"The Stubborn Fat Solution" by Lyle McDonald

• As with so many aspects of physique enhancement, there is a lot of lore and outright bullshit when it comes to the topic of stubborn body fat and what to do about it.
• Stubborn fat not only stores calories more effectively, but it is hellishly resistant to giving it up. That's why it's stubborn.
• Men don't need to be concerned with stubborn body fat until they're around 10%.
• The body always takes fat from the least stubborn places first; until you get rid of the easy stuff, there's no point in targeting the stubborn stuff.
• Blood flow is a huge area of importance for getting rid of stubborn body fat.
• Spot reduction is an absurd myth that refuses to die and is, fundamentally, a physiological impossibility.
• When you're in a calorie deficit, your body needs to mobilize fuel. Because the body can't easily get stubborn fat to use for fuel (and there's no other body fat left to use), in a deficit situation it will turn to muscle mass.
• By forcing the body to mobilize stubborn body fat for fuel, not only do you get leaner faster at the end of your diet, you spare muscle loss.
• Please note: getting this lean (i.e. six-pack lean) even once will screw you up for the rest of your life; once you've been uber-lean anything above that feels fat.
• The more technical term for body fat is adipose tissue, with individual cells being called adipocytes.
• In humans, the primary type of fat cell is called white adipose tissue, or WAT, so named because of its color. While there is another type of fat, called brown adipose tissue or BAT, it's generally thought that humans didn't have much BAT and hence it could be ignore.
• In humans, fat cell number can vary drastically. Lean individuals may have anywhere from 41 to 65 billion fat cells, while obese individuals can have upwards of 200 billion fat cells; fat cell number can also vary based on genetics, race, and the area of fat you're looking at.
• Contrary to popular belief, fat cell number can change up or down.
• For the record, one pound of fat is 454 grams and let's assume 90% lipid on average.
• When burned by the body, one gram of fat provides 9 calories, so 400 grams of fat contains about 3600 calories of stored energy. Now you know where the old maxim of ~3,500 calories to lose a pound of fat comes from.
• Some very obese individuals have been fasted for up to a year without problems.
• Body fat is truly an ideal storage form of energy.
• If fat cells get too big, your body will make more.
• Unfortunately, getting rid of fat cells is nearly (but not completely) impossible. Sure, liposuction is always available, but beyond that, eliminating fat cells is very difficult and only occurs under extremely severe conditions.
• Excess adiposity is associated with a number of health consequences, most of them bad. Getting and staying fat in the long-term is generally not healthy.
• One of the roles of body fat is as a physical cushion for your internal organs. Fat cells also act as insulation, keeping folks warm when it gets cold.
• Simply put, running chronically high blood glucose causes a lot of damage to the body.
• Muscle tissue has a limit to how much glucose it can store as glycogen.
• Diabetics can't get blood glucose into the cells because they are insulin deficient (Type 1) or insulin resistant (Type 2).
• Essential body fat refers to the fat found around your organs (where it serves an important cushioning role), in your nervous system (nerves are surrounded by sheaths of fat), and especially your brain.
• As the name implies, essential body fat is exactly that: essential. You can't lose it and, even if you could, you wouldn't want to because you'd be dead.
• In men, essential body fat typically makes up about 3% of total weight or so.
• Physiologically, a body fat percentage of 1% is impossible, as it would require getting rid of the essential fat.
• Visceral fat is found around your internal organs and can be thought of as gut fat. But it's not the fat you see on top of your stomach; it's actually underneath your abdominal muscles surrounding your organs.
• People who carry a lot of visceral fat are referred to as having central obesity and their tummy pooches out quite a bit from their body.
• Visceral fat is more metabolically active than subcutaneous fat. Meaning that it responds more effectively to fat mobilizing/burning stimuli than other types of body fat.
• Visceral fat also has better blood flow compared to other body fat, meaning it's easier to get the fat out of the fat cell.
• Subcutaneous just means 'under the skin' which is where this fat is found.
• Of your total body fat, subcutaneous fat is the most prominent. Anywhere from 40% to 60% of your total body fat is found under the skin, which is what allows you to estimate body fat percentage with methods such as skinfolds.
• Recent research has identified three different areas of abdominal fat. Deep abdominal fat is a lot like visceral fat and is relatively easy to get rid of. Superficial abdominal fat can be further subdivided into upper and lower pieces with the upper fat being easier to mobilize than the lower bit.
• Regular fat is the stuff that comes off fairly easily. Just adjust diet and exercise a bit and it comes off without too much trouble.
• Stubborn fat is the other kind, the fat that just doesn't seem to want to come off without nearly superhuman effort. Even then it doesn't always come off. There are a number of physiological reasons why this is the case.
• When your body can't get fat to burn, but needs energy because you're cutting calories, it starts going after muscle at a quicker rate. This is one of several reasons that muscle loss accelerates when people get super lean.
• For the most part, losing ab/low back fat is far less an issue of major diet and training manipulations and more an issue or patience.
• Many men can and do get plenty lean (at least to the level of 6-pack abdominals) with nothing but the standard diet and exercise advice.
• In general, fat will come off the body from least to most stubborn and there is a clear hierarchy in how fat comes off the human body.
• Fat cell hyperplasia refers to an increase in fat cell number (normally, fat cells increase by growing in size via hypertrophy); this is also called adipogenesis.
• Apoptosis is a term referring to the death and removal of cells. With a few exceptions, fat cells don't generally undergo apoptosis except under very extreme circumstances.
• Lipogenesis simply means the formation of new fat in fat cells from glycerol and three free fatty acids.
• Lipolysis refers to the breakdown of fat in fat cells, producing glycerol and free fatty acids.
• Body fat is actually made up of stored triglyceride (TG).
• The majority of dietary fat that you eat is also in the form of TG's.
• In a general sense, fat storage is a process whereby the fat cells take three fatty acids and a molecule of glycerol and puts them together, storing them as TG in a lipid droplet.
• ATP is the only fuel that cells can use directly and you can consider it to be the basic energy currency of all cells in the body; other fuels are only valuable in that they can be oxidized to produce ATP.
• Fundamentally, there are three primary steps [to fat burning]: breakdown, transport, and oxidation (burning).
• The first step in burning off body fat is getting it out of your fat cells.
• All hormones work through specific receptors.
• There are two major types of adrenoceptors: beta and alpha which are found all over the body.
• There are at least 3 (and maybe 4) different beta-receptors, called, imaginatively: beta-1, beta-2, beta-3, and beta-4.
• Alpha-adrenoceptors come in at least two flavors, alpha-1 and alpha-2.
• The main receptors we need to worry about in human fat cells are alpha-2 receptors and beta-2 receptors, both of which actively bind the catecholamine hormones.
• As it turns out, different areas of fat have different levels of alpha and beta adrenoceptors, and this controls, to a massive degree, whether any given exercise stimulus has a net lipolytic or antilipolytic effect.
• All you need to remember is that adrenoreceptors ultimately determine whether the catecholamines end up stimulating fat breakdown or not.
• I should note that insulin pretty much always wins the battle over fat cell metabolism.
• The next, and critically important step, is to get the fatty acids away from the fat cell, to other tissues where they can actually be burned. This process is dependant on blood flow through the adipose tissue.
• If the fatty acids aren't moved out of the adipose tissue, the body will happily re-store them (a process called re-esterification).
• Aerobic exercise tends to increase adipose tissue blood flow with the effect becoming greater as the duration increases.
• Interestingly, blood flow to fat cells increases with long-term fasting, probably to help the body mobilize fatty acids for fuel.
• Adipose tissue blood flow is also profoundly controlled by adrenoceptor levels. Beta-adrenoceptor activity increases adipose tissue blood flow; alpha-adrenoreceptor activation inhibits it.
• Glycogen is a long carbohydrate chain stored in your muscles or liver.
• By depleting full body glycogen stores, fat oxidation is ramped up ensuring that mobilized fatty acids will get burned for energy.
• Insulin inhibits fat breakdown even at low levels.
• Insulin is primarily under control of the diet and can be affected by changing either the quality (type) or quantity (amount) of carbohydrates that you're eating. Insulin levels will be reduced if you pick lower glycemic index carbs or simply reduce the quantity of carbohydrates that you're eating.
• Released when blood sugar levels fall, glucagon's primary responsibility is to stimulate the liver to break down stored glycogen and release glucose.
• Adrenaline is released from the adrenal gland, noradrenaline from the nerve terminals.
• Adrenaline and noradrenaline are involved in mobilizing fuel for the body. In the liver, they promote the breakdown of liver glycogen to glucose; in fat cells the generally increase fatty acid mobilization to provide fuel to the body.
• Just about any stressor from physical to psychological will increase the release of adrenaline and noradrenaline, but exercise is, generally speaking, what we'll use to control these hormones. The type and intensity of exercise that you do affects how adrenaline/noradrenaline are released and this is a big key to targeting stubborn fat.
• Ephedrine not only mimics adrenaline/noradrenaline in the body, it increases the output of those hormones.
• Growth Hormone (GH) does do amazing things in people who are deficient and have their levels replaced. However, increasing GH in otherwise normal individuals has far less of an impact.
• Raising GH with various supplements and training strategies does nothing for muscle growth.
• Exercise of just about any sort raises GH.
• Chronically elevated cortisol, which can occur during conditions of sustained stress, is distinctly a bad thing.
• One of cortisol's primary effects is to mobilize glucose to sustain blood glucose levels, it does this by increasing the production of glucose in the liver.
• It is profoundly easy to overtrain when dieting to extremely low body fat levels and most people try to train too hard too often while they are dieting.
• When dieting to extremely low levels, it's crucial to keep training volume under control to avoid over training.
• Leptin is possibly one of the single most important hormones in terms of body weight regulation, appetite, etc.
• Released primarily from fat cells, leptin signals the brain about how much fat you're carrying and how much you're eating.
• Leptin doesn't do much to prevent folks from gaining weight. Where it shines is as an 'anti-starvation' hormone; leptin controls most of the body's response to fasting/caloric restriction/weight loss, acting to slow further weight loss to keep people alive until food becomes available again.
• When someone diets, leptin goes down much faster than fat mass and this has the primary controlling effect on metabolic rate, hormones, appetite, immune function and a host of other processes.
• Increasing leptin above normal levels has little effect; keeping leptin from dropping on a diet has absolutely massive effects.
• Leptin stimulates fat oxidation in skeletal muscle and liver, and plays a role in fat mobilization from fat cells.
• Cut calories or get lean and leptin drops precipitously.
• Dieting of any sort will lower leptin. Overfeeding with high calories and high carbohydrates raise it.
• A huge part of the problem with stubborn fat is that the adrenoceptor ratios present make it difficult to mobilize stubborn body fat.
• Testosterone generally crashes when men get super lean anyhow so it's not something folks need to worry about or work to achieve.
• Beta-2-receptors can be thought of as the 'good' receptors, increasing lipolysis and adipose tissue blood flow. In contrast, alpha-2-receptors are distinctly bad, inhibiting lipolysis and adipose tissue blood flow.
• Certain fat deposits have significantly poorer blood flow than others.
• Poor blood flow has two consequences here. First and foremost, it means that blood borne hormones can't get to the fat cells. Second, poor blood flow makes it harder to get mobilized fat away from the fat cell so that it can be burned elsewhere.
• A receptor agonist is any compound that activates a specific receptor, in the same way that the body's own hormones would. In contrast, a receptor antagonist does the opposite. When it binds to the receptor in question, it either sends a negative signal or, by preventing the body's normal hormone from binding, prevents the normal signal from being sent.
• You can essentially think of beta-receptors as accelerators of whatever system you're looking at. Similarly, you can think of alpha-receptors as acting like a brake.
• From the standpoint of fat loss, beta-receptors are 'good' and alpha-receptors are 'bad'.
• Yohimbe is a naturally occurring alpha-2 receptor antagonist.
• Yohimbe is the herbal/bark-derived version, yohimbine HCL is the synthetic version.
• I strongly recommend that dieters who want to use this compound obtain the synthetic yohimbine HCL.
• Yohimbine does not affect testosterone levels.
• All the effects of yohimbine do nothing but help with the mobilization of stubborn body fat.
• Yohimbine HCL is a much cleaner compound with all of the benefits and a few of the side effects of the herbal.
• The effects of yohimbine are eliminated by even small amounts of insulin which means that yohimbine needs to be taken several hours from a meal or first thing in the morning.
• Note that yohimbine has a sort of passive stimulant effect. By itself it won't do a whole lot, but it tends to amplify the effects of other stimulating things such as exercise, ephedrine or caffeine; I don't recommend it be taken with ephedrine (or within 4 hours of an ephedrine does) for this reason.
• Taking yohimbine before high intensity activities such as weight training or intervals can make people feel like their heart is going to come out of their chest.
• Interestingly, with chronic long-term use, yohimbine builds up in tissues and the effect on fat loss seems to accelerate.
• It's important to note that yohimbine can also cause water retention.
• Low intensity activity is any steady state aerobic exercise that can be done for extended periods below the lactate threshold (LT, this is the point at which the body starts producing tremendous amounts of acid, causing fatigue).
• Weight training or interval training (of any high intensity nature) that is done above lactate threshold will be considered high intensity activity.
• High intensity activity seems to be able to overcome the lipolytic insensitivity associated with stubborn fat.
• At high intensities of exercise, the body doesn't burn fatty acids for fuel, preferring to use glucose instead.
• We can inhibit alpha-receptors naturally with either a very low carbohydrate diet or by using oral yohimbine.
• Exercise is arguably the most potent weapon in our arsenal to accomplish the goal of beta-receptor stimulation.
• While fasting is inappropriate for a lean dieter, low carbohydrate diets mimic fasting and may have the same impact on adipose tissue blood flow.
• The main thing to keep in mind is that insulin should be lowered prior to attacking stubborn body fat.
• Lowering carbohydrate intake, especially in conjunction with exercise that depletes muscle glycogen, is known to enhance whole body fat oxidation.
• I think most people diet too long without a break.
• A male can often get contest ripped eating lots of carbohydrates and doing nothing more esoteric than fasted morning cardio. Women, generally speaking, can't.
• [For women] Even done fasted, if the diet is chronically carb-based, with nothing but low intensity cardio, lower body fat will never come off.
• There's this weird mentality by which people think that their training volume and frequency should go up when dieting; this is backwards as recovery is always hampered when calories are restricted.
• At best, the SFP 1.0/2.0 can be done twice weekly and the occasional freak of nature might get away with it three times weekly.
• You are NOT the person who can handle high intensity interval training daily without running yourself.
• When in doubt, err on the side of conservatism, doing a little bit less for longer usually works better than trying to do too much and blowing up.
• Many people have noted that fat loss is often discontinuous, that is it often happens in stops and starts. So you'll by dieting and dieting and doing everything correctly with nothing to show for it. Then, boom, almost overnight, you drop 4 pounds and look leaner.
• Protocol 1: low-carbohydrate diet plus low intensity aerobic activity
• Reducing carbs to 20% or less of total calories will allow the good stuff to happen. That alone can be coupled with basic steady state cardio which can be done fasted or not. Ideally, the cardio would be done after consumption of some caffeine (100-200mg) consumed 30-60 minutes before. As far as duration, 45-60 minutes per session is plenty; if you need to do more than that, you should split the sessions up. Intensity should be low to moderate, maybe a heart rate of 130-140.
• Protocol 1 can easily be used daily and will fit safely into just about any training program anybody could come up with.
• Protocol 2: oral yohimbine plus low intensity aerobic intensity
• Use oral yohimbine at a dose of 0.2mg/kg.
• Although many recommend splitting the yohimbine dose throughout the day, this is not the best way to take it for stubborn fat mobilization; the entire dose should be taken all at once, ideally with caffeine (100-200 mg depending on body weight) 30-60 minutes before low intensity aerobic activity.
• The yohimbine/caffeine/cardio combination should either be done fasted first thing in the morning or 3-4 hours after a meal.
• Protocol 2 is more or less appropriate for everyone and can be used daily if needed or desired.
• It would be best to start with a half-dose of yohimbine for the first few times through the protocol to assess your tolerance.
• A duration of 45-60 minutes at a low to moderate intensity is appropriate.
• Protocol 3: the original stubborn fat protocol (SFP 1.0)
• Done first thing in the morning fasted.
• 30 minutes beforehand: consume 200mg caffeine, 0.2mg/kg yohimbine, and 1-3 grams L-tyrosine. NO ephedrine.
• 5-10 minute easy warm up.
• 10 minutes of interval training.
• Rest completely for 5 minutes to allow fatty acids to be released into the bloodstream.
• Perform 20-40 minutes of aerobic activity, ideally near the lactate threshold as this is where fat oxidation tends to be maximized.
• Wait an hour to eat following the protocol.
• The body keeps burning fat for fuel after high intensity training even in the presence of insulin.
• Protocol 1.5: the new and improved stubborn fat protocol 1.0
• Can be done any time of the day. Ideally, the protocol should come 3 or more hours after a meal.
• Caffeine (100-200 mg), yohimbine (0.2mg/kg), tyrosine (1-3 grams) 30 minutes before. All supplements are optional.
• 5-10 minute easy warm up.
• 10 minutes of intervals or up to 20 minutes of high rep/short rest weight training.
• Rest completely for 5 minutes.
• 20-40 minutes steady state cardio at an RPE of 3-4.
• Can eat immediately afterwards.
• Realistically, the SFP 1.0 should only be used twice per week under most situations.
• I've long advocated putting interval training on the same day that people train legs. Yes, this makes for one hell of a hard day, but it gives the legs more total days of recovery per week.
• Protocol 4: the stubborn fat protocol 2.0 (SFP 2.0)
• Can be done fasted or not. If not, try to do it at least 3 hours after eating.
• Can take caffeine (100-200 mg), oral yohimbine (0.2mg/kg), L-tyrosine (1-3 grams) 30 minutes beforehand.
• 5-10 minutes easy warm-up. This will drop insulin if you've eaten beforehand.
• 5 minutes of short intervals.
• Rest for 5 minutes.
• 20-40 minutes of steady state cardio at a low to moderate intensity, 130-140 HR or an RPE of about 3-4.
• 5-10 minutes of long intervals.
• 3-5 minutes easy cooldown.
• Feel free to eat a normal diet afterwards, at least have a protein shake if you're not hungry.
• I don't recommend running for intervals.
• Since SFP 2.0 is specifically for dieting, I'd generally say to do the SFP 2.0 in the morning and weights in the evening. Your weights will probably suffer but that's the price you have to pay.
• I'd strongly suggest using a mode of exercise for the intervals where you aren't at risk for turning an ankle or knee from fatigue.
• Trainees should always be watching out for impending signs of overtraining such as lethargy, fatigue, lack of motivation, sleep problems, etc.
• How hormones impact body fat is a key to understanding why stubborn fat is stubborn.