Every scientist worth its salt has been desperately trying to find the latest weight loss pill. Whoever does this will cash in on a market that's worth billions per year. But so far, there's been nothing lasting. Sure, a lot of promises have been made, but we're still pretty obese.
The secret may lie in our fat itself. Something that our fat is producing right now may be the key to easily losing weight. This is a hormone called "leptin," and it may prove to be just what we've been looking for.
Is Leptin Magic?
But hold the phone. If you Google "leptin," you'll find plenty of results for pills that have leptin. All you've got to do is take some of this and you're good to go, right?
Not so fast.
Before we understand how leptin works, we've got to understand our history. Not just the history of fast food or trans-fats, but the history of humans.
Back in the old days (thousands of years ago), we didn't have any fast food joints or 7-11s anywhere. We had to chase down and kill our lunch. Every day. Sure, when we couldn't catch anything, we had to dig up roots and other grubs.
Engineered For Balance
Brilliant as she is, Mother Nature developed a storage system. So we could store energy when we had excess food, and use this stored energy when times were lean.
Of course, this stored energy was our body fat. The interesting thing about humans is that we are loaded with instincts. That way, we don't have to sit down and plan everything out.
One of these instincts is a warning system that tells us energy reserves are getting low. This would come in the form of hunger, which meant it was time to sharpen up our spears and go looking for something to kill.
When we'd built up a store of energy, meaning that food was likely plentiful, our scarce behavioral resources were able to shift to other matters instead of being bothered by those pesky hunger pains.
This is described beautifully in the book "The Leptin Diet: How Fit is Your Fat" by Byron J. Richards. Richards explains in clear detail how proper leptin balance is essential for not only weight loss, but for preventing heart attacks, strokes and tendonitis.
In short, our leptin-hunger system worked like a gas-gauge on your car. When it was full, you didn't need to worry so much about filling up. But when that red light comes on, you'd better get some gas quick or else you've got to get that gas can out.
So what went wrong? Why are we so fat, but feel so hungry all the time?
Carbs And Leptin
The reason, according to "The Biology Of Human Survival" by Claude A. Piantadosi, is that our diet has changed dramatically.
Instead of eating a diet largely of protein, fat, vegetables and fruit, we eat a lot of processed carbohydrates. That means despite the large amount of leptin we have in our blood streams, the message isn't being heard by our brains.
Our body is telling our brain we've got plenty of stored fuel, yet our brains which contain our leptin receptors, think we're skinny and on the verge of starvation.
Why Leptin Supplements Are A Waste Of Money
So you can understand that taking all the leptin pills in the world won't help as long as you keep eating a diet that's high in carbohydrates, especially refined carbohydrates.
The secret, then, isn't finding the latest leptin pill, but eating the right diet so that the leptin our bodies are already producing can get recognized by our brains.
More Leptin Doesn't Mean More Weight Loss
What kind of diet is this? Richards recommends a diet just like our ancestors ate. Lots of protein and fat. Not just any fat, but healthy fat. Unsaturated fat. A good rule of thumb is fat that is liquid at room temperature is good. Fat that is solid at room temperature isn't so good.
Fats like olive oil, almonds, and fats found in fish are perfect. Fats found in pork, beef, and chicken are not. And the worst kind is the lard they use to deep fry those delicious yet deadly french fries.
By eating proteins and good fats, our bodies will slowly start to notice the leptin in our blood. And that means we'll be a lot less hungry.
Another thing to keep in mind is that it takes your body at least four hours to switch from burning blood sugar for energy to burning fat for energy.
If you're used to eating snacks every couple hours, you've never given your body a chance to burn your body fat for energy. This can take a couple weeks, but once you get past this initial point, burning fat will be easy.
You've just got to limit yourself to eating three meals a day. No snacks between meals. Give your body a chance to burn that fat for energy.
Pretty soon you'll be able to go hours without eating, and not get hungry. This means your just a few months away from getting that slim, trim, lean body you've been after all these years.
To find plenty of articles and resources to help you lose belly fat, come on over to our fat loss site today. You can get a free Ebook that will teach you everything you need to know to easily and permanently lose weight.