When it comes to proper fat loss, we have three things to think about: training, nutrition, and supplementation.
So long as your training and nutrition are in check, you should also take a look at dietary supplements to help you achieve the best results in the least amount of time.
To that end, we’ve put together this guide to take an in-depth look at fat burners, what benefits they offer, and why you might want to use them.
What Are Fat-Burners?
Fat burners, as the name suggests, is a group of dietary supplements, designed to help us burn more fat. These supplements consist of naturally-occurring products that have been shown to help us burn more fat - in one form or another.
As a whole, fat burners are some of the most controversial products in the supplements world, and you’re bound to hear countless (and contradicting) opinions on them.
Some folks suggest that they are nothing more than a waste of money; others swear by them.
But, who is right and who is wrong here? There certainly has to be some middle ground, right?
Well, there is.
Let’s take a more in-depth look.
How Do Fat-Burners Work?
You can think of fat burners as a highly-accurate weapon, but instead of hunting with it, we instead point it at our fat cells. So, how does that happen?
Well, most fat burners cause hormonal reactions within the body that cause a myriad of positive effects, including that of accelerating fat loss. Take, for example, the most common ingredient in fat burners - caffeine.
Caffeine is the best-known stimulant in the world, and most of us consume it through coffee. The compound works by stimulating the release of catecholamines – three of which are dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine.
The increased levels of these hormones leads to positive effects such as an elevated metabolic rate, increased rates of fat-burning, improved athletic performance (thus allowing us to burn more calories while working out), and improved mood.
All of this means that we can exert more effort into each workout, burn more calories, cause more fatty acids to be broken down for energy, and see a small boost in our resting metabolic rate (RMR).
Another common fat-burner ingredient is l-carnitine - an amino acid that should be taken pre-workout because it appears to boost our performance. L-carnitine works on a couple of fronts:
First, it boosts our performance, which allows us to burn more calories during each workout, and put ourselves in a caloric deficit more easily. Second, l-carnitine appears to boost fat oxidation rates, which means that taking some of it before exercise is a great way to increase fat-burning during your workout and get leaner more quickly.
Each fat burner has its unique effects within the body, so let’s take a look at the most significant benefits we can expect from supplementing with them.
Three Incredible Benefits of Fat-Burning Supplements
Fat burners allow us to shed more fat tissue over the same amount of time by doing three things:
1. Elevating metabolism.
Fat-burner ingredients such as caffeine, l-carnitine, green tea extract, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), and similar help boost our metabolic rate. According to some research, this boost is modest but significant. Even as little as seven percent increase in metabolic rate can lead to significant fat loss over as little as four weeks.
For example, if your total daily energy expenditure is 2700 calories and a fat-burner boosts it by seven percent, that will increase it to 2890 calories. Over a week, that’s an extra 1,300+ calories being burned, or just below half a pound of fat loss.
2. Suppressing hunger.
Dieting often brings about one nasty side-effect - hunger. Most people give up on their goals of getting lean not because they don’t want it, but because dealing with hunger can be almost impossible.
The good news is, most fat-burning ingredients work to suppress our hunger, which means that we can more easily stick to a calorie-restricted diet and lose fat.
3. Improving fat mobilisation and burning.
And lastly, this is a direct benefit of fat-burners and applies to the process of fat oxidation.
Fat-burners boost levels of fat mobilisation and burning, which means that we burn more body fat and blood fatty acids for energy while sparing our much-needed sugars.
All of this leads to more effective fat loss and more energy (glucose) left for our valuable muscle tissue.