is intermittent fasting when
you spend more or less 12 to 16 hours
on a fasting state so you can empty the
fridge and start pulling more energy
from the freezer there's a group of
scientists from the university of
north carolina and what they did is that
they grouped
most of these studies on intermittent
fasting
and created a mathematical model to
simulate what happens inside our bodies
as we start fasting and this is the
chart
that they publish in this study in this
chart you will see that on the left side
this is when you just
finished a meal and as you go to the
right this is the hours the pass after
you finish a meal when you are fasting
one of the things that you see is this
orange line this is your insulin levels
insulin is a hormone
that helps you put things inside the
fridge
imagine that you got a home with all the
bags from the grocery shop but you know
you're tired you don't do it yourself
you call your helper and say hey you
know get the things from the from the
plastic bags and put them inside the
fridge or inside the freezer this is
what insulin does so you get all the
nutrients and start organizing inside
the fridge when the fridges is then full
it starts putting things inside the
freezer and you see that
insulin is higher right after the meal
that means that you just arrived from
the grocery shop and you got the help
from your helper but it starts to
decrease
over time in around 12 hours to 16 hours
you see that it gets very low that means
that there's no activity of someone
getting nutrients and putting it either
in your glycogen storages or in your fat
tissue
and then there's another thing that is
interesting in this chart that is this
dotted blue line this is another hormone
called glucagon and glucagon does the
opposite job of what insulin does
whenever you need energy
but you're not eating at the moment
glucagon is the guy who opens the fridge
or the freezer and start getting food
from there to give you energy and you
see that it starts to increase more or
less especially after 12 to 16 hours and
that means that the activity of pulling
energy from your storages is increasing
at the same time you see this black line
going down this is your glycogen levels
and you see how fast it goes down
glycogen is mainly the food from the
fridge so after you had a milk it
increases because you just stored
something but then if you spend a couple
of hours fasting you see how the body's
emptying the fridge and using the food
that is there to give yourself energy
after more or less 12 to 16 hours you
see another black line adopted black
line now increasing that's the free
fatty acids free fatty acids is the
energy that you get from inside your
adipose tissue so that means that it's
all the food that is inside the freezer
now being taken out and defrost so now
you're really getting energy from your
fat storages and intermittent fasting
helps you get to this state that you are
increasing the amount of energy that you
use from your fat tissues and you'll
also see that it usually starts to
increase from 12 hours of fasting and it
peaks
at around
16 hours so that's why we say that
usually when you're doing a daily
fasting protocol it's a very sweet spot
to be between 12 and 16 hours or faster
but pay attention to something here this
is a mathematical model it's a
simulation based on the averages of many
people that means that for each one of
us it would be a little different maybe
if you already have a low carbohydrate
diet or if you move a lot throughout the
day you start emptying your freezer
earlier for someone who has a more
sedentary lifestyle or or has a diet
that is fuller in carbohydrates it may
take even longer than 16 hours to start
emptying your fat storages
but then the next question that comes is
all right if these are
mathematical models do we see this
in real life
and this is when we have different
scientific studies that showed this
happening in real situations one of them
was made by the university of illinois
what they did is that they got 23
obese participants
and got these people to fast for
oops sorry
[Laughter]
one of them was made by the university
of illinois and what they did is they
got 23
obese participants got these people to
fast for 16 hours per day for 12 weeks
and after those 12 weeks all these
participants they lost more or less
three percent of their body weight in
fat and not only that they saw
improvements in their ldl cholesterol
that's what
commonly called the bad cholesterol they
saw improvements in the in their blood
glucose control and decrease in their
insulin levels
and then there's another study by the
university of surrey they got
participants and asked these guys all
right when you have breakfast just have
breakfast 90 minutes later than you
usually have
and when you have dinner just pull this
dinner 90 minutes earlier than you
usually have and they compared with a
group that didn't change their eating
schedule and the group who did
a breakfast later in a dinner a bit
earlier
burned twice as much fat as the group
who didn't change their meals schedule
so this is why intermittent fasting is
really a strategy to give it a try it's
not the only thing that you can do to
burn fat but it's one of the easiest
ones and one one of the most convenient
ones that is also effective and that's
because you don't need to think about
what you should eat
you know when you when you think about
burning fat or going on a diet or
something like that the first question
that comes is what should i remove why
should i eat more intermittent fasting
only ask you to change when you eat you
don't really change you don't really add
things to your diet you don't really
remove things you just change the timing
of each meal of course you can improve
the quality of your intermittent fasting
by having a more nutritious diet but the
basic version that helps you burn fat
the way that all the studies are done
are just by condensing your meals in a
12 to 16 hour window and it's also
really convenient because it is a
strategy that you can combine with other
tools you know if you're in a low
carbohydrate diet or if you are vegan or
if you're paleo or whatever you are
doing you can combine this in a
intermittent fasting protocol
if you want to give intermittent fasting
a try here's an overview
start by 12 hours
you don't need to go all the way to 16
because it's not only a physiological
change but it's also a habit change so
take it slow and improve it increase it
more or less one to two hours every one
to two weeks
and if you really want the details on
how to get started on intermittent
fasting uh in the right way then make
sure that you subscribe to this channel
because next week i'm gonna send you a
video that is a whole guide on how to
start intermittent fasting with all the
details that you need to plan to do it
the right way
and if you have any questions on how to
burn body fat or how to do intermittent
fasting put them in the comments below
so i can see them and in the future i
can make videos based on on your
questions and i'll see you in the next
video
you