Do you know that you have two types of fat stores in your body? You have white fat, which is ‘storage’ fat and you have brown fat, which burns energy instead of storing it. In a sense, brown fat acts more like muscle than fat. By activating this type of fat, you can apparently increase your fat-burning potential by 300% (so says Tim Ferriss, author of The Four-Hour Body).
In order to burn brown fat, you need to cool your body down by applying ice therapy in any of the below-mentioned ways.
The first is to drink ice water (around 500ml every morning seems to be sufficient). The second is to take ice-cold showers and the third is to take an ice bath three times weekly (immersing yourself completely).
The last option (I tend to use this one for clients) is to lie and relax for 30 minutes with a couple of ice packs on both your upper back and your upper chest area. Most people don’t put time aside for relaxation daily, so this kills two birds with one stone. There are certain areas in the body that have greater quantities of these brown fat cells – the upper chest and upper back being two of them – hence the ice packs applied to this area.
Dr Joseph Mercola (www.mercola.com) says: ‘Studies have also shown that animals convert white fat into brown fat simply by exercising. The conversion is triggered by an enzyme called irisin, which is released by the muscles during exercise. It’s still unclear whether this phenomenon is true for humans as well, but humans do have the same protein.’
So, in conclusion, couple these regular ice-therapy habits, with skipping breakfast regularly and performing interval training on an empty stomach and you have a major fat-burning, health-enhancing programme.
Tanya Wyatt
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