How to Lose Fat With Science-Based Tools

**Andrew Huberman** (0:00)
Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. This podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is an all-in-one vitamin mineral probiotic drink. I've been taking Athletic Greens since 2012, so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast. The reason I started taking Athletic Greens and the reason I still take Athletic Greens once or twice a day is that it helps me cover all of my basic nutritional needs. It makes up for any deficiencies that I might have. In addition, it has probiotics, which are vital for microbiome health. I've done a couple of episodes now on the so-called gut microbiome and the ways in which the microbiome interacts with your immune system, with your brain to regulate mood, and essentially with every biological system relevant to health throughout your brain and body. With Athletic Greens, I get the vitamins I need, the minerals I need, and the probiotics to support my microbiome. If you'd like to try Athletic Greens, you can go to athleticgreens.com/huberman and claim a special offer. They'll give you five free travel packs plus a year supply of vitamin D3 K2. There are a ton of data now showing that vitamin D3 is essential for various aspects of our brain and body health. Even if we're getting a lot of sunshine, many of us are still deficient in vitamin D3. And K2 is also important because it regulates things like cardiovascular function, calcium in the body, and so on. Again, go to athleticgreens.com/huberman to claim the special offer of the five free travel packs and the year supply of vitamin D3 K2. Today's episode is also brought to us by Element. Element is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means the exact ratios of electrolytes are an element and those are sodium, magnesium, and potassium, but it has no sugar. I've talked many times before on this podcast about the key role of hydration and electrolytes for nerve cell function, neuron function, as well as the function of all the cells and all the tissues and organ systems of the body. If we have sodium, magnesium, and potassium present in the proper ratios, all of those cells function properly, and all our bodily systems can be optimized. If the electrolytes are not present and if hydration is low, we simply can't think as well as we would otherwise. Our mood is off, hormone systems go off, our ability to get into physical action, to engage in endurance and strength and all sorts of other things is diminished. So with element, you can make sure that you're staying on top of your hydration and that you're getting the proper ratios of electrolytes. If you'd like to try element, you can go to drink element, that's lmnt.com/huberman, and you'll get a free element sample pack with your purchase. They're all delicious. So again, if you want to try element, you can go to element, lmnt.com/huberman.
Today's episode is also brought to us by Thesis. Thesis makes what are called nootropics, which means smart drugs. Now, to be honest, I am not a fan of the term nootropics. I don't believe in smart drugs in the sense that I don't believe that there's any one substance or collection of substances that can make us smarter. I do believe, based on science, however, that there are particular neural circuits and brain functions that allow us to be more focused, more alert, access creativity, be more motivated, et cetera. That's just the way that the brain works, different neural circuits for different brain states. Thesis understands this. And as far as I know, they're the first nootropics company to create targeted nootropics for specific outcomes. I've been using Thesis for more than six months now, and I can confidently say that the nootropics have been a total game changer. My go-to formula is the Clarity formula, or sometimes I'll use their Energy formula before training. To get your own personalized nootropic starter kit, go online to takethesis.com/huberman, take a three-minute quiz, and Thesis will send you four different formulas to try in your first month. That's takethesis.com/huberman, and use the code Huberman at checkout for 10% off your first order. Today is the third episode in our series of episodes about physical and athletic skill performance and skill learning in general. And today we're going to talk about the science of tools for fat loss. And fat loss is something that interests a large number of people. Many people want to lose fat. Many people are athletes who need to lose fat. And in general, we know that having body fat percentages that are too high is unhealthy for us. And most people struggle to lose fat. Most people struggle to lose weight generally, but most people especially struggle to lose body fat or what we call adipose tissue. Now, this is a huge topic on the internet. There's a lot of controversy. Today, we're going to talk about some things related to fat loss and that are powerful for fat loss that I'm guessing most of you have never heard about before. You may have heard about a few of them, but I'm guessing you haven't heard about all of them. This episode is going to be rich with science-based tools that are gleaned from a variety of aspects of the literature, including the use of cold, including brown fat, including something called beige fat. We're going to talk about something called NEAT. We're going to talk about all sorts of aspects of fat loss that are governed by your nervous system. And this is, I think, an important gap that's missing in the discussion about fat loss. You can hear a lot of information out there about the role of things like insulin and various diets like ketogenic diets or vegan diets or Mediterranean diets. And there's some great stuff out there. And there's some really terrible information out there. And there's a lot of controversy. We did a number of episodes talking about the role of hormones on metabolism and the role of food on mood and wellbeing. So if you're interested in those topics, please check them out. I will touch a little bit on hormones today, things like insulin and leptin, just a little bit. But today's episode is mainly going to be focused on how the nervous system, neurons, and some of the cells they collaborate with, like glia and macrophages, how those encourage or can encourage accelerated fat loss, because it turns out they can. Remember, your nervous system, which includes your brain and your spinal cord and all the connections that they make with the organs of the body, governs everything. It's the on-switch and the off-switch for your immune system. It's the on-switch and the off-switch, it turns out, also for fat burning. And so the nervous system and the role of the brain and other neurons has been vastly overlooked in the discussion about losing fat. Now, I would be remiss, and I'd probably come under a pretty considerable attack if I didn't just acknowledge up front a core truth of metabolic science and also of neuroscience, frankly, which is that calories in versus calories out, meaning how many calories you ingest versus how many calories you burn is the fundamental and most important formula in this business of fat loss and weight management in general. There's simply no way around the fact that if you ingest far more calories than you burn, you're likely to gain weight. And a good portion of that weight is likely to be adipose tissue fat. It's also true that if you ingest fewer calories than you burn, that you will lose weight and that a significant portion of that will come from body fat. What portion depends on a number of factors, but that simple formula is important. On a previous episode, I mentioned the complications with the statement of a calorie is a calorie. And indeed there is evidence from for instance, Robert lustig, who's a pediatric endocrinologist at UC San Francisco, has talked about how highly processed foods change the way that we utilize food and can lead to higher incidences of obesity and other metabolic syndromes that go against the idea that a calorie is a calorie and that's it. So a calorie is a calorie as a unit of energy, and we need to accept and acknowledge this calories in, meaning calories ingested versus calories burned formula, but the calories burned portion is strongly influenced by a number of things that you can control that can greatly accelerate or increase the amount of adipose tissue or the proportion of adipose tissue that you burn in response to exercise and food. So your hormones are important.