What is an AMPK Metabolic Activator?

Belly fat is a bummer—and not just because it can make you feel self-conscious at the beach. Fat can also accelerate aging in your body—a process most of us are actively trying to avoid.

What's especially frustrating is that this extra fat around your waist can be incredibly difficult to fight, even if you've been hitting the gym and eating healthy. AMPK, an enzyme found throughout your body, helps your cells burn fat for cellular energy, but levels of this helpful enzyme decline over time. This can contribute to an unwelcome accumulation around your middle.

Fortunately, studies have shown that increasing your activated protein kinase (AMPK) levels can help fight body fat, including stubborn, stored abdominal fat—especially when you combine AMPK metabolic activation with a healthy diet and regular exercise.

So how do you encourage AMPK enzyme activity? And how does it affect your weight management goals?

What is AMPK?

AMPK is a kinase, an enzyme found inside every cell in your body that acts as a cellular "energy sensor," responding to changes in cell energy status.

AMPK is involved in supporting healthy glucose levels, fatty acid oxidation, and the generation of cellular mitochondria. It gets activated in the body during exercise and calorie restriction, and it encourages cells to stop storing fat and start burning it for energy.

But as we get older, our internal processes may start to slow down—and the same is true for our cellular AMPK activity. Thankfully, we can promote healthy, active AMPK levels with certain nutrition and lifestyle choices.

Can I increase AMPK?

Yes! Boosting your AMPK activity helps cells to stop storing fat and start using it to create ATP, which your body uses for cellular energy. So how do you increase AMPK? Beyond daily exercise and caloric restriction, follow these simple dos and don'ts.

• Watch your carb intake.

  You should consume complex carbohydrates but watch how many processed carbs you eat throughout the day. Having an abundance of simple carbohydrates in your diet can make it harder to support healthy AMPK levels.

• Try fasting.

  Overfeeding—especially with high-carbohydrate or high-fat diets—reduces AMPK phosphorylation and activity in skeletal muscle. On the other hand, caloric restriction and fasting increase AMPK activation.

• Take an AMPK-activating supplement.

  Consider adding a weight management supplement that supports AMPK activity to your routine.

Does activating AMPK make you lose weight?

Healthy weight management and AMPK activation go hand in hand. Beneficial lifestyle practices like that daily workout also help increase your AMPK activity, promoting a fat-burning cycle.

Just remember, a supplement like an AMPK activator is not a miracle supplement: Exercise and healthy eating patterns are important components of a healthy weight routine. So think of an AMPK metabolic activator as a companion to your overall weight management strategy, not the be-all and end-all in the battle of the bulge.

How else can I fight unwanted belly fat?

Make no mistake about it: Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is the best way to fight unwanted body fat, including belly fat.

• Work out most days of the week.

  Want lean abs? Then don't skimp out on workouts. It is important to exercise for at least 150 minutes per week to elevate your heart rate and help burn fat naturally. But don't think you have to do hot yoga or high-intensity interval training to get a good workout. Taking a walk, jogging, or even playing tennis are all great ways to break a sweat, have fun and burn some calories in the process. Exercises targeting your waistline will also help lean out your middle.

• Fuel yourself with healthy foods.

  Choose a diet rich in lean, healthy meats, healthy fats, and fresh fruits and vegetables. Caloric restriction supports AMPK activation, but make sure you are consuming enough protein, carbs and fats for your age, height, weight and gender to fuel your body with the energy it needs for your daily activities.

• Try an AMPK metabolic activator.

  Once you have the foundation of diet and exercise down pat, promote your body's fat-burning process with a combination of AMPK-activating nutrients. G. pentaphyllumextract has been clinically studied to target abdominal fat, one of the worst types of fat in your body, and support exercise performance and AMPK levels

References

• Canbolat E, Cakıroglu FP. "The importance of AMPK in obesity and chronic diseases and the relationship of AMPK with nutrition: a literature review." Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 2023. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35708095/
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• de Toro-Martín J, et al. "Body mass index is associated with epigenetic age acceleration in the visceral adipose tissue of subjects with severe obesity." Clin Epigenetics. December 2019. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31791395/
• Després JP, et al. "Abdominal obesity and the metabolic syndrome: contribution to global cardiometabolic risk." Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. June 2008. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18356555/
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• Nayyar D, et al. "Gynostemma Pentaphyllum Increases Exercise Performance and Alters Mitochondrial Respiration and AMPK in Healthy Males." Nutrients. November 2023. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38004115/
• Park SH, et al. "Antiobesity effect of Gynostemma pentaphyllum extract (actiponin): a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial." Obesity (Silver Spring). January 2014. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23804546/
• Powell-Wiley TM, et al. "Obesity and Cardiovascular Disease: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association." Circulation. May 2021. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33882682/
• Steinberg GR, Hardie DG. "New insights into activation and function of the AMPK." Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. April 2023. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36316383/
• "Kinase." National Cancer Institute. https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/kinase