(Palm Beach, FL) A Harvard Medical School professor discovered the link between a non-aerobic exercise and a special fat loss hormone. The hormone, Irisin, is released by the body during one specific type of exercise, which helps your body shed fat quicker and more effectively than any other fitness activity including spin, treadmill and cross training. This one exercise also boosts your metabolic rate and keeps it up several hours after the work out is over. 2 3 4
"Irisin (a fat loss hormone) travels throughout the body in the blood, and alters fat cells... body fat is stored inside fat cells. Most of these fat cells are called white fat cells, and their function is to store fat," says Dr. Anthony Komaroff. 5
What Exactly is Irisin?
"Brown fat cells don't store fat: they burn fat. If your goal is to lose weight, you want to increase the number of your brown fat cells and to decrease your white fat cells. Irisin does that (at least in mice). And those newly-created brown fat cells keep burning calories after exercise is over," explains Dr. Komaroff. 6
Irisin's Other Health Benefits
In addition to its effect in creating brown fat cells, it also helps prevent or overcome insulin resistance. 7
How Is Irisin Activated In The Body?
A study was done recently with overweight females to look at Irisin's response in candidates doing aerobic and High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) activities. The session of aerobic exercise included cycling at 65% of their peak heart rate (HR peak) for 40 min. In the HIIT group, exercise included six 1 min workouts at 85–95% HR peak separated by 1 min of recovery. The levels of Irisin in skeletal muscle increased significantly after a session of HIIT, while aerobic exercise had no effect to Irisin levels.8
In addition, one significant effect of HIIT is its ability to boost metabolism for hours even after the workout itself is over also known as EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption), or more commonly, the 'after burn').9
Quick Summary: It was scientifically proven that the 'fat loss' hormone, Irisin, was triggered only following HIIT exercise. HIIT exercise increases the body's metabolic rate several hours after the workout is done.10
How To Activate Irisin At Home
Research has shown Irisin is released during HIIT exercise, but HIIT exercise does not need to be done in a gym. And due to its short bursts of intensity, HITT exercise can also produce results faster than traditional gym workouts such as elliptical, treadmill, nautilus equipment, rowing machines, and spin. One study compared the calories burned during 30 minutes of HIIT, weight training, running and biking. The researchers found that HIIT burned 25–30% more calories than the other forms of exercise. 11 HIIT is now available to everyone today, at any age and fitness level, and can be done at home. (watch video)
