Can You Lose Weight Without Dieting or Workout?
Is that even possible? Not yet. But in the near future, you may very well be able to.
Brown fat or adipose tissue is a special type of body fat that is activated when you get cold. Brown fat contains many more mitochondria than does white fat which
Everyone has at least a little bit of brown fat.
What we know about Brown Fat
Brown fat in babies
Brown adipose tissue is especially abundant in newborns and in hibernating mammals. Its primary function is thermoregulation. Brown fat helps babies — who don’t yet have the ability to shiver — to stay warm. It was once thought that, in humans, only babies had brown fat.
Brown fat in adults
In 2009, researchers found small amounts of brown fat in adults. In adults exposed to cold temperatures, brown fat may serve as an “internal heating jacket” to keep the blood warm as it flows back to the heart and brain from our chilly extremities.
What’s more, they found that people with lower body mass indexes (BMIs) tended to have more brown fat. This finding suggests a potential role of brown fat in adult human metabolism.
Hacks to activate brown fat
Expose your skin to cold temperatures
Researchers have found that keeping your thermostat low at 59°F and wearing summer clothing will stimulate brown fat to burn an extra 100 to 250 calories, depending on the individual.
Exercise in the cold
Working out in the outdoors in winter or taking a swim in cold water may accelerate the activation of brown fat. It has a dual effect of burning calories and activating brown fat at the same time. Make sure your skin is exposed as the evaporation of sweat adds to the cooling effect.
Eat more apples
Eat your apples with the peel on. Ursolic acid found in apple peel is said to increase brown fat reserves in the body.
What the future holds
Because of brown fat’s ability to burn calories, scientists are looking for ways to exploit its power to help fight obesity
Spending time in the cold makes your brown fat more active, and could even cause you to grow new brown-fat cells, according to a 2014 study conducted by National Institutes of Health researchers and published in the journal Diabetes. “It helps you to defend our body temperature in a comfortable manner,” said Barbara Cannon, a professor of physiology at the Wenner-Grenn Institute in Stockholm and president of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Scientists are working on creating a pill that can grow brown-fat cells in your body to help you reduce body fat without requiring diet or workout of any kind. For now what we know is that brown cells are activated in the cold to keep the body warm by spending calories.