Most people haven’t heard about Leptin, but it plays a very crucial role during dieting and in people who struggle with weight gain.

About Leptin:

Leptin is a cytokine released mainly by your fat tissues in the body. The more fat cells and the bigger volume they have the more overall leptin levels will be released proportionally.

Leptin controls your hunger and metabolism. When on an extended diet, increased leptin will be able to slow your metabolism so your body can adapt to less calories.

Manipulating leptin:

Due to the fact that higher leptin causes increased cravings for food and slows your metabolism, the only way to stop this from happening is to shock your body into temporarily increasing your leptin levels again. You can do this by having a high carbohydrate cheat meal. Leptin is extra sensitive to glucose, so doing a cheat meal with high carbohydrates will be very effective in surging you back to high levels of leptin.

Testosterone and other hormones will also be helped normalize by an increase in leptin. Females are more sensitive to low levels of leptin as it can interfere with menstruation and increased risk of osteoporosis, so it is important for woman to have cheat meals often during dieting to keep leptin levels from getting too low.