Huberman Lab podcast notes- How to Lose Fat with Science Based Tools.

By /

Hello everyone! I wrote notes for a Huberman Lab podcast episode that came out a few months back. The episode is called, “How to Lose Fat with Science Based Tools”. A link to the episode can be found here on Spotify. For those of you that do not know, Huberman Lab is a podcast created by Andrew Huberman. He is a neuroscientist who teaches at Stanford University. His podcast dives into how the brain impacts all aspects of health. I am a pretty big fan and this episode is very relevant to the work that I do. So I decided to take notes so I can share this knowledge to a wider audience!

Overall, I thought this episode was quite interesting. I was already aware of most of the concepts covered but it was interesting to hear it through a neuroscientist perspective. I also thought the idea of using cold plunges to help stimulate fat loss was an interesting new idea to help people who are a little stuck on their fat loss journey.

Apologies in advance for spelling errors and abbreviations. I wrote these notes while on my phone!

I hope you all find these notes helpful. Let’s dive into it!

Summary of episode

Fat loss is governed by the nervous system. Brain and spinal cord governs everything-including fat burn.  

How do we burn fat? 

  • It really comes down to calories
  • When we consume more calories than burn, we will gain weight 
  • When we consume less, we will burn more and some will come from fat.  The amount from fat is continent on a lot of factors. 
  • Calorie is a calorie is a unite of energy.
  • We need to accept calories in and calories out formula. 
  • However-the calories burned portion is strongly influenced by factors we can control. 
  • Hormones play a role in this caloric burn
  • How much connectivity there is between nervous system and fat dictates calories burned. 
  • Nervous system is the master controller of calories burned.  Strong role in calories burned.

If hormones and metabolism are not right, it’s going to be hard to get most out of a weight loss protocol. Adequate sleep, essential fatty acids, thyroid health and gut health all play a role in this:

Adequate sleep

  • Light exposure, temperature (cold room), timing of sleep can all help optimize it. 

Essential Fatty acids

  • We need fatty acids. Vital to all aspects of health. Reason why they essential. 
  • To support healthy metabolism and good mood, get EPA to 1000mgday.  Through fatty fish, quality meats, fish oils. 
  • Cravings from sugar can be sign of body craving essentially fatty acids and amino acids.  Glutamine and EPA can help. Take a tsp to -tbsp of glutamine each day to potentially help.  Ease into it bc it can cause GI distress.  Cottage cheese is also high in glutamine.

Thyroid and Iodine and selenium

  • If iodine and selenium levels along with and thyroid hormones are not ideal, it can drive issues with metabolism.
  • Fortified table salt may have iodine.  
  • Selenium – Brazil nuts.  1-2 nuts per day 
  • Don’t want selenium too high, but a sufficient amount is helpful for metabolism. 

Get Gut microbiome right!

  • Good metabolism is supported by a healthy gut. 
  • Does not necessarily mean probiotic supplements.
  • Serving or two of fermented foods can help.

All these things set the stage for a more optimal metabolism- resulting in more caloric burn.

Alia Crum’s work– mindset and metabolism

  • Episode can be found here.
  • Scientist that studied how our belief of things can have an impact the amount of calories burned.
  • Study– group of maids who already had a lot of movement without knowing.  One group told that their movement was sufficient for movement goals in US. The group that was told movement was good for them improved lots of metrics of health.  The group that was not told their movement was sufficient actually saw decrease in all health metrics.  So belief can have an impact on how well out metabolism workes.  
  • How we think about activities plays a role in the impact of them.

We think of fat as this gross thing.  But really it’s fuel for our metabolism.  Our neurons can turn up the intensity of that burn.

Nervous system plays a big role in why some people gain and lose weight easier. 

Dinitril phenol compound 

  • Compound discovered in armory factories in WW2
  • Women in particular would take a brush and dip in paint and brush numbers on amunision.  The paint contained compound (dinitril phenol).  They would lick the brush and paint on armory.  Lost a lot of fat without changing anything else. 
  • Compound consumed by body builders and models for weight loss. But super dangerous bc can increase heat in the body to dangerously high levels.
  • Works by connecting to neurons and driving up their activity.  This increases fat burn. 
  • Do NOT use this- super dangerous. 
  • Just an example of how neurochemistry impacts fat burn.

Your thermogenic environment is one of the most important aspects of weight loss.

How fat burn generates energy:

  • 2 part process
  • 1st- fat mobilization
    • First step- lipolysis.  Move fat out of position it’s in (fat cells in the visceral/subcutaneous tissues). 
    • Stored fat has 2 relevant parts (fatty acid and glycerol)- fatty acid- what body can use for energy.  Fatty acid is attached to glycerol.  Fatty acids breaks from glycerol through lipase. 
    • Fatty acid wants to get out of fat cells into blood stream 
  • 2- fat utilization/oxidation
    • Fatty acid goes into cells so that it can be used for energy.
    • Once inside cells, still not burned.  Need to be oxidized first. So it needs to go to mitochondria first to be oxidized. 
    • If fat is mobilized but not oxidized, it can go back to fat storage. 
    • The nervous system can increase mobilization and oxidation.  
  • Neurons send wires/axons to fat and release chemicals for more fat to be mobilized/burn.
    • What are neurons releasing?
      • Main one-epinephrine/adrenaline.
        • Conversion of fatty acids to energy is favored from adrenaline.
        • Released from adrenal glands/sympathetic nervous system. 
        • The adrenaline that stimulates fat oxidation is coming from its attachment to fat- not the adrenaline that is circulating around. 
        • How to stimulate epinephrine from the neurons that connect to fat- through movement.  Very subtle movements trigger this.  Shivering is the movement. 

Why do some eat more but don’t gain weight?  How fidgeting can help caloric burn. 

  • Discovered that some people overeat but don’t gain weight.
  • Those ppl engage in more subtle movement-fidgeting. Resting tremmer.  Bounce knee. They are almost electric.  Stand up/sit down, pace.  All these movements are considered NEAT- not exercise. 
  • In study, these ppl burned an extra 800-1200 calories more than control.
  • Even subtle movement greatly increases caloric burn.
  • Done studies where they have ppl fidget more- greatly increase weight loss from 20-30%.
  • Work best in ppl slightly overweight.  
  • Fidgeting may be a good strategy for ppl who do not want to exercise.
  • Fat burn controlled by epinephrine releases. Little fidgeting movement (not exercise) of core musculature- trigger epinephrine release from neurons.  Stimulate mobilization of fat.  Fat is oxidized at higher rates.

Shivering

  • 3 kinds of fat. White, brown and beige.
  • White is subcutaneous fat.  Not that rich in mitochondria. Used for storage.
    • Fat must be moved from this area to be burned. 
  • Brown fat- at shoulder and back of neck. Rich with mitochondria.
    • Can take food and break it down for energy right there. It’s thermogenic. 
  • Beige
    • Some mitochondria- but not as much as brown fat.
  • Cold exposure
    • Causes release  of adrenaline from adrenals. Causes release of epinephrine from neurons connected to fat.  
    • Exposure to cold- trigger activation of brown fat.  Covert more beige fat to brown fat.  Basically create stronger furness.  
    • Increase burn of energy by increasing energy of heat.
    • The shivering itself is what causes brown fat to burn. 
    • Small movement from shivering causes the release of sucinate. Succionare acts on brown fat to burn more. 
    • You can’t resist shiver if u want the effects.  
    • Sucinate may become a drug in future to treat obesity. 
    • 1-5x per week can be helpful for fat burn. 
    • Get in cold- shiver- shiver for 1-3 min, get out of cold (do not dryoff off-wait 1-3 min) , get back into cold and do it again. Go in and out 3 times.  This triggers shiver more than just jumping into cold.
    • Just cold enough to be uncomfortable. 55-high 30s.  It just depends how well you tolerate. 

Brown Fat:

  • We had a rich amount as babies.
  • Babies can not shiver/warm up well.
  • Neurons that release epinephrine in fat are not wired up when we are  babies.  
  • Shivering may be able to increase brown fat.  So if we keep doing cold therapy, we can increase brown fat- metabolism- being fat burning machine

Exercise:

  • May be possible to use exercise for spot reduction in fat. 
  • Exercise that triggers activation of nerve fibers in theory, if you can increase epinephrine in certain fat pads, can mobilization/burn fat. 
  • Adrenaline is not released systematically.  Rather neurons release epinephrine locally.  In theory, exercise paired with shivering can lead to local enhancement of fat burning.
  • Exercise involving all different parts of the body likely encourages neurons to burn fat. 
  • Anecdotal- people who engage in new patterns of exercise are able to stimulate fat burn in stubborn areas.
  • Being in a caloric deficit burns fat. But understanding neurons role in fat burn can give us a bit more control as to where it’s burned.
  • HIIT
    • 80-100% VO2max lasts 60-240 seconds.  
  • SPRINT INTERVAL TRAININGN
    • All out- greater than 100% VO2 max lasts from 8-32 seconds. Interspersed with recovery.  So spring then walk back for 1-2 min. 
  • MIIT
    • Steady state. 20-60 min.  55-75% max heart rate. 
  • Fasted exercise
    • Insulin will prevent fat oxidation.  However for short periods of training, fasting before exercise does not appear to help fat burning. 
    • Study- gave ppl glucose before training.  After 90 min of moderate exercise (zone 2) ppl who ate 1-3 hours before exercise burned  less fat at 90 min relative to those who were fasted.  This is because at 90 min we switch from glucose to fat for fuel. 
    • Recommendation for most fat burn: HIIT exercises for 20-60 min.  THEN move to zone 2 (all fasted) to burn more body fat .  The thought process is that you deplete glycogen then you can burn fat. 
  • We burn more fat AFTER high intensity exercise relative to low intensity.  Again bc the HIIT burns through glycogen- leaving us in fat burning mode after.  
  • Low intensity burns more fat during exercise and more glucose AFTER. 
  • Pick exercise you like that you can be consist with
  • However if you are looking for Huberman recommendation, he says High intensity followed by low intensity may be the key bc how it increases basal metabolic rate. 

Compounds  

  • No magic compound but some can increase fat burn
  • Caffeine.  400mg- 1-2 cups of coffee.  Causes more adrenaline release. Take some before exercise.  
  • GLP-1 from Herba matte.  GLP-1 involved in glucagon pathway.  Increases fat burn. So drink before exercise to enhance the burning of fat. Examine.com for studies on this. 
  • Guayusa. Sweeter tea. Also increases GLP-1. 
  • Berberine- reduce insulin thereby increasing fat oxidation
  • Carnitine.  GLP increases glucagon and fat burning.  L-carnitine facilitates fat oxidation.  Supplements have been shown to increase fat loss.  500mg-2g per day. Also reduce C-reactive protein, reduce glucose, optimize cholesterol. 

DIETS

  • All diets work if u can adhere to them.
  • With that said, probably a benefit to keep insulin low.  Insulin is the hormone released when carbs are consumed. So reducing grazing on processed carbs all day may be beneficial to fat loss goals!
Scroll to Top