Losing weight can be a challenge for many of us so having some extra support and help goes a long way in achieving your weight loss goals. Using specific supplements to increase key nutrients, dampen the stress response and improve hormonal function makes it much easier to lose weight and keep it off.
Supplementation for fat loss can:
- Help the body use the fat stores you have for fuel
- Increase insulin sensitivity and help balance blood sugars
- Increase and improve muscle growth
- Support optimal hormone levels for fat loss
1. High Quality Fish Oil
- Increase muscle tissue
- Turn on fat burning genes
- Turn off fat storage genes
Get enough GOOD omega 3 fats into your regime.
The omega-3 fats are supplied in fish and to a smaller degree in pasture-raised meat. It's possible to get all the omega-3 fat you need from diet, but many people find a high quality fish oil supplement helps round out their omega-3 intake.
Omega-3 fats are so important because all the cells in the body are made up of a double layer of fats, and the fat that makes up those layers determine how well your metabolism works / your ability to burn calories. The more omega 3 fats, the better it works and results in improved energy use and fat burning.
Studies show that supplementing with omega-3s can significantly increase muscle tissue which increases your ability to burn calories, while decreasing body fat at the same time. It also turns on the fat burning genes, while turning off your fat storing genes.
2. Probiotic Bacteria
- Improve energy
- Enhance digestion
- Improve mood & motivation
A healthy gut will help you lose fat, have more energy and feel better.
Probiotics are the tiny bacteria that naturally occur in the gut, but they can be easily overwhelmed by unhealthy bacteria like E. coli, chemical pollution such as heavy metals, oxidative stress, or high cortisol.
It’s very difficult to lose fat if you don’t have a healthy gut for two interrelated reasons. First, more than half of the neurotransmitters that send messages from the brain to cells and hormone receptors throughout the body are made in the gut. If you have unhealthy bacteria in the gut, it will negatively influence the production of neurotransmitters, leading to poor brain function, low mood, and low motivation which will frustrate your fat loss goals.
The second reason gut health is essential is that it will improve digestion and help you feel better. You will feel more energetic because your neurotransmitters will be firing at optimal levels, and your metabolism will be supported so that nutrients get absorbed and used by the body in an effective manner.
3. Increase Protien with Tropo Collagen
(This is a unique form of collagen – not all collagen does this)
- Reduce hunger
- Improve recovery
- Increase your metabolism
- Improve blood sugars
A healthy protein intake is essential if you want to lose body fat because protein is satisfying, reducing hunger, and it is preferentially used by the body to build muscle and tissue instead of being stored as fat.
Research shows that eating a large dose of high-quality protein multiple times throughout the day is associated with lower body fat percentage. High-quality protein is necessary because you get more bang for your calorie buck by consuming this kind of protein since it contains more essential amino acids (EEA) per gram of protein. Greater EAA and protein intake helps raise metabolic rate, and make the cells more sensitive to insulin and improving blood sugar balance.
It is not always easy or convenient to get enough high-quality protein so I use tropocollagen which is essentially 100% anabolic, which means that it is not “used up” in energy or excreted. It serves completely as the building blocks of new cells. It is assimilated so perfectly that one does not even need enzymatic digestive processes to absorb. It is also directly absorbed from the intestine.
4. Combo - Zinc, Magnesium, Vitamin D
- Increase fat burning
- Suppress hunger
- Improve blood sugar function
- Improve sleep and reduce stress
Get enough zinc, magnesium, and vitamin D—these nutrients are extremely important for fat loss and metabolism. If you are low in any one of these three, your fat loss attempts may be blunted.
Adequate vitamin D in the body will increase fat burning directly, but it also suppresses the production of enzymes that cause the body to store fat. There’s evidence that higher vitamin D suppresses hunger and increases insulin sensitivity, leading people to eat less.
Magnesium also makes the cell receptors more sensitive to insulin, and this mineral has been shown to be inversely linked to body fat—higher magnesium means you’ll be leaner. But the real benefit of raising your magnesium levels is on physical performance, sleep, and cardiovascular health.
Magnesium calms the nervous system and helps regulate heart function, which is why raising magnesium will help you sleep better. Research shows that raising daily magnesium intake to 500 mg can lead to less anxiety in subjects who suffer from insomnia, thereby allowing them to sleep better. An added benefit of less anxiety and better rest is less of the stress hormone cortisol, which hinders fat loss when elevated.
Zinc also plays a primary role in insulin health by improving the production of enzymes that protect the cells, and it helps detoxify inflammatory biomarkers that get in the way of metabolic function. Low zinc can cause numerous other health problems including poor brain function, cancer, and heart disease.
To ensure you get enough of the Big Three, it’s best to supplement with each nutrient separately:
VITAMIN D – Coldeka
MAGNESIUM – Poliquin Uber Magnesium, Colway Magnesium Complex, Topical Magnesium, Zen Magnesium
ZINC – Zinc Balance
5. B Vitamins to support detoxification and reduce stress
- Eliminate toxins
- Eliminate excess hormones
- Improve metabolism
Support detoxification and fat burning by ensuring you have adequate B vitamins. Although there are a bunch of fat-burning nutrients that can be helpful—carnitine, taurine, alpha lipoic acid, green tea, coffee, fenugreek—none of those will be as beneficial if you don’t get enough B vitamins.
B vitamins are necessary to help the body eliminate environmental toxins and excess hormones such as estrogen. People who eat a high protein-diet increase their demand for B vitamins, which takes away from the pool needed for elimination and may inhibit fat loss.
Vitamin B6 is necessary for proper protein metabolism, the use of muscle glycogen for energy (critical for athletes), and the metabolism of hormones such as cortisol.
B6, B12, and B9 also promote the removal of estrogen down a pathway that is less likely to cause cancer. Effective removal of estrogen will help with fat loss because higher estrogen levels correlate with higher body fat. Plus, the enzyme aromatase, which turns testosterone to estrogen in the body, is higher if you have more body fat.
Once you have the B vitamins covered, research shows that other nutrients such as green tea, magnesium, and alpha lipoic acid are that much more effective for fat loss because the building blocks for elimination are in place.