EASY STRENGTH
FOR
FAT LOSS
DAN JOHN
The Basic Basics (if you don’t feel like reading all of this)
Five days a week, I am recommending this:
Get a good night’s sleep.
Wake up and drink coffee (or take a caffeine pill…not for me)
Keep fasting until you train.
Training:
1. Ab Wheel: 1 x 10
2. Vertical Press: 3 x 3
3. Vertical Pull: 3 x 3 or Six singles (adding load or staying the same)
4. Deadlift Variation: 3 x 3
5. KB Swings: Up to 75…push the Heart Rate up.
6. On the last rep, walk out the door and go for about 45 minutes without
getting the heart rate over 180 minus your age. (The goal is for onehour workouts…maybe five days a week)
Veggies and Proteins at meals; Drink Water all day as appropriate
Two “Gut Biome Breaks:” Fermented foot (I like sauerkraut) and a piece of fruit (I like
apples, my daughter can’t eat them, so choose wisely). Just before a meal is fine, I like
to do it between my two daily meals.
On the other two days, do some additional Original Strength work and go for a stroll,
but keep doing everything else.
The devil is in the details.
Here we go:
I’ve been getting a lot of emails and podcast questions about using the Easy Strength model for
fat loss. I am happy to report that people ask about fat loss now and stopped using “weight
loss.”
If I cut your leg off, you lose weight. It’s not the same as fat loss.
Listen, it’s going to be some effort to lose body fat. I think gaining Lean Body Mass is the most
difficult thing to do…followed closely by losing body fat.
Yes, that’s what people want. It is far better to NOT gain the fat than to try to lose it. Not long
ago, Pat Flynn and I had a fun conversation about a question Covert Baily was once asked:
“What would you do if you ‘woke up fat?’” I promised Pat that I would write a Pirate Map for
this and…here you go:
If I woke up fat Pirate Map…for Pat Flynn’s Chronicles of Strength
Basically, we would have to look at three interlocking keys:
•
•
•
Belly Biome
Appropriate Training
Sleep but also general recovery and joint mobility
We all know that I am going to say: “Eat protein, eat veggies, drink water” and “More protein,
more veggies, more fish oil.” And, that is true. But there is more: a lot of new research is telling
us that the gut biome is probably an issue for depression, some nervous disorders and,
hopefully, the obesity epidemic.
As important as I think that nutrition is the key to fat loss (“fat loss happens in the kitchen”)
perhaps the overuse of antibiotics, plastics in the food, odd chemicals in fast food and the
aggressive behaviors food producers use to entice us to eat more beige food makes simply
saying “eat less” counterproductive.
We must also learn to train on the edges of the Power Laws for fast loss. Intense short sessions
followed by long walks “seems” to get the body in a state ready for fat burning. Finally, many
people sleep poorly and never really recover. As we sit too much in chairs, we cement our
bodies in ways that make it difficult to move AND difficult to get comfortable to sleep at night.
So…my answer to “What I would do if I woke up fat!” Here is my Pirate Map.
1. Before bed, make coffee and set the timer to wake me up to the smell of coffee. Take
medications or supplements…if needed. Have one serving of Orange Flavored Sugar Free
Metamucil (it is doing wonders for my blood profiles). Make the bedroom as dark and as quiet
as possible.
2. Wake up and drink coffee (answer calls, emails, forums and write as needed) for a few hours.
Sure, drink some water too. FAST while you work.
Three Days a week
3a. Hopefully, after about 15 hours of fasting, do some kind of short (4-15 minute workout) that
has some level of full body movements and some intensity. I use barbell complexes; Pat has
plenty of KB complexes. A four-minute Tabata Front Squat could be done every so often. Get
the HR up, “get sweaty” and get done. Immediately, WALK for as long as you can. This is when
you burn fat. I find about two miles with my ankle weights and hand weights to be just about
perfect. You can also use cardio machines, but do NOT push the Heart Rate!
3b. During the other days of the week, do a fasted mobility “work out.” I use Tim Anderson’s
Original Strength. Enjoy it. Breath and just let it flow.
4. Eat 2-3 meals a day loaded with veggies…and whatever else. One thing: BEFORE each meal,
eat a few forkfuls of sauerkraut…or other fermented food. Not much is needed.
5. 1-2 times a day, eat a single piece of fruit (I choose apples) and perhaps some veggies,
sauerkraut, and, if necessary, some fish. (I will often have a can of sardines if I somehow get
“famished!”)
6. Take some time daily to meditate, read and self-reflect (writing in a journal can be gold). I
also use the apps, One Moment Meditation, and Brain.FM to guide me here.
And, that’s it. I honestly think there is magic in fasting, Metamucil, sauerkraut, the apples and
the intense workout followed by the walk. The OS work and “time to myself” not only deal with
stressors but set you up for a better night’s sleep.
Every so often, I might increase my fast by doing the Fast Mimicking Diet or perhaps simply
fasting from dinner to dinner. That’s a “might.” Would I would NOT do is…more. Let the body
rebuild its biome, let the fat burning process happen appropriately and take care of sleep and
stress. Don’t add MORE stress!
That’s what I would do. (End program for Pat)
That’s not bad. More clarity would be nice. These are the complexes I used for this in barbell
work:
Complex A
Row
Clean
Front squat
Military press
Back squat
Good mornings
Complex C (It’s called “C,” from the work I have done in the past. This program doesn’t have all
the others…including “B.”)
Hang snatch
Overhead squat
Back squat
Good mornings
Row
Deadlift
Barking Knees Complex
Snatch Grip RDL
Snatch Grip High Pull
Hang Power Snatch
Good Morning
Rows
(A fuller examination of complexes is at the bottom.)
But here is the problem:
I love complexes. After about three weeks of doing them daily, I HATE complexes. It got me
thinking a bit.
Thinking. That’s a good thing.
Could it be possible to make the lifting even easier than complexes?
Getting strong easier? Hmmm. Like Easy Strength?
I started wondering about something Rusty Moore talks about a lot. His ideal muscle building
workout for fat loss is, basically, Easy Strength. He feels that the ES style of training leads to a
kind of muscle tone that looks good with lower body fat numbers. He takes the concepts of
Easy Strength and applies them to “looking good!”
By using the concept of “irradiation,” loosely based on Sir Charles Scott Sherrington’s Laws, the
idea is simply that one can add more load to the bar and stimulate more muscle fibers by
consciously willing the rest of the body to kick in and help out.
Moore summed the basics brilliantly with his post on One Arm Presses:
Mastering the One Arm Press Requires Mastering Irradiation
https://visualimpactfitness.com/the-one-arm-military-press/
The second workout I did with one arm military presses, I was struggling a bit to get 60
pounds moving.
Then I decided to use irradiation in my favor.
I first make a fist with the arm I wasn’t using, let that tension increase across my body
and when it hit the side I was lifting with I tightened my grip on the dumbbell and easily
lifted it overhead.
Now I simultaneously do this while also tightening my abs. I haven’t tried flexing the legs
yet, but I am guessing that will help me reach the next level.
This is where I am heading now.
End quote.
Moore developed this into a brilliant program called Visual Impact Frequency Training. He
offers an amazing program here: http://dj84123.visimpact.hop.clickbank.net/?id=frequency
(I am on an affiliate link here, but I bought it for myself. I am NOT recommending it for the
income I will get on the affiliate; it’s a great program. It goes in a different direction than ES, but
it might be worth your time.)
Yes, Easy Strength builds strength. But many people noticed that after a few workouts they felt
better and “looked” better. Robb Wolf has a wonderful phrase, hormonal cascade, to explain
that magic that happens when you train appropriately and good things happen to your body.
I think a program that stresses strength will also encourage your body to turn around.
“How” does it work? Well, I am working on this. At the end of this whole discussion, you will
find information concerning studies about combining Resistance Training (RT) with other work.
It’s science! I like Rusty Moore’s idea that when you lift, do intense work, you free up fatty acids
and the walk after the lifting deals with the free fatty acids. He sums it as:
Intense exercise releases free fatty acids, strategic cardio burns free fatty acids.
That might be worth memorizing.
Coffee frees up the fatty acids too. It seems like every day someone is discovering a new benefit
for this delightful beverage. Coffee makes fasting easier (maybe it’s as simple as freeing up the
free fatty acids), gives us a bit of a push when we train and helps many have the urge to
eliminate the bowels.
Win. Win. Win.
Someone asked me once how fasting helps with fat loss. My answer was brilliant: you don’t eat
calories if you are not eating. How did I not get the Nobel Prize?
So…fasting, coffee, and the intense work all work together to get the free fatty acids up and at
‘em then the walking burns ‘em off.
It seems like stealing in the fat loss game.
Let’s review the basic idea:
Five days a week, I am recommending this:
Get a good night’s sleep.
Wake up and drink coffee (or take a caffeine pill…not for me)
Keep fasting until you train.
Training:
1. Ab Wheel: 1 x 10
2. Vertical Press: 3 x 3
3. Vertical Pull: 3 x 3 or Six singles (adding load or staying the same)
4. Deadlift Variation: 3 x 3
5. KB Swings: Up to 75…push the Heart Rate up.
6. On the last rep, walk out the door and go for about 45 minutes without
getting the heart rate over 180 minus your age. (The goal is for onehour workouts…maybe five days a week)
Veggies and Proteins at meals; Drink Water all day as appropriate
Two “Gut Biome Breaks:” Fermented foot (I like sauerkraut) and a piece of fruit (I like
apples, my daughter can’t eat them, so choose wisely). Just before a meal is fine, I like
to do it between my two daily meals.
On the other two days, do some additional Original Strength work and go for a stroll,
but keep doing everything else.
Vertical presses can be anything you like overhead. I have lots of bells and bars, so I have more
options. If you only have one kettlebell you might want to have a mix of moves.
Easy days:
Standing single presses.
Hard days:
Bottoms up presses
Medium days:
Half kneeling presses.
Remember the rules for ES: NEVER miss!!!! Never come close to missing. Get the reps in.
Vertical pulls can be any member of the pull up/chin up family. Some may utilize suspension
trainers or others, machines. I still think that six single pull ups done as explosively as possible is
a tremendous strength movement. If you can’t get vertical pulls, do something that makes
sense to you.
On the deadlift variation, whatever works for you. The person with the single KB might just
have to do some one-legged variations…or whatever. It’s impossible to come up with all seven
billion variations of this training program.
For most people, the swings are going to be ugly. I suggest you try my Bulgarian Goat Bag
Swings and save yourself the issues caused by poor swings. With BGBS, keep the reps around
50. If you just do Hip Thrusts, think three sets of 25 but be sure to get up and down off the
ground each time.
The ab wheel, in this program, is the warmup.
In my new book, Attempts: Essays in Health, Fitness, Longevity and Easy Strength, I go into
more detail but I can finally feel comfortable telling people that one does not have to change
weights or exercises to get some of the odd benefits of the ES training approach.
It works.
I just don’t know the why or how.
So, when I just had my 28-kilo bell, I could have done:
1 x 10 Ab wheel
3 x 3 Presses
Six single pull ups.
3 x 3 Single Leg DLs R/L
5 x 15 Swings and OUT THE DOOR for my walk.
(Someone asked if you do one exercise THEN move on or if you do circuits. Both, I guess, would
be fine, but I do one exercise and then move on to the next. YMMV)
It’s not bad at all. Pretty good really.
I am NOT recommending the following.
Years ago, my doctor, who is also a former student of mine, put me on drug called Metformin
(Glucophage). Since picking up a liver parasite in the Middle East, I have struggled with my
fasting glucose numbers. He told me that this very inexpensive drug (at most, five cents a day)
would “empty my liver.”
Later, I read that some research is leaning into the idea that this drug helps with longevity. All I
know is that I used to live around 110-120 on my annual blood test (fasting glucose number)
and now I am 81. Does that mean my liver wakes up “empty?” Dunno…I’m already out of my
element here…way out of my depth.
But here is the idea: if you are facing diabetes (or “pre-diabetes” as I was told I have), this
cheap pill might set off a nice chain of events with ES program for fat loss.
Obviously, see a doctor. I am not giving medical advice just being candid about my experiences.
Resources for this article
Rebuild Yourself with Complexes
by Dan John
If I ever recommended a workout that cut fat and built muscle at the same time, I'm not sure I'd
believe myself. After all the late night television hucksters, I'm not sure what to believe
anymore.
But then, last week, a student came up to me during the transition of our workout and asked,
"Coach, can I get a copy of all the complexes for my dad? The rest of the guys in the fire
department want to do them, too."
"Well, sure," I said. "Why?"
"Coach, everybody's getting huge."
So, without buying a plastic gizmo or a DVD of me in a tank top sweating to bad music, let's
discuss complexes.
It All Started When...
After eight years in a Catholic elementary school, I moved on to a public junior high school and
discovered how sheltered my life had been. Southwood Junior High in South San Francisco was
a far cry from the quiet confines of my parish school with the good Irish nuns.
One thing we did have at Southwood was a fabulously simple weight training program.
Our Southwood workout, as I discussed in detail in a previous article, was very straightforward:
Power clean x 8-6-4
Military press x 8-6-4
Front squat x 8-6-4
Bench press x 8-6-4
On one particular day, our instructor, Mr. Freeman, due to a short class period for an assembly,
simplified things even more. We just had to do power cleans, military presses, and front squats
for eight reps followed by a short rest as one's partner did the three exercises. Then we'd do
them for six reps before finishing with four.
Without the bench press, this workout sounded easy. He added one little thing, though: You
couldn't put the bar down once you started the three lifts.
It's that back-to-back brutality that adds up, my friends. I choked on those last reps of the front
squat trying to figure out where I left my lungs.
That was my first complex.
Going Back in Time
The roots of complexes are fairly deep. It reflects the peripheral heart action (PHA) workouts
pioneered in the 1960s by Mr. America, Bob Gajda, who also assisted the legendary Sergio
Olivia. You can find more about it in John McCallum's Keys to Progress.
Here's an example of one sequence from a PHA workout:
Front squat x 12
Cuddle sit-ups x 25
Curls x 10
Seated twists x 25
Wrestler's bridge x 10
Then you rest and repeat the sequence four total times. You'd then do up to three or four other
sequences during this workout. It had advantages, as it seemed to burn a lot of fat and covered
every body part imaginable.
There's an obvious problem with PHA. You have to have a lot of equipment, and it's nice to be
able to move from dumbbell to barbell to chin-up bar without having to wait or find the stuff
you just left there a minute ago. Those of us who have trained in college gyms or public
establishments know that equipment will literally walk away to another corner as you move
from exercise to exercise.
For many of us who trained in the 1970s, the Universal Gym was the answer to this problem. I
had football workouts that were simply this:
Bench press
Lat pull-down
Leg press
Hyperextension
Leg extension/leg curl
Neck harness
Wrist roller
Shoulder press
Incline sit-up
After thirty seconds at each station, the coach would blow the whistle. We'd move over and
continue training. This workout could accommodate a lot of athletes and, for what is was, this
was a good workout.
The Nautilus machine workouts were also believed to improve cardiovascular condition by
moving quickly from station to station. It also allowed the gym owners to shuttle clients out of
the gym quickly, too.
Once again, if you have to find out anything and everything under the sun about weightlifting,
pop open your copy of John Jesse's Wrestling Physical Conditioning Encyclopedia. In its pages,
you'll find every variation, trick, and special equipment ever conceived for strength training.
The chapters on circuit training and endurance cover many of the basic principles of complexes.
Complexes, the Javorek Way
In the past few years, Istvan "Steve" Javorek's work with complexes has been stolen and
repackaged many times. I have to make a short nod to something he notes on his website:
"From what I've heard, from the far end of Siberia to Iceland to California, thousands of coaches
are performing with their athletes Javorek's complex exercises, but some of them give credit to
themselves. I really worked hard on developing these exercises and I like to share with
everyone my 'little secrets,' just give credit to the 'creator.'
"My original goal with the complex exercises was to find an efficient and aggressive method of
performance enhancement that saves time and makes the program more enjoyable. If you
choose to use these (in some form) with your athletes, be honest and call your new complex
exercises 'Variation to Javorek's Complex Exercises.'"
Javorek's complexes are brilliant and have all the keys to success for someone contemplating
them.
Javorek's Barbell Complex #1
Barbell upright row x 6
Barbell high pull snatch x 6
Barbell behind the head squat and push press x 6
Barbell behind the head good morning x 6
Barbell bent-over row x 6
More Complexes, More Pain
Another master of the complex is Alywn Cosgrove. After the Velocity Diet, I began doing
Alwyn's Afterburn II program and soon discovered that simply doing complexes on their own
was one of the biggest oversights in my training career. I suggest you check your ego at the
door before you begin Afterburn II. Alwyn's insights include one variation for the busy person
that I'll address in a moment.
My definition of a complex is simple. A complex is a series of lifts back to back where you finish
the reps of one lift before moving on to the next lift. The barbell only leaves your hand or
touches the floor after all of the lifts are completed. Although you can do them with dumbbells
or kettlebells, I argue that we only use barbells. Certainly, there's great value in the other tools,
but for getting athletes bigger, I like to use the heavier bar.
The key to organizing a complex is to make sure that the bar passes over your head in some
kind of logical manner. In other words, if you do rows first, followed by back squats, how did
the bar get there? I try to have the bar pass backwards over the head after a few lifts, but only
pass forward again one time.
So, when you try these (it's probably best to use a broomstick first), note that it'll save you
some effort if you think about the exercise transitions before you get too heavy.
For example, if you have a military press before a back squat, on the last military press rep,
lower the weight to the back.
Take a minute to think them through before going for a max on these complexes.
Your rest periods should be longer than what you originally think. Like most of my workouts,
these appear easy on paper.
The most difficult thing to consider is the rep range. For a fat burning hit and a massive
conditioning bang, try doing sets of eight.
Complex A for Eights
Row x 8
Clean x 8
Front squat x 8
Military press x 8
Back squat x 8
Good mornings x 8
Gently place the bar on the ground and rest!
I like sets of three for adding mass to my young athletes. The more time under the bar, the
more the body adapts by getting bigger. Moreover, it seems to also be most helpful on the
playing field. When you watch a sophomore boy handle Complex A with 155 for three
complexes of three reps each, you have to realize that this is a very strong human being, even if
he's just 15.
You can play with any rep variations you like, but I've found that eights and threes are the best.
If you do five sets of eight, you probably won't be doing much more in this workout. Three sets
of three make an excellent pre-lift warm-up or, with heavier weights, can be used as a strength
and mass building workout.
The sets seem to be almost geometric in the impact on the body. Err on the side of caution for
the first few workouts before attempting more than three sets of complexes.
Alywn Cosgrove adds another variation that I use for strength building. Basically, you drop a rep
each set and add weight. Now, be careful here, as the weights go up quickly.
Let's look at Complex C with this variation:
Complex C
Hang snatch
Overhead squat
Back squat
Good mornings
Row
Deadlift
Set 1: 8 reps with the bar, 45 pounds
Set 2: 7 reps with 65 pounds
Set 3: 6 reps with 85 pounds
Set 4: 5 reps with 105 pounds
Set 5: 4 reps with 125 pounds
Set 6: 3 reps with 145 pounds
Set 7: 2 reps with 165 pounds
Set 8: 1 rep with 185 pounds
Now, there's an assumption here that you can snatch 185, then complete the workout. Again,
on paper, this looks easy.
One other thing I like to do is to print out each complex in size 68 Arial font so that I can see the
whole series on the ground in front of me. Place the sheet about three feet in front of the
barbell and simply keep your mind on the exercise at hand. Use the sheet to remind you to
move to the next exercise. With my large groups, I have the sheets all in plastic protectors, and
we save them for weeks at a time.
The Select Six
Now it's time I offer you my six favorite complexes. Note that each has six lifts and many of the
exercises will be fairly familiar to all of you. If you don't know how to do a lift, don't do it.
Complex A
Row
Clean
Front squat
Military press
Back squat
Good mornings
Complex B
Deadlift
Clean-grip high pull
Clean-grip snatch
Back squat
Good mornings
Row
Complex C
Hang snatch
Overhead squat
Back squat
Good mornings
Row
Deadlift
Complex D
Upright row
Clean-grip snatch
Back squat
Behind the neck press
Good mornings
Row
Complex E
Power clean
Military press
Back squat
Good mornings
Behind the neck press
Front squat
Complex F
Overhead squat
Back squat
Good morning
Front squat
Rows
Deadlift
Complexes Keep it Simple
I find that swimming through these three times a week eliminates boredom. If you only do
them twice a week and play with the three reps schemes (eights, threes, and 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1),
you have 18 workout ideas that'll last nine weeks.
When I sell this on late night TV, I'll be the guy with the ponytail and spandex.
The Basics of Gut Biome: The Future…a Personalized Approach
https://individualizedmedicineblog.mayoclinic.org/2019/02/08/personalized-diets-foodsshaped-to-your-lifestyle-genetics-and-gut/
With this knowledge, Dr. Iyer took a personalized approach to modifying his diet.
“I don’t have to give up all carbohydrates. Instead, I’ve cut down on just the carbohydrates that
cause my blood sugar to rise, like rice and wheat grains. I am eating more proteins such as eggs
and cottage cheese that keep my blood sugar steady. And I’m staying away from sugary
breakfast cereals and yogurts. I’ve lost a little bit of weight and I feel more energetic,” he says.
End quote.
Probably the Single BEST Discussion of this Gut Biome Idea
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-the-western-diet-has-derailed-our-evolution
This first selection, frankly, amazed me as I read it.
Indeed, when Sonnenburg fed mice plenty of fiber, microbes that specialized in breaking it
down bloomed, and the ecosystem became more diverse overall. When he fed mice a fiberpoor, sugary, Western-like diet, diversity plummeted. (Fiber-starved mice were also meaner
and more difficult to handle.) But the losses weren’t permanent. Even after weeks on this junk
food-like diet, an animal’s microbial diversity would mostly recover if it began consuming fiber
again.
This was good news for Americans—our microbial communities might re-diversify if we just ate
more whole grains and veggies. But it didn’t support the Sonnenburgs’ suspicion that the
Western diet had triggered microbial extinctions. Yet then they saw what happened when
pregnant mice went on the no-fiber diet: temporary depletions became permanent losses.
When we pass through the birth canal, we are slathered in our mother’s microbes, a kind of
starter culture for our own community. In this case, though, pups born to mice on Americantype diets—no fiber, lots of sugar—failed to acquire the full endowment of their mothers’
microbes. Entire groups of bacteria were lost during transmission. When Sonnenburg put these
second-generation mice on a fiber-rich diet, their microbes failed to recover. The mice couldn’t
regrow what they’d never inherited. And when these second-generation animals went on a
fiberless diet in turn, their offspring inherited even fewer microbes. The microbial die-outs
compounded across generations.
End quote.
The following really got me thinking about how much more complex things are in life. Let’s
continue to read:
The problem with the fiber hypothesis, however, has always been twofold. People who eat
plenty of fiber seem to have a lower risk of many diseases, including heart disease and
diabetes. But when scientists have fed fiber to volunteers, they haven’t historically observed
much benefit. And this underscores the real mystery: By what mechanism does fiber improve
health?
Soluble fiber is an umbrella term for complex plant sugars—including some polysaccharides,
oligosaccharides, and fructans. The molecules consist of simple sugars linked together in long,
hard-to-dismantle chains. If you dump a load of fiber—or microbiota-accessible
carbohydrates—onto a colonic community of microbes, those that specialize in fermenting it
will bloom. And they’ll start churning out short-chain fatty acids, including butyrate, whose
smell you might recognize from aged cheese, and acetate, which gives vinegar its sharpness.
These acids, Sonnenburg thinks, are one of the long-sought mechanisms by which fiber
prevents disease. Rodent studies suggest that as they diffuse into circulation, they stimulate the
anti-inflammatory arm of the immune system—cells that help you not attack tree pollen and
other harmless proteins—preventing allergies and other inflammatory diseases. The calming
effect reaches as far as the bone marrow and lungs, where, as a recent Nature Medicine study
showed, the acids reduced animals’ vulnerability to asthma.
As Justin Sonnenburg put it, “We have this unsupervised drug factory in our gut.” The question
facing microbiologists today is how to properly tend to that factory.
End quote.
Finally, a bit of an answer for you to use right away:
Years ago, impelled in part by their oldest daughter’s constipation problems, the Sonnenburg
family revamped its diet. They threw out all processed food-stuffs, and began eating plenty of
veggies and whole grains. They bought a dog. Justin Sonnenburg began hand-milling his own
wheat berries for bread. He took up gardening. And when he compared his archived microbes
from years ago with recent ones, he discovered that his microbial diversity had increased by
half. “That’s a huge difference,” he told me, “as big as the difference between Americans and
Amerindians.”
End quote.
Some Information on Free Fatty Acids
http://www.faqs.org/sports-science/Fo-Ha/Free-Fatty-Acids-in-the-Blood.html
The free fatty acids released from adipose tissue can be utilized anywhere there is an energy
need within the body. The process of releasing these compounds begins with a signal from the
pancreas, the organ responsible for the monitoring of glucose concentrations in the blood.
When a low glucose level is detected, the glucagon hormone is released to stimulate glucose
release from the stores of glycogen in the liver. If the blood level of glucose is too high, the
body releases the hormone insulin. In this circumstance, fatty acid production will be
stimulated through the further trigger of the chemical lipase in the adipose tissue. The ultimate
destination of the released fatty acids is the mitochondria of the subject cells that require
energy. The mitochondria is the powerhouse of every cell.
There is a well-known correlation between the consumption of caffeine and the metabolizing of
free fatty acids. Caffeine promotes the process of lipolysis, the breakdown of the triglycerides
stored in the adipose cells. There is also a scientifically established linkage between the
increased presence of fatty acids in the bloodstream and the onset of diabetes, the disease
whereby the body produces insufficient amounts of insulin to properly regulate the level of
blood sugars (glucose).
While fat, in the form of fatty acids, is a very desirable energy source, it is dependent on the
presence of oxygen to be useful. In circumstances where energy is required by the body more
quickly than oxygen can be delivered to the required location, the body will switch to its less
energy efficient anaerobic system. When the body is using one of its anaerobic energy systems,
it cannot burn fat, but it will simply generate less energy and will sustain a greater glucose
depletion.
End Quote
Metformin
https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/metformin-cause-weight-loss
Scientists have also been trying to understand how metformin leads to weight loss. Because it
alters gut bacteria, digestive issues are common side effects. So one early theory was that
stomach pain caused people to lose their appetite and eat less, or that they lost water weight
from diarrhea. But most of these side effects go away in a few weeks. People who lost weight
on metformin continued to lose pounds after that time.
A more likely explanation is that metformin’s changes in the gut tamp down appetite. It may
raise the body’s levels of the hormone leptin, which makes you feel full. Since your appetite
isn’t working overtime, you eat less.
The weight you lose on the drug comes mostly from fat stores, not the mix of fat and lean
muscle that happens with dieting. People on metformin also saw lower waist measurements
and waist-to-hip ratios, two ways to measure body fat.
Is Metformin an Effective Weight Loss Pill?
No.
Exercise, Coffee and “Lipids”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1728869X1200010X
“Results
Peak values for performance and ventilatory parameters for exercise trials under placebo and
caffeine conditions are shown in Table 1. Participants in the caffeine trial cycled longer,
achieved greater peak power output, heart rate and relative oxygen consumption than in the
placebo trial, whereas the respiratory exchange ratio was lower.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24730354/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22385646/