The Secret to Burning Fat is Your Health

There is so much said and written about how to burn fat, much of it conflicting and confusing, that you wonder if anyone really knows. Fad diets, new workout routines, fat burning (or blocking) pills, and the latest celebrity endorsed gizmo are all over the media, all promising the answer to burning fat.

Even as a trainer, I have heard for years from other trainers: calories in, calories out and a calorie is a calorie, as if our bodies can't tell the difference between 200 calories of vegetables and 200 calories of donut. How many of us have 2 hours a day to actually burn off all of the calories we eat and the excess we are carrying in our fat cells? Unless you're an endurance athlete, that isn't going to work.

Fat burning and metabolism is controlled by our hormones and the organs that produce them. Unless those organs are healthy and working as they should, and the correct hormones are being released in our bodies, it doesn't matter what you do, your body won't burn fat for any sustainable length of time. What little you do lose will be right back as soon as the effects of the latest fat burning technique wears off.

The answer is the body's endocrine system. Fortunately you don't have to be an endocrinologist to understand how it works. It does require some discipline with your eating habits and regular exercise but the effects are a healthier, fat burning body that isn't at the mercy of the latest fitness fad.

The best book I can recommend to help you understand how your body's endocrine system controls fat burning is "The 7 Principles of Fat Burning" by Eric Berg, DC. His book explains what causes your body to burn and to store fat and offers plenty of meal plan examples. The advice in this book is also clearly a benefit to your health.