How Can You Lose Weight With Berberine? The Polar Bear Plan.

The one clinical trial involving berberine in a weight loss plan was conducted by eight university hospitals in Spain. The researchers tested a product called (AP, Armolipid Plus) that combines red yeast rice extract, policosanol, berberine, folic acid, coenzyme Q10 and asthaxantine. That's a cholesterol lowering herb that is chemically identical to the statin drug Mevacor, several antioxidants, a vitamin, and the herb extract. The study found that:

1. Increased the ratio of "good" HDL to "bad" LDL.
2. Lowered the "bad cholesterol" LDL-c by about 6.6 percent.
3. Lowered the "really bad cholesterol" ApoB by about 8.8 percent.

These lipid-lowering benefits took about 12 weeks. Just using the product and not doing anything else resulted also in an average weight loss of about one kilogram, or a little over two pounds. That's not a lot, but many of us manage to gain weight when we don't try to diet, so even a modest benefit of berberine is worthy of consideration.

If your concern is how to lose 20 pound with berberine, however, you need to do a little more than just continue eating as normal and hoping for the best. Here's an optimal way to use berberine for weight loss.

1. Locate a berberine supplement that is standardized to provide 1000 mg of the plant chemical. Take twice a day.
2. Enhance the fat-burning effects of the herb by cold exposure. Berberine makes it easier for your brown fat to burn fat. Your brown fat is the fat that makes the heat that keeps you warm when you are cold enough to shiver. If you make a habit of getting just cold enough to shiver, your brown fat (and some of your abdominal fat) will burn more calories. 
3. Reduce calories, but allows yourself a "normal" day about twice a week. You don't want your metabolism to slow down by eating less all the time. On the other hand, you don't want to binge, ever, and there's no need to eat fat to lose fat. You already have the fat stored in your body. You don't need more, other than relatively small (1 to 3 gram) amounts of omega-3 essential fatty acids you can get with fish oil or microalgae oil.

An American friend made this diet work when he was living in northern California. Where he lived summers aren't especially warm, and winter temperatures linger around 40 degrees F (5 degrees C) for months. He made a habit of swimming in an outdoor pool every day in the summer and just kept swimming as the days got cooler. His neighbors thought he was nuts, but he lost about 25 pounds (11 kilograms) without dieting, and he saved a lot on my indoor heating bill that year, too. However, like a Russian polar bear taking the plunge in winter, he lost excess fat.

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Berberine will also work if you don't emulate the polar bears with winter outdoor swimming, too. Its effects will just be more modest. If you are diabetic, take your blood sugar levels regularly (several times a day, and after exercise). You may find that your sugars run a little too low if you take berberine and also exercise. Just take less berberine to avoid this effect.