A couple of weeks ago the world learned that Rachel Dolezal had made the switch from white to black. She pulled a reverse Michael Jackson. That was something that shocked a lot of people, because we didn’t really even know that could be done. What made it more shocking was the fact that Rachel was head of her local NAACP chapter. While being a white woman.
We may not be able to change our race, but there is an instance in our bodies where we can switch from white to brown. And that switch can make a huge difference in how you look.
For those who don’t know, we have two different types of fat in our bodies – white and brown fat.
White fat is what makes up about 90% of the fat on our bodies. White fat is the fat deposits that wind up surrounding your vital organs, wreak havoc on our health, and make up the excess flesh that hangs out over our waistlines after too many nights of 3am Whataburger.
Brown fat on the other hand is a type of fat that kicks white fat right square in the fatty balls. Brown fat is in tiny little fat droplets, and actually helps us burn fat because it’s so rich in energy producing mitochondria.
Having more brown fat is a good thing, because it means that we’ll burn through more body fat.
The trick is this: can we actively turn our white fat into brown fat?
Converting white fat into brown fat is possible. Just because it’s possible doesn’t make it easy. Turning white fat into brown fat is something your body tries to guard against. It’s an evolutionary trait to protect survival. We’re not meant to have a ton of brown fat. There’s a reason why when we’re born, about 5% of the fat we have is brown.
Thanks to badass modern things like science, we know how to switch white from brown quicker than Rachel Dolezal, and do it enough to make an actual effect in our physique.
The two ways to get more brown fat:
- Exercise.
Bet you didn’t see this one coming, huh? Exercise is the single greatest factor when it comes to turning white fat into brown fat. Exercise itself can cause white fat to actively turn into brown fat by signaling to the genes inside white fat to switch their expression. Exercise literally changes you to that deep of a level.
This doesn’t happen on a large scale, but over time it is enough to make a difference.
Not just any exercise works either. Scientists are still working on figuring out all the nitty gritty details, but it appears that a mix of heavy resistance training and aerobic exercise does a fantastic job at signaling the switch from white to brown.
Who would’ve thought a well rounded program of lifting and cardio is good for your physique?
- Get really cold.
This option is way less practical, but one that seems to get studied all the damn time. Extreme cold stimulates the growth of brown fat. This is due to the fact that brown fat can start burning white fat in order to keep the body warm.
There are a couple of caveats to this though: 1) You have to get really fucking cold. 2) It’s not exactly convenient to live above the arctic circle.
This is where modern science being the beautiful woman she is steps in. Luckily we have access to things like cryotherapy these days. In case you don’t know, cryotherapy is basically the process of putting the body in a situation that achieves “really fucking cold” status.
How cold? Most popular cryotherapy centers have tanks that drop down into the neighborhood of -160 Fahrenheit.
If you’re familiar with this type of procedure, you know that you don’t spend much time in a cryotherapy tank. Usually 2-3 minutes.
The awesome thing is that the short amount of time seems to be enough for us to get the brown fat effect that we so desperately want. In essence, get cold as shit for a few minutes, and then reap the rewards by getting ripped. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me.
Another awesome thing about making the switch to brown fat is that when white fat has converted, it seems to stay that way. So it may be hard to turn white to brown, but when it happens that’s a permanent change. I’m sure Rachel Dolezal would’ve killed for that.