One of the advantages of being outsources is that I am finally catching up on my commercials. (Okay, that was a bit of sarcasm, in case you missed it. )

I keep seeing commercials about Cortisol and how it causes belly fat. But I’ve also heard about something called Leptin.

It’s a hormone that’s released by fat cells. Although it has a number of functions, One of it’s main roles is to let your brain know how fat you are. When you gain weight, leptin levels go up, when you lose fat, leptin levels go down.

Apparently, leptin levels rise and fall very quickly in response to under AND overfeeding. If there’s a drop in your levels of leptin, it seems to have a bigger impact than increasing leptin levels above the normal physiological range.

“The primary functional role of leptin is apparently to defend — not reduce — body fat by increasing food seeking and decreasing energy expenditure when fat stores are insufficient,” writes Dr. Rosenbaum in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

I found a site that has done tons of research on leptin, including how to cycle meals as to help control the leptin in your body. I think this topic I need to research this a lot more and see what the consensus is among the scientific community.