Health and Fitness
Here’s How to Become Fat-Adapted and Trim Waistline in Three Steps.
Why fat adaptation is critical to healthy weight management and how we can achieve this valuable state
An Abundant Energy Source for the Body and Brain
Humans desire a healthy weight and great body composition for various reasons. When we get fat-adapted, we put our bodies into an ideal state to burn stored fat effortlessly.
Fat-adaption is an ideal position for the body to utilize fat as an energy source. The brain also loves it as it gets an alternative energy source from ketone bodies, such as β-hydroxybutyrate, as a by-product of body fat.
If we achieve a fat-adapted state, we might say goodbye to weight-loss diets, expensive supplements, and excessive workouts.
Instead, we can lose excess fat and keep our ideal weight with moderate movement and healthy nutrients in a relaxed way without stressing too much.
Consequently, while preventing obesity, our health, well-being, joy, and life satisfaction might increase.
Fat adaptation is a natural process. Humans survived difficult times such as famine when no food was available by being fat-adapted. This state is coded in our DNA. Our biology evolved to use stored body fat as an energy source when no food was available.
Through the mechanism of gluconeogenesis, our blood will get the required glucose from abundant amino acids and even from stored fat in the body. We hardly run out of this stored energy source as the body regulates it.
One of the most frequently asked questions from my health and fitness readers relates to fat adaptation. They want to understand why it is important and how we can achieve this worthwhile goal with practical steps.
So, without theoretical details, I introduce three practical tips to achieve a fat-adapted state with small lifestyle changes. It took me three months when I started it decades ago.
It might take up to six months for some people as the body and the brain rewires themselves biochemically.
1 — Balancing Macro-Nutrients
There are three macro-nutrients: proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. Proteins are critical as building blocks for the growth and maintenance of our cells, tissues, and organs. Fats and carbohydrates provide energy affecting our metabolic hormones. So, our bodies need proteins and essential fats to survive.
While carbohydrates are not essential for the body to survive as necessary glucose for the bloodstream can be created via the gluconeogenesis process, some fats are essential, meaning that the body cannot produce them. Therefore, we need to obtain essential fats from food or supplements.
One of the crucial fat types is omega-three fatty acids, mainly found in seafood such as fish and some plant sources such as flaxseed or chia seed.
Biochemists believe Omega-three fats such as DHA and EPA from seafood are more bio-available. In addition, they are essential for brain and mental health.
From my experience, reducing carbs and increasing healthy fats contributed to becoming fat-adapted faster. The more healthy fat I ate through a ketogenic diet, the more fat I lost. The main reason is fat has fewer effects in spiking insulin than carbs.
However, some people are more carbs-tolerant as they have a metabolism to utilize carbs more efficiently. Nevertheless, some of us are intolerant of carbs. I was one of them. The critical point is customizing our macro-nutrients based on our needs with the help of qualified healthcare professionals such as dieticians.
2 — Optimizing Metabolic Hormones
Metabolic hormones such as insulin, leptin, and ghrelin play a critical role in fat-adaption. When insulin is high, the body cannot tap into fat stores. It mainly uses glucose from the bloodstream and glycogen as the primary energy source.
Leptin is a satiety hormone sending signals to stop eating. And ghrelin makes us hungry to search for food. It is impossible to tap into fat stores when we have insulin and leptin resistance unless we starve ourselves.
Another critical hormone for fat-adaption is cortisol. This vital hormone manages our stress. When we experience too much physical and mental pressure, the body produces more cortisol to cope with the effects of stress.
However, if cortisol is too high in the bloodstream, the body mainly uses glucose as an energy source. Besides, excessive cortisol levels cause sleep deprivation. I had to increase my magnesium intake to improve my sleep.
While insulin is an anabolic hormone making fat cells bigger, storing glucose as fat, cortisol is a catabolic hormone. Nonetheless, the catabolism of cortisol is not for fat but mainly for glucose utilization from the organs such as the liver and muscle. It increases the availability of blood glucose to the brain.
When cortisol levels are too high, the body cannot utilize fat as an energy source.
Three lifestyle changes can significantly contribute to balancing our metabolic hormones. They are customized nutrition, sleep quality, and moderate exercise. I introduced and explained six hormones affecting our metabolism in this article titled Losing Fat by Understanding the Intricacies of Six Major Hormones.
3 — Leveraging Time-Restricted Eating
Time-restricted eating is another term for fasting. In fitness communities, it is known as intermittent fasting consuming food in a specific time frame and remaining fasting for a relatively long time. For example, the most common intermittent fasting protocol is eating within eight hours and refraining from food for sixteen hours. Some people also practice fast-mimicking diets.
Intermittent fasting with a ketogenic diet was an excellent way to start my fat-loss journey and become fat adapted. However, after being fat-adapted, I narrowed the feeding window to two hours and stayed fasted for twenty-two hours via one meal a day with no snacks.
I gained several physical and mental health benefits when I made this a lifestyle habit. However, this regime might not suit everyone, as we are all individuals. Each time we eat snacks, the key point is that blood sugar increases, and more insulin is created to reduce it.
Time-restricted eating is not about calorie-cutting, even though some people use it for that purpose. The ultimate goal of time-restricted eating is consuming calories in a specific window to give the body a rest for a while.
When we don’t consume food, especially carbs and proteins, we don’t get excessive sugar in the bloodstream, preventing insulin spikes.
This trending article mentions that insulin resistance is the primary cause of fat gain and obesity. Conversely, insulin sensitivity is a viable solution to keeping a healthy body weight and composition. Therefore, we need to understand the role of insulin resistance in beating metabolic syndrome and deal with the obesity epidemic.
When we cut calories at an extreme level, the body perceives it as starvation and hence starts using amino acids as an energy source, even from precious muscles. Therefore, we might lose valuable muscles.
However, when we consume adequate calories in a specific window, the body creates protective hormones such as growth hormones and signaling molecules such as ketones during the fasted state to protect against muscle loss.
While calorie-cutting reduces our metabolic rate, time-restricted eating improves it. I wish we could promote the remarkable health benefits of fasting better.
Conclusions and Takeaways
Even though visceral fat in the abdominal area is obstinate, losing weight with healthy lifestyle changes is not as convoluted as some might perceive.
We unnecessarily overcomplicate it, as I explained in this article titled Fat Loss Isn’t Complex. We Make It Mysterious. Understanding the role and functions of metabolic hormones gives us valuable insights.
In my opinion, by teaching people how to become fat-adapted, we can significantly reduce obesity affecting millions of people globally.
I provided three tips in this article, including effective lifestyle changes, hormonal balance, and emotional regulation. When were are fat-adapted, we can increase the chance of initiative autophagy and make our mitochondria denser.
Even though fat loss looks like physical activity, metabolic hormones and neurotransmitters affecting our emotions play a critical role in this metabolic process. Here are the five powerful tips to regulate emotions and reduce chronic stress with insights from psychoneuroendocrinology.
Once we balance our hormones with simple lifestyle habits, we quickly become fat-adapted. Fat-adaption is the optimal state for the body to maintain a healthy weight and desired body composition.
When we get fat-adapted, we don’t have to count calories, do fad diets, waste our money on expensive supplements, or do relentless workouts in gyms. Instead, the body does its jobs naturally and elegantly by design.
The biggest contributor to gaining a fat-adapted state for me is ketosis.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life. If you enjoyed this article, you might check some of my personal stories that might provide valuable perspectives.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
As a new reader, please check my holistic health and well-being stories reflecting my reviews, observations, and decades of experiments optimizing my hormones and neurotransmitters. I write about health as it matters. I believe health is all about homeostasis.
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