Friday

How GLUT-4 shuttles calories into muscle instead of fat cells (powerful pre-meal fat loss trick)

Have you ever heard of a substance in your body called "GLUT-4" and how it can help preferentially shift calories into muscle cells instead of fat cells?

Well, read on, as I have some interesting science to share with you that I read about recently...

What if we could do a certain type of exercise for only about 1 minute immediately before a meal and this could help stimulate GLUT-4 to shift calories into muscle cells instead of being stored in fat cells?  Sounds good to me!

So what's the trick, and how does it work?

Well, this is yet another trick I learned from reading Tim Ferriss' fascinating book, The 4-Hour Body, which contains over 100 of these types of cool tests and studies that Tim researched.

GLUT-4 is glucose transporter type 4.

According to research that Tim has done, doing about 60-90 seconds of muscular contractions a few minutes before a meal and, ideally, about 90 minutes after a meal, helps to bring GLUT-4 to the surface of muscle cells, opening more gates for the calories to flow into.

As Tim continues, "The more muscular gates we have open before insulin triggers the same GLUT-4 on the surface of fat cells, the more we can put calories in muscle instead of fat".

I won't go into all the scientific details, but Tim actually cites several studies in his book that back up his theory that doing these muscular contractions a few minutes before a meal and 90 minutes after a meal help to shuttle calories into muscle cells instead of fat cells.

What Tim himself uses is a combination of bodyweight squats (which he calls "air squats", for contractions throughout the leg muscles), band pull-aparts (contraction in upper back muscles), and wall tricep extensions (pushups would work just as well too).

He chose these specific exercises because they would satisfy the muscular contraction needs in large areas of the body for the pre-meal and post meal contractions, but they wouldn't cause a lot of muscular damage that would interfere with his regular gym workouts and recovery.

Interesting stuff!

And I've certainly been trying to do about 1-2 minutes of exercise now before all of my dinners at home.  I've also been incorporating 2-arm kettlebell swings in my living room for about 60 seconds straight prior to eating a meal, and sometimes incorporate some pushups and band pull-aparts too.

Try out this little pre-meal trick yourself on a DAILY basis, and watch yourself get leaner by the day!  It works!

Are you interested in more methods of aggressive fat loss?  If so, check this out:

>> The #1 daily ritual to RELEASE stored up toxins and MELT belly fat (drops fat fast)


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Talk to you soon,

Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer