At some point in time, after years of researching weight-loss tips in every magazine or online article that I could find, I became quite frustrated with the fact that I was getting the same information over and over again. Eventually, I stopped reading, but when I discovered biohacking, weight loss became interesting again, and my inner health nerd was overjoyed.
Biohacking can be defined as using technology, science, nutrition, exercise, and self-experimentation in order to get you to an optimal state of health, as well as optimal mental and physical performance. When you are biohacking weight loss, it means that you do not only look at diet and exercise as ways of getting the excess fat to start disappearing from your body, but you can also use technology and certain lifestyle practices that are backed by science that can help you with achieving your weight-loss goals.
If you are intrigued and want to know how you can biohack your way to a new body, keep reading to learn more about ways of biohacking weight loss:
Take Cold Showers or Do Cryotherapy
When you expose yourself to cold temperatures, your body starts to produce more brown fat. This is fat that contains more mitochondria and is more metabolically active, which means that cold exposure can ultimately help you to burn more fat.
You can start by just ending your normal shower with 30 seconds to a minute of cold water, and work your way up.
Taking ice baths on a regular basis is also a great option, and so is visiting a place where you can do cryotherapy (if you can afford to do so). It is an intense treatment, and there will be suffering without a doubt, but if you want to lose weight through biohacking, consider the cold.
If you want to learn more about a type of breathing technique that could help you handle the cold and adapt to it, I highly recommend that you search for Wim Hoff’s technique on YouTube.
Choose the Correct Supplements When Biohacking Weight Loss
While we would never say that you could lose weight through supplementing alone, they can be helpful if you choose the correct ones and take them properly. Here are a few supplements that you can take in order to help with weight loss:
- Berberine, metformin, inositol, and holy basil. These all help control glucose levels and help prevent blood sugar levels from rising too much. By reducing glucose spikes, insulin is also reduced, which will help with weight loss.
- Probiotics. Taking probiotics and improving gut health can help you lose fat, as the bacteria in your gut can trigger food cravings, and having poor gut health can cause poor digestion and inflammation in the body, and make it harder for you to lose fat.
- L-carnitine. It helps transport fat from your fat cells to be converted to energy.
- Adaptogens, such as holy basil (tulsi) or ashwagandha. They help weight loss by helping the body cope and adapt to stress, and they also help to reduce cortisol. When cortisol is high, you will probably store more fat and struggle to lose it.
Optimise Your Workouts for Fat Loss
Biohacking is partly about optimising your diet and workouts to get the best results. You could walk for an hour, or you could opt for a 15- to 30-minute, high-intensity workout. Getting your heart rate up and working out at a higher intensity for a shorter amount of time will be more beneficial for fat loss, and you will end up saving a lot of time. This type of workout has an afterburn effect, so you will actually end up burning far more calories at rest after the workout is complete.
Some type of strength training or resistance training like weight lifting will also help you lose fat, as it also has an afterburn effect. Having more muscle means your resting metabolic rate (calories burned at rest in a day) will be higher, so your long-term results will also be better. It will be easier to maintain your results.
Play Around With Meal Frequency and Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting is a very popular biohacking tip that can bring incredible results. This entails fasting for a certain period of time every day and restricting your eating window. An example would be to fast for 16 hours and eat within an eight-hour window. This means you will probably only eat two meals a day.
Extended fasts that are 24 hours or longer have also been quite popular. Going on three- to seven-day water fasts is something that many have seen great results from. Even if you just try to reduce the number of times you eat in a day, it can accelerate your results. If you used to eat six times a day, try eating only three times a day, and perhaps later move to two.
The reason this works is that your insulin levels rise whenever you eat, so by taking long breaks between eating, you reduce the number of times your insulin levels spike, and it gives your body time to process what you have had at your last meal properly.
Personally, I saw results the fastest when I started reducing the number of times I eat on a daily basis from six to three. On some days, I can manage to stick to two, but I do not expect myself to do that every day.
If you have already applied all of the common tips that are out there for getting rid of the excess padding, then perhaps starting a biohacking journey could be what you need to improve your results.
If you are only starting your war against your muffin top now, then you will have an advantage if you start biohacking from the start. You should also experiment to see what works for you and your body and what does not.
Every day, you could get a few steps closer to your goal of becoming as healthy as possible and looking your best by following the right biohacking weight-loss tips.
