Two Surprise Reasons You're Not Losing Fat

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When you overload your body with stressful factors such as poor sleep patterns and a hectic lifestyle, and over-produce inflammatory chemicals from compounds such as ultra-processed carbohydrates and vegetable oils, it can cause some real damage and lead to a never-ending battle to lose weight.

Some of these chemicals include transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta), matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), nitric oxide synthase (NOS), and toll-like receptor-4 (TLR4), which all affect your body through dysregulation of white blood cell migration, insulin resistance, overproduction of nitric oxide, and more.

Inflammation can be caused by many stressors, including psychological stress, but the primary cause may surprise you: processed vegetable oils. Any oil that’s been fried or cooked or treated at a high temperature, or that’s been subjected to high pressure, is going to result in a one-two punch of inflammation and insulin resistance. Most polyunsaturated oils (the majority of oils you'll find at the grocery store and in the food you eat at restaurants are polyunsaturated) are dangerously unstable and prone to oxidation. Oxidation promotes the production of highly toxic substances in your arteries, which, in turn, promotes insulin resistance, leptin resistance and inflammation throughout your body.

Therefore, the number one tactic for losing fat is simply cutting out these oils (think safflower, peanut, canola, and sunflower oils) and replacing them with healthier options like high-quality coconut oil and extra virgin olive oil. Check out my recent podcast with “The Olive Oil Hunter,” T.J. Robinson for more on sourcing healthy, high-quality cooking oils.

Next to chronic inflammation, glycemic variability (GV) is another major player in most folks' struggle to lose weight. GV refers to the oscillating amounts of circulating blood sugar at any given point and the fluctuations of your blood sugar that occur at the same time on different days. It’s one of the most important variables to consider when attempting to burn fat.

If glycemic variability gets out of control, and your blood sugar gets too high, your body has two choices: get rid of the blood sugar by shoveling it into muscle tissue, or store it as body fat. If your energy expenditure during the day isn’t high enough to convert blood sugar into energy in your muscles, you’re going to gain fat tissue. But before going any further, you should understand one important fact: sugar in your food isn’t always bad.

Every type of sugar you consume—whether it's from fruit, honey, milk, or a candy bar—ends up as glucose in your blood. So regardless of which diet you’re following, you’re probably consuming sugar in some form. This isn't necessarily a problem; the problem occurs when your blood glucose levels go haywire, which happens when you consume too many calories from non-nutrient-dense sugar sources such as processed carbohydrates, consume sugar too often, or feed too often, regardless of the source of the sugar. It all comes down to balance. Here are my top seven strategies for controlling your blood sugar:

1. Strength training, even something as simple as pushups and pullups.
2. Light, easy exercise, particularly in a fasted state.
3. An easy 10 to 30-minute walk after a meal.
4. Standing. Just make sure you don’t stay in one position for the entirety of your workday.
5. Incorporate as many blood sugar-stabilizing plants, herbs, and spices (Ceylon cinnamon, berberine, apple cider vinegar, Panax notoginseng, astragalus membranaceus, wild bitter melon, etc.) into your diet as possible. These ingredients are discussed in more detail in this article, and many are found in Kion Lean.
6. Consume fiber. Fiber breaks down into short-chain fatty acids that inhibit the conversion of glucose into fatty acids and increase insulin sensitivity.
7. Cold thermogenesis. Adiponectin is a hormone released during cold exposure that breaks down fat and shuttles glucose into your muscles (which can lower blood sugar). You'll learn more about cold thermogenesis below.

Walking, standing, a little weight training, a few common herbs and spices, a touch of extra fiber, and exposing yourself to cold. That’s all it takes to prevent significant amounts of glycemic variability that tend to hold many people back from fat loss.