Do Fat Burners Work without Exercise? Yes fat burners work without exercise, but don’t expect to take a fat burner today and reach your target weight tomorrow with zero effort. You see, the job of a fat burner is to give you a slight edge when you want to shred. It’s quite easy to understand when you figure out how these weight loss supplements work.
What, exactly, is a Fat Burner?
A Fat Burner is any dietary supplement which is designed to specifically increase fat metabolism in the person who takes it. “Fat metabolism” means that your fat is broken down (burned) because your body experiences a calorie deficit. Fat Burners are intended to make it easier for you to reach the calorie deficit threshold, by increasing your TDEE. They speed up your metabolic rate.
How do Fat Burners Work?
So now we know what a Fat Burner is, let’s delve a bit into how they work. First up, from the preceding paragraph you get an insight into how they don’t work. Fat Burners do not zoom around your body, locating fat cells, and burning them off. They do not do anything specific to your fat. Instead, they work by “encouraging” your body to become more active. In that way, they “burn fat”. Many Fat Burners contain ingredients which are said to induce thermogenesis.
Thermogenesis? What’s that?
Thermogenesis is the process where heat is created in the body. To know what that is, just run on the spot for a few minutes, then feel your leg muscles. Hot! Or bite into a Habanero pepper, then feel your cheeks. Hot! That heat has been created through thermogenesis in your muscles and brown fat tissue. It takes energy for your body to make that heat, so thermogenesis increases the amount of calories your body uses.
Fat Burners Stimulate
The key ingredients in Fat Burners are stimulating. Yes, there are many other ingredients in them that may do other things, like support fat metabolism, block fat creation, and initiate and extend thermogenesis, but the stimulants are the only unequivocally, scientifically, proven weight-loss aids. Fat Burners use stimulants like caffeine and synephrine to increase your metabolism rate. Do they stimulate enough to make a meaningful dent in your BMR? Studies say yes, but not enough to replace diet.
What about Exercise?
Fat Burners are massively popular with body builders. Body builders work really hard to bulk up with muscle for most of the year, by pumping iron and eating a lot. They give themselves a calorie surplus, so that they gain weight. Come competition time, they need to get rid of as much fat as possible in a short time (this is called “shredding”). This calls for a calorie deficit, achieved through diet and cardio exercise. It is a balancing act that requires carefully calibrated food and exercise, and Fat Burners give them another lever to adjust the scales.
Fat Burners and Exercise
Fat Burners make it easier to exercise, because they boost energy levels through chemical stimulation. Thus, the effect of Fat Burners on passive calorie burn is compounded with extra exercise. If a Fat Burner “agrees” with your system, you will find it easier to jump up for a quick run around the block after you take it. Hopefully, a virtuous cycle will be kick-started so that your energy levels reach a permanently high level.
So, Do Fat Burners work Without Exercise?
Fat Burners undoubtedly work without exercise, but their effect is much better when exercise is used to sustain the increase in metabolism as well. Without exercise, the Fat Burner will still do its job of stimulating thermogenesis, but the associated energy boost will be wasted. Your metabolism would get a much better leg-up if you used the energetic mood to do some exercise!
Of course, it goes without saying that neither exercise nor Fat Burners, separately or combined, will work without calorie control.
