adrenaline junkies

Reaching Point Break for Weight Loss

Hey, gang!

It’s been a weird couple of weeks — after returning from a conference, I was hit with the one-two combo of a sinus infection followed by a positive COVID test. So I find myself stuck at home, loaded up on antibiotics and antivirals, and displacing my health goals with the simple goal of “getting healthy again.” Or to use a paradigm created by Dr. Ben Bocchicchio, I’m just trying to get back to the middle of the fuel gauge.

Source: Dr. Ben Bocchicchio, LowCarbUSA

All the more reason to look forward to this Wednesday, March 1, at 6:30 PM Eastern, when I’ll be joined by Dr. Ben himself for a LIVE Zoom conversation. I hope you can make it! We’ll talk all about his book 15 Minutes to Fitness and about his SMaRT plan for diet and health.

one hundred percent pure adrenaline

In rereading Dr. Ben’s book this time around, one thing that struck me was a passage about a hormone that you may not associate with weight loss — adrenaline. Dr. Ben says:

“…adrenaline signals the immediate release of free fatty acids from their storage form (triglycerides) to reinforce the emergency demand of an unusual physical circumstance. That’s what high intensity muscle demand does. It signals an impending emergency.” (49)

You probably know adrenaline as the drug of choice for Bodhi and Johnny Utah, or the “fight or flight” hormone that makes your hair stand on end, your muscles tense, and readies your body to spring into action. It’s that buzzing you feel when you wake, bolt upright, to find that your home has been broken into by a malicious intruder, or a vicious squirrel (true story). So what does it have to do with losing weight?

Photo by Geran de Klerk on Unsplash

the ikea puzzle

I heard an interview some time ago with author Gary Taubes, when he told the story of assembling an IKEA bed for his kid’s room. He had the bed, but he also wanted to watch a football game that was on TV. No problem, he thought. Build the bed in the living room, then move it into the bedroom. Unfortunately, he learned the hard way that once the bed was built, it wouldn’t fit through the bedroom door.

In this analogy, free fatty acids are like board A and bolt G — each fits easily through the bedroom (fat cell) door. Once inside, they’re then bolted together to make the IKEA bed known as a triglyceride. But the triglyceride, fully assembled, is too big to come out. If we want to lose that fat, we need to get out the hex wrench and disassemble the bed; break it down and take it back out of the room, one piece at a time.

That’s where adrenaline comes in handy. When the body goes into fight-or-flight mode, adrenaline comes knocking on that fat cell door and says, “Boys, break out the hex wrench. We need some fuel, and fast.”

Or in Dr. Ben’s words:

“By controlling this signaling mechanism, high intensity exercise manipulates glycogen depletion and fat utilization in a similar, more exaggerated manner than carbohydrate restriction does. Together, they create a synergistically powerful metabolic force.”

And that’s the whole idea of Dr. Ben’s SMaRT workout. By pushing our muscles to a high-intensity level (what Dr. Ben calls a “threshold level”) we cause the body to secrete adrenaline — without all the bother of rabid squirrel attacks — and that helps our bodies burn fat.

I’ll say that in my own experience, there’s definitely a “buzz” that I feel throughout my body at the end of my SMaRT workout. I wonder if this is the adrenaline rush that comes from reaching threshold level. I’ll have to ask Dr. Ben some questions to clear it up on Wednesday. I hope you’ll join us — it should be a great time!

And in the meantime, if you have any questions you’d like me to ask Dr. Ben, shoot me a reply to this email, or leave a comment below. See you soon!