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| Thermogenesis Did you know that cayenne pepper stimulates thermogenesis? What IS thermogenesis, you ask? Apparently a lot of folks are selling "stuff" to induce thermogenesis - but it simply is a fancy word for "fat burning". This is from www.About.com Fat Burning Q&A Dateline: 06/21/99 Q: What does it mean to "burn" fat? A: You literally burn fat by increasing your body's heat production through a process called thermogenesis. Your brain sends signals to the fat pads to start the process. In experiments, if the nerve connected to a certain fat pad was cut, this fat deposit would not burn fat at all. Q: What can increase heat production to burn more fat? A: Caffeine and yohimbine are good thermogetics. Actually, all foods can elevate your body temperature after a meal, but some do it better than others. For example, refined carbohydrates produce more after-meal heat than complex starches, high-fat foods elevate body temperature more than high-fiber foods. However, refined carbs and the like will create more energy that you can expect to burn through the enhanced thermogenesis. Q: Is fat burning the ultimate means to loose weight? A: Not at all! After losing some fat, your body weight "set point" will try to force you acquire and attempt to save more energy by making you sedentary. Surveys show that successful weight losers walked for an average of 80 minutes a day, 6 days a week - just to keep the weight off. Q: Why do they often include stress management in weight loss programs? A: It might seem odd because it is true that mental or physical stress does increase lipolysis. However, there is something involved in stressful situations that overcomes the fat burning activity of stress, for example, the well known overeating reaction associated with stress. Q: Do sugar substitutes help in losing weight? A: The answer is a firm no. The reason is your blood sugar level rises as soon as you feel a sweet taste in your mouth, be it sugar or saccharin, or any artificial sweetener for that matter. To provide this rising, your body borrows some glucose from glucose depots - the liver and muscles, then it strives to replenish the borrowed glucose, guess how? Right! By encouraging you to eat more. The following information is excerpted from "Thermogenesis in Weight Management" by Daniel Mowrey, Ph.D. ---------------------------------------------------- Thermogenesis and Weight Management? Three things can happen to the calories derived from the food you eat:
The latter process is called thermogenesis, meaning the generation of heat. Thermogenesis is a normal physiological process, like digestion. The purpose of BAT is to burn up the calories your body doesn't need. Being over-fat, or obese, occurs primarily when BAT is not working right and the body has to store excess calories as fat. Under the right influence the body converts white fat back into calories that can be disposed of through
thermal combustion. Fat from our white fat is mobilized and carried in the blood to areas of brown fat where it is rapidly incinerated in "BAT
furnaces". |