How To Increase Leptin Levels

Doing a search for “how to increase leptin levels” will reveal lots of information that doesn't make any sense. As expected, leptin's fairly recent discovery created a whole nutrition mythology, and added even more confusion over which diet works better.

When giving recommendations, it's rather common to see self-proclaimed experts telling people to eat more fiber, sleep more, eat more vegetables, or not to eat before going to bed. Somebody speculated that even doing sex may cause leptin deficiency.

But why are you concerned about leptin in the first place? If you are overweight, you have lots of it anyway.

It's important to note that there is a positive correlation between your fat stores and this still misunderstood hormone. Therefore, leptin deficiency becomes a problem only when you get lean enough.

In addition to being related to your degree of fatness, leptin secretion also changes in response to short term under- and overeating.

For example, when you start a diet, leptin may plummet up to 50% within a week, while obviously you haven't transformed in a fitness model that fast.

However, after the initial drop, leptin decreases more slowly, being correlated more accurately with weight loss (fat loss, more precisely). Conversely, when you overeat, leptin goes up as quickly as it dropped.

Therefore, the logical solution is to include periodic refeeds so you can keep leptin from going too low when calories are reduced below maintenance. Otherwise, your body would think that you are starving, which is the opposite of what you want. Does it make sense?

For best results, your cheat meals should include lots of carbohydrates because leptin production (primarily by fat cells) is mainly determined by glucose availability.

So whenever you start pulling glucose out of fat cells (dieting), leptin levels decrease. (Which also means that eating fruits doesn't help that much.)

Your goal is to keep leptin close to its normal mean so it can send a good signal that all systems are working properly. As a side note, raising its levels above normal wouldn't be of any benefit because too much leptin seems to induce resistance to itself.

One important variable is how many cheat days (refeeds or whatever you want to call them) should be included in your program in order to convince your brain that you are well fed.

Although there is no research available, common sense tells us that one day a week may not be enough to have a real impact on leptin.

My recommendation is to increase your caloric intake slightly above maintenance twice or even three times a week – according to your level of leanness and progress.

This increase in calories should come mostly from carbohydrates. But this shouldn't be an inconvenient because you need a more substantial calorie/carbohydrate intake to fuel your workouts anyway.

Your main focus should be on how to maintain at least the same training intensity rather than bothering with how to increase leptin levels. This is also your golden opportunity to enjoy some of the foods you crave, which is very important for long term adherence.

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