How To Burn More Fat By Increasing Growth Hormone
How To Naturally Increase Growth Hormone
On today’s episode you’re going to learn how to naturally increase growth hormone to burn more fat.
But first, you can also listen to this episode over on our Live Lean TV podcast.
Just open up your podcast app, search Live Lean TV, then subscribe to the podcast, and listen while you workout or during your travel.
Ok, so when I’m talking about growth hormone a.k.a. GH, I’m referring to the natural GH that is produced by your body via your pituitary gland.
I’m not referring to supplementing with often illegal and unnatural synthetic hormones that has been covered in professional bodybuilding and sports by the media over the past few years.
Of course, that’s not what this blog is about.
This blog is about how to naturally increase optimize our healthy hormones.
When most people hear growth hormone, they often think it’s primarily an anabolic hormone for muscle building and strength gains.
This can be true, but GH has an even more powerful effect on fat loss and keeping you looking and feeling younger.
Growth hormone, often called the anti-aging hormone, can help you:
- Stay young as it’s production stimulates the liver to produce insulin like growth factor 1 (IFG-1) which helps repair your tissues, cells, and bones
- This also helps improve protein synthesis for muscle gain and for faster recovery after workouts
- Free fat stores from the body so they can be burned for energy
- Improve your immune system
- Decrease the risk of diabetes and heart disease
Natural Ways To Increase Growth Hormone
Growth hormone is an exercise related hormone meaning if you want to naturally optimize your production of GH, you have to workout.
But not all types of workouts have the same effect on growth hormone production.
For example, walking on the treadmill and lifting pink dumbbells will not optimize your growth hormone production as much as higher intensity workouts like HIIT training and lifting heavier weights.
The reason for this is growth hormone release is tied to having high lactate levels, which is produced when not enough oxygen is available, thus creating that lactic acid burn during your workouts.
5 Tips To Increase GH:
- Workout with higher intensities:
Training with higher intensities has been shown to trigger a bigger release of growth hormone after workouts. In other words, the more intense you train, the more GH is released. This is just another reason to keep the weights up, even when your goal is fat loss.
Also the time you workout can be somewhat beneficial (I’d call this a minor benefit so don’t worry if you don’t train at this time). Since growth hormone release has various secretion patterns, typically at 12pm it has a high secretion, thus making it an optimal time to workout.
See below for a timeline of how typical growth hormone secretion patterns occur within a 24 hour window.
- Focus on HIIT workouts for your cardio training:
Once again, HIIT workouts that follow a high intensity interval followed by a short rest period are also shown to trigger a bigger release in growth hormone. This is just another reason why I love sprint training for fat loss.
- Improve the quality of your sleep:
Since up to 75% of growth hormone is produced during sleep, it is super important to take the necessary steps to not only get enough sleep, but to also improve the quality of your sleep. Typically 7-8 hours a night is optimal, but you should also focus on sleep quality by going to bed earlier as growth hormone release has various secretion patterns which is at it’s very highest at 12am. This means you should be in deep sleep by at least 11pm to get all the growth hormone benefits.
Another tip to improve sleep quality is to turn down the temperature to 68-72 degree Fahrenheit. Being too hot when you’re in bed often obstructs quality sleep.
- Reduce consumption of insulin spiking refined carbohydrates
Since GH is an antagonist hormone to insulin, try to keep the insulin spiking refined carbohydrates to a minimum. This simply means when insulin levels are continuously higher, growth hormone levels tend to be lower. Balance is important.
- Supplement with specific amino acids that can act as agents to help release more growth hormone
The jury on this one is still out. Although certain amino acids like arginine, lysine, and ornithine may act as agents to help release growth hormone, this often depends on the individual and the dosage required is probably so high that it could cause digestive issues.
I would skip this one.
And once again, I DO NOT recommend you purchase GH products that actually contain HGH, unless it’s prescribed by your physician.
Typical 24 Hour Growth Hormone Secretion Patterns:
- 7 am: low secretion
- 9 am: medium secretion
- 11 am: low secretion
- 12 pm: HIGH secretion (optimal intense resistance training time)
- 2-5pm: low/medium secretion
- 7 pm: medium/high secretion
- 12am: VERY HIGH (should be in a deep sleep by 11pm)
- 3-6am: small peaks
Bottom Line on Growth Hormone
As you age, growth hormone production and IGF-1 typically decreases.
These declines, in addition to many people losing muscle tissue as they age, is just another reason to make weight training a priority during your Live Lean journey.
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Brad Gouthro is the founder of Live Lean TV, a media company focused on helping men and women “Live Lean” 365 days a year. Brad’s programs and content have helped millions of people all over the world learn how to get in shape, and more importantly, sustain it for life.
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