Fish Oil & Weight Loss
Really? Fish oil for weight loss?!
Yup. And it’s pretty effortless too.
2 easy steps to a skinnier (and healthier!) you!
Exercise surely helps but minding your Omega-3 to Omega-6 ratio is the secret.
The Skinny on Fish Oil and Weight Loss
The balance between Omega-3 and Omega-6 fats in your diet has a HUGE impact on how many calories you burn.
This balance affects your RMR or Resting Metabolic Rate. That’s how many calories you burn while chilling.
Our bodies are designed for roughly equal parts Omega-3 to Omega-6. Our bodies need both.
But in the last 30 years or so, this ratio has gone seriously off kilter! Americans now eat 20 to 30 times more Omega-6 than Omega-3.
Too much Omega-6 and your metabolic rate can drop 100 calories or more per day. That means you are burning 100 less calories every day.
That adds up!
That’s about a pound a month. Over the course of a year, that could be a dress size!
Fish Oil & Weight Loss – 2 key steps
- Cut out Omega-6 fats from Corn, Sunflower and Soy oils
- Take pharmaceutical grade fish oil supplements
If you do these two things, you are half way there!
Corn and Soy oils are chock full of fattening Omega-6.
It’s really hard to avoid Omega-6 because they are EVERYWHERE! They’re in just about every fried foods, snacks and salad dressing.
If you see a potato chip and the label says corn, sunflower or soy oils, toss it!
I’m not saying don’t eat chips. I’m saying find a chip that’s made with olive oil or canola instead of soy or corn oil.
It’s that easy!
Your body has Omega-6 stored away for a rainy day. It will take a couple of months to slowly burn away those calories. But if you keep at it, your Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio will change.
And when that happens, you’ll burn as much as 100 more calories every day!
Every day. And you haven’t changed your exercise and you haven’t changed what you eat.
The only thing you’ve changed is the kind of cooking oil.
Fish Oil & Weight Loss – Avoiding the Munchies
Unlike fish oil, Omega-6 fats from corn, sunflower and soy oil have a nasty little surprise.
If your diet has too much Omega-6, your body produces something called Endocannabinoids. This molecule increases your appetite.
In other words, eating the wrong kind of fats gives you the munchies.
Endocannabinoids have been shown to increase obesity, excessive food intake and fat accumulation.
The Omega-3 in fish oil competes with Omega-6. So taking more Omega-3 helps “drown out” the fattening Omega-6.
Fish Oil & Weight Loss – The Leptin Problem
Leptin is a hormone that regulates hunger, weight and your metabolism. If you are low in fish oil Omega-3 and high in Omega-6, your body begins to have problems with Leptin.
The leptin in your body also gets “confused” if there is not enough Omega-3.
This means your stomach says ‘I’m hungry’, when you’re not! It’s hard enough to avoid yummy stuff without your stomach sending you mixed signals.
Having high levels of Omega-3 in your body will help your body react to insulin properly by sending out the right amount of Leptin when it needs it.
Fish Oil & Weight Loss – Omega-3 vs. Love Handles
When you exercise, you awaken sleeping genes that improve your health. Omega-3 does the same thing. Omega-3 from fish oil has been shown to turn on genes that control healthy metabolism of calories.
Understanding how our food affects our genes is a new frontier in science.
We’ve shown that Omega-3 reduces the amount of triglycerides in stored fat. In other words, it stops your fat cells from expanding.
There is also new science that shows Omega-3 keeps the fat cells in your love handles from expanding!
Omega-3 will not only push your body into weight loss mode, it will keep your adipose fats cells healthier, which means you will be less likely to put those pounds back on after you’ve lost them.
Fish Oil & Weight Loss – Now what?
Start with two simple steps:
- Reduce Omega-6 by cutting out anything with corn, sunflower and soy oils
- Increase Omega-3. Take 2000 to 3000 mg Omega-3 per day. That’s 2 to 3 OmegaVia pills. It’s hard to get 3000 mg of Omega-3 without buying pharmaceutical grade fish oil pills. Regular fish oil pills only have about 300 mg of Omega-3 per pill. Obviously, fewer the pills the better.
Continue this regimen and get ready to see a skinnier you in the mirror!
Let me leave you with the kicker:
Scientists have just discovered that if four generations of people eat a high Omega-6-low-Omega-3 diet (like our current American diet), then the fifth generation is guaranteed to be obese.
Even if they eat perfectly.
Your great-grandchildren could be fat because of what you’re eating or not eating today!
In other words, our genes and DNA is being rewired by not eating enough Omega-3.
Ever see that movie Wall-E? The futuristic humans are round, soft blobs that ride around in motorized La-z-boys. Well, it’s possible that our future really isn’t that different from Wall-E’s.
About the Author: Vin Kutty is OmegaVia’s Scientific Advisor and Chief Blogger. He is a nutritionist, author, and Omega-3 expert with over 20 years of experience. When coffee’d up and fully inspired, he shares Omega-3 info-nuggets on Facebook and Twitter. Email him.
Leave a Reply