Ignite Your Fat Burning Engine

Blast off fat this 4th of July.
A hot topic (literally) of late has been capsaicin, a substance that has been firing up the circulation for centuries. Found in sweat-inducing foods and spices like cayenne, capsaicin provides the power to get the blood pumping efficiently, the body’s metabolic rate stimulated—and fat blasted out of the body.

It works by turning white fat cells into brown, and then activating the hybrid fat to burn itself to elimination. While many are now rushing to get their hands on hot peppers and Tabasco sauce (one recent study found that eating 3 grams of Tabasco sauce can boost your metabolism by twenty percent for two hours), my fans are no strangers to brown fat—I’ve been recommending cayenne, along with brown fat-activating GLA, since 1988 when I first released Beyond Pritikin.

Brown fat can go a long way in helping you manage the excess calories you may consume on any given day, but it needs to be activated by the right nutrients so that your body will efficiently burn, rather than store, the excess fat you take in.

Gamma linolenic acid (GLA), one of the most potent omega-6 fatty acids found in evening primrose oil, borage oil, and black currant oil, has been found to activate brown fat and boost the metabolic rates in healthy adults. GLA is the raw material needed for certain prostaglandins to ignite the mitochondria’s fat-burning process in the body’s brown fat.

Interestingly, researchers in Heidelberg, Germany long ago found that slimmer adults have a higher proportion of polyunsaturated fatty acids in their blood than did their heavier counterparts. The late Dr. David Horrobin, a highly esteemed essential fatty acid researcher, speculated that heavier people may be suffering from a fatty acid deficiency. Dr. Horrobin was one of the original investigators who found that GLA was remarkably effective in promoting weight loss.

I personally have seen women and men benefit time and time again from the addition of omega fats to their weight loss plans. My recommendation is GLA-90, which contains GLA from black currant seed oil.

All too often, dieters on no-fat or low-fat plans will plateau after an initial weight loss. This can be a frustrating time for many—especially when they don’t understand why they are not continuing to lose weight at the same pace they were initially. What has occurred is a downshift in the metabolic rate. After a certain period of time on a low-fat, low-calorie diet, the body will recognize the new, lower caloric intake as its sustenance level (it may even think it is starving!) and will slow its metabolism to match the new, lower caloric intake.

Hair may become brittle, nails may crack, and skin may become dry and flaky, but the body will resist further weight loss. Additional weight loss is stymied because your body now operates at a more sluggish level—a level that may not be healthy, but one at which you need fewer calories to subsist.

The only way to activate the metabolism again is to convince your body that it is no longer starving. Along with providing it with adequate protein, it is crucial to supply the body with plenty of essential fatty acids.

My clients who were once frustrated over why they were no longer losing weight on their diet plans have raved about the rapid improvements they made after adding heat-producing spices—like cayenne—and metabolic-raising supplements—like GLA-90—to their diets. Energy returns, complexions clear, hair regains its shine, and weight loss resumes!

Resetting your metabolic rate and reigniting those brown fat-burning engines can put some real “fire” into your Independence Day celebrations—and the rest of your summer.

-Edge On Health, Dr. Ann Louise Gittleman