Using Red Light Therapy to Targets Fat Cells
In weight loss, anything that targets fat cells is like pure gold; especially valuable to your goals to lose body weight.
Red light therapy falls in this category.
Specifically, at 635 nm, red light therapy activates an enzyme called cytochrome c oxidase. This enzyme has the capability to open the pores in fat cells.
You can imagine this scenario happening with a water balloon. What would happen if little holes on the surface of a water balloon were opened? The water would start gushing out from every pore. Pretty soon, the water balloon would be limp.
The same thing happens with fat cells via cytochrome c oxidase. Fat can’t stay inside the fat cell once cytochrome c oxidase turns on and opens the pores. The fat cells then deflate like a balloon.
Where does the fat go? Into the bloodstream. And once you start exercising or turning off metabolic pathways that store fat – such as not eating high glycemic index foods or foods and beverages loaded with sugar – that fat that is circulating in the bloodstream is burned for energy.
Once the fat is burned for energy, it doesn’t exist anymore. That’s exactly what you want – fat cells that are somehow incinerated and gone forever.
This is why it would be self-sabotaging to eat that entire carton of ice cream from your freezer after having a red light therapy session during the day. You want to help your body and not work against it.
Interestingly, in one of the interviews about red light therapy, the inventor discussed studies where athletes were exercising with aerobic and resistance types of exercise. Some of the athletes had the red light therapy on the same day they exercised while the rest of them had no red light therapy at all.
Those who had the red light therapy AND exercised had a 15% boost of their peak performance compared to only 10% in those that did only exercise.
Exercise stepped into the picture and burned the fat that the red light therapy had released into the bloodstream. It’s a good example of how you can work WITH your body to create higher levels of wellness.
How Many Inches Could You Lose with Red Light Therapy?
Other researchers revealed startling evidence from their study that red light therapy sessions at 635 nm with the light six inches away from the body three times a week for six weeks caused a 5 inch reduction in hips, abdominals, waistlines, and thighs.
Another study, this time for only 2 weeks with 67 volunteers and 3 sessions of red light therapy per week led to a 1-inch loss in the waistline, 1-inch loss in the hips, and 0.65 inches from the thighs. You might be thinking that’s not much, but actually it’s not too bad for those who aren’t dieting, aren’t altering their diet in any way, and aren’t exercising.
Red Light Therapy Targets the Reasons Why You Gained Weight
The most common reasons why people gain weight include:
- They are under too much stress.
- They don’t sleep well at night or long enough.
- They aren’t particularly happy and run to comfort foods.
- Their body is inflamed.
- They continue eating during the day beyond regular meals due to appetite.
- Their metabolism has slowed down.
Red light therapy works on every one of these reasons.
When you’re under stress, your body releases cortisol and adrenaline. These two hormones cause the production of belly fat. Red light therapy decreases levels of these two hormones.
Red light therapy stimulates the production of melatonin. This is the hormone that is released while you sleep. It causes regeneration to occur in your body.
Red light is part of the full spectrum light therapy that is used to treat patients with seasonal affective disorder. However, recently red light therapy has been used with excellent success. The treatment helps bring the patients out of their acute depressive state faster than any other treatment plan, one psychologist from the UCLA Medical School stated.
Red light therapy is well known in the studies to decrease inflammation. When you have inflammation, you have blockages in the energy circuits of the body. Red light therapy clears out the inflammation.
Red light therapy also increases leptin levels while lowering ghrelin levels. This ends up causing a reduction in hunger. And with less hunger, there’s no reason to eat.
And if you want to know how red light therapy affects metabolism, it does so by increasing circulation to the cells of the body. Greater circulation means more cells are working at high capacity.