Weight Loss Biohacks! 11 Tips to Biohacking Your Body

• What is Biohacking?
• Benefits of Biohacking for Women
• 11 BioHacks for Weight Loss & Overall Health
• What is the biohacking diet?
• What ages us faster?
• What are some good biohacking books?
• Is biohacking safe?
• Best Biohacking Supplements
• Summary and Favorite Things

What is Biohacking?

Biohacking focuses on optimizing the body’s metabolic rate and other functions through small, focused changes in your diet and lifestyle. By observing what you eat, activities and workouts, and sleep habits and applying scientifically backed small tweaks, you can see a boost in your overall health.

Examples of biohacks include blood tests, consuming caffeine mindfully, nutrition, exercise routines, nootropics, and stress management techniques like prayer or meditation.

While the term “biohacking” may sound like a the new popular buzzword, it’s actually something nutritionists and health practitioners have used for years.

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Why we Love It

Biohacking requires you to look at your overall health daily. While we have plenty of biohacks for weight loss, it really comes down to how you are feeling and how sleep, activity, and food affect you.

We are all about finding what works best for our bodies without restrictive diets or extreme workouts!

Benefits of Biohacking for Women

Biohacking has been linked to weight loss, reduced stress, and overall health (source). Studies have also found simple tweaks to our routines can help with body weight, fat loss, energy levels, brain function, a stronger immune system, and longevity. 

These ideas also feel pretty great, and who doesn’t want better mental health and lower body fat while they’re working on their weight loss goals?

How do I biohack for weightloss?

Biohack your metabolism is highly individual and about tailoring your nutrition and lifestyle to your body. It can be done through intermittent fasting, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress management practices.

Below, we’ll look at a comprehensive approach for long-term weight loss!
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What is the biohacking diet?

When it comes to biohacking your diet, the focus is on what your body needs. It focuses on highly nutritious foods like whole grains, healthy fats and lean proteins while limiting processed foods, refined carbohydrates, and sugar.

Why Biohackers Avoid Processed Foods

Multiple studies have linked processed foods to inflammation in the body and negative effects both physically and mentally. They also can interfere leptin, insulin, and ghrelin levels — which are are essential to balance when it comes to weight loss.

These foods have also been show to trigger chronic diseases such as diabetes type II, heart disease, and high blood pressure.

Biohacking Diet Foods

If you’re bummed about having to limit or eliminate processed foods, don’t worry! There are so many great biohacking diet foods you can enjoy! They include, but are not limited to:

• Healthy Fats – avocados, nuts, seeds, extra virgin olive oil, grass-fed butter and ghee, coconut oil
• Whole Grains – quinoa, rice, whole oats
• Proteins – wild-caught seafood, grass-fed meat, and chicken
• Vegetables and Fruits – organic vegetables, berries, low-sugar fruits

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11 BioHacks for Weight Loss & Overall Health

There are several biohacks for weight loss, but that doesn’t mean you have to apply all of them! You could choose one a week or choose the three or four that excite you! You can also skip ones that don’t feel good to your body. After all biohacking is highly individual. 

You should always talk to your doctor before beginning any of these biohacks or changing anything in your diet or workout routines.

1. Intermittent Fasting

One of the most popular biohacks for weight loss is intermittent fasting. Not only could it help you lose weight, but it also has a few other health benefits linked to the practice!

What is it?

Intermittent fasting focuses on only eating during a certain set of time each day and remaining in a fasted state the rest of the time.

For example, you may choose to make your eating window 6 hours and have a 18 hour fasting window. You could also do a gentle 12 hour fast with a 12 hour eating window, or you could opt for a more intense 20 hour fast with a 4 hour eating window.

Intermittent Fasting Benefits

In regards to biohacking for weight loss, a MN Harvie study calculated that 79% of weight loss from fasting was a fat loss. This shows fasting could cause a metabolic shift in the body which could aid in weight management and overall wellbeing. (source)

Research has shown intermittent fasting can significantly help with reducing body fat, promoting muscle growth, and curbing cravings. (source)  (source)

Additional studies have also shown fasting can aid in improving metabolic health, increasing insulin sensitivity, and boosting brain health. (source)

While you can fast for as little as 12 hours, studies have found fasting regularly for more than 14 hours to be linked to better levels of growth hormone, more efficient cellular repair, and mental longevity.

How to Fast

When it comes to biohacking, you need to choose the best option for yourself. Not everyone is suited to fasting.

We recommend starting with a 12 hour fast because it’s what most of us are used to. For example, if you eat dinner at 6PM, you could eat breakfast at 6AM.

As you see how your body does, you could do a longer fast with a smaller eating window.

You may also like our Beginners Guide to Intermittent Fasting.
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2. Optimizing Your Hydration

A poll found 47% of American adults aren’t drinking enough water. Staying hydrated is one of the easiest ways to boost our weight loss and energy levels though.

Benefits

A study showed that drinking 16.9 ounces of water 3 times a day before meals for 8 weeks resulted in a lower weight and body fat levels (Source)! Another study found drinking the same 16.9 ounces of water before a meal resulted in an increased 44% weight loss over those that didn’t drink the water (Source).

Being dehydrated can also reduce our motivation and increase our fatigue — making it harder to exercise physically and mentally (Source). On the other hand, being well hydrated can help reduce stress on the body that occurs during high intensity exercise (Source).

Being well hydrated can also help our mood and concentration and prevent headaches (source).

Not drinking enough water has also been linked to constipation, anxiety, fatigue, and a decrease in memory and brain performance (source) (source).

How much water do we need to drink?

A general rule is to drink half your body weight in ounces per day. For example, if you weight 150 pounds, you’d drink 75 ounces a water a day. If you carry the popular 40oz Stanley cup, it’s about 2 of those.

With that said, a good indicator of being well hydrated is your pee being a light yellow. You don’t have to be running to the bathroom every 10 minutes to be well hydrated.
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3. Optimizing Your Sleep

One study found half of adults don’t get the recommended 7–8 hours of sleep a night.  Out of that group, over 20% get less than 5 hours a night!

Prioritizing sleep may feel like like a luxury, but if you’re serious about your weight loss and energy, it needs to be a top priority. 

Sleeping Benefits

A consistent sleep schedule of good sleep helps regulate two hormones responsible for your appetite and sense of fullness – ghrelin and leptin.

If you have a lack of sleep, your cortisol levels will likely be elevated, and this hormone has been closely linked to weight gain. Multiple studies find you need to prioritize sleep not only for peak performance when you’re awake, but to maintain a healthy weight (source).

Plus, your circadian rhythm — your body’s internal clock — regulates your mood, hormones, energy levels, heart rate, blood pressure and appetite.

In addition to weight loss, getting enough sleep helps us have energy throughout the day and power to do our workouts.

How to Get Better Sleep

There are a few things we’ve found to help us sleep better!

321 Rule

This rule helps with your sleep habits.

• 3 hours before bed, don’t eat or drink alcohol.
• 2 hours before bed, don’t work.
• 1 hour before bed, turn off all screens (TVs, computers, phones).

Blue Light Blocking Glasses

The idea to avoid all screens one hour before bed is because the blue light they emit can mess up your circadian rhythm (source). We’ve started using blue light blocking glasses 3 hours before bed because it’s been shown to improve sleep quality and mood (source). 

Hum’s Mighty Night

If you need a little more help, we’re in love with HUM Nutrition Mighty Night. It has helped us sleep so much better. We track our sleep with an Oura, and it even notices when we take Mighty Night because we sleep so much better.

What is Mighty Night?

It’s a combination of clinically-tested nutrients to promote skin cell turnover, healthy-looking skin and optimal sleep.

Try HUM Nutrition Mighty Night

Apollo Neuro

Apollo Neuro is a wearable device that helps to retrain (and calm) your nervous system. A clinical trial showed that participants using it got 19% more time in deep sleep!

Save $40 on Apollo Now

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4. Getting in NEAT

You may have heard the term NEAT thrown around recently. NEAT stands for Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis, and it’s essential for people that live a sedentary lifestyle due to work or choice.

Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) is everything you do physically when you’re not sleeping. Some examples of NEAT are fidgeting, getting ready for work, driving, cooking, or spending time at the park with a friend taking a walk.

NEAT helps us positively affect daily energy expenditure and thus increase our resting metabolic rate (source).

By adding in regular physical activity to a sedentary lifestyle, you can burn more calories without ever stepping foot into the gym. NEAT has also been linked to sustained weight loss (source).

We also did a podcast all about NEAT you may like!
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5. Perfecting Your Exercise Routines

Biohacking your exercise routines is another easy and effective way to improve your weight loss.

The most important thing to consider when adding in any type of exercise is — will you enjoy it? Because if you don’t stay consistent, it won’t matter if your exercise plan is super effective or not.

Favorite Biohacking Exercise Routines

High-intensity interval training (HIIT) not only aids with fat loss, but it helps with cardiovascular health and blood pressure regulation (source).  It’s also been show to help with muscle mass compared to traditional long cardio classes (source).

While a lot of people assume HIIT is high-impact, you can find low-impact options. HIIT is all about your heart rate not about jumping or not.

Resistance training is also essential because we begin losing lean muscle mass after our 30th birthday. Muscle burns more calories than fat on our body — even when we sleep — so it’s important we make strength training and muscle gain a priority.

Our favorite workout program, LIIFT4, combines strength training and HIIT into a 4 day schedule. You can stream it at home or at the gym. You can learn more about LIIFT4 here.
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6. Mental Health and Managing Your Stress

A study found 75% of Americans were dealing with one or more symptoms associated with stress, and we’re guessing the other 25% were lying (source). Ha!

American culture has tried to normalize and even glamorize stress, but it makes everything harder.

Stress leads to cortisol production which effects insulin, and studies have shown cortisol increases food cravings and supports weight gain (source).

Even short-term stress can also actually slow down your metabolism (source). Plus, stress can cause us to eat more which can lead to extra fat storage, chronic illnesses, and mental health problems.

So just like sleep, it’s important for us to prioritize stress management if we want to lose weight and feel our best. By doing so, we can help lower our cortisol levels and boost our weight loss as a consequence.

How to Manage Your Stress

Yoga, deep breathing, and meditation have all been linked to reducing stress. All three of these options tap into the body’s central nervous system, reduce cortisol levels, and promote a state of calm (source).

Meditating

Calm and Headspace are two well known meditation apps that make it super easy to meditate anywhere if you have a smart phone. Just 10 minutes a day meditating has been shown to reduce stress levels and boost mindfulness, too! (source)!

Meditation has also been linked to helping people work through binge and emotional eating (source).

Breathwork

Breathwork also has been shown to help reduce stress, as well as, improve digestion, reduce bloating, and even increase your metabolism.

Calm and Headspace both offer simple guided breathing classes that vary in length so that you can do breath work within your busy day. Oura also has a few with their membership.

You can also practice mindful breathing on your own. Just slowing your breathing down to 6 long breaths per minute can help with emotional wellbeing and reduced blood pressure (source).

Apollo Neuro

If you’re looking for additional help, we highly recommend the Apollo Neuro for stress management. In their clinical trial, they found users experienced up to 40% less stress and feelings of anxiety!

The Apollo Neuro is a wearable device that retrains the nervous system to adapt to stress more effectively through soothing vibrations. The device is created from university science and research, and it’s proven to help with stress and sleep.

We started using it in November, but we weren’t sure if we’d feel a difference. This was 2 or 3 days before a family member had serious surgery that required some intense recovery. It helped so much with our stress levels, we kept it and now share it with others!

Save $40 on Apollo Now

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7. Using a Wearable Device to Track

Wearable devices and fitness trackers are easier and cuter than ever! Between the two of us, we have the Apple Watch, Oura ring, and Apollo Neuro.

Studies have shown that metabolism monitoring devices and wearables like these help people stay more consistent with physical activity and also boost confidence (source).

We also use a fit tracker scale that supposedly measures our hydration, body fat, and muscle along with our weight. 
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8. Red Light Therapy

Research shows red light therapy RLT can help regulate hormones in the metabolism like insulin and leptin and support your thyroid.

Why it Works

Red and near-infrared light are able to penetrate deeper into the human body and are able to reach the cells, tissues, blood, nerves, into the bones and even into the brain!

There are several benefits of using red light therapy at home including supporting the thyroid, reducing inflammation in cells, improved sleep, aids in boosting your mood. It could also help with sports performance,  cognitive function, stress, and skin health (source) (source) (source) (source).

How to Use Red Light Therapy

Red light therapy is probably our favorite biohack because it can be as simple as staying still!

We have a Mito Red Light Mat and a Current Body Face Mask we use 3-5x a week, and we usually pair it with breathwork or soothing sound frequencies for the ultimate de-stress cocktail!

If you’re interested in learning more about red light therapy, we highly recommend Mito Red Light’s blog!

GET 20% OFF CURRENTBODY WITH CODE SOREYCB

Get 5% off Mito Red light with code SOREY5.

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9. Cold Exposure and Therapy

You may have seen ice baths and cold therapy in your social feeds lately. It’s likely because cold exposure, whether it be cryotherapy or just a cold shower, has been shown to boost your metabolism.

You don’t have to stay in cold temperatures long either. It’s the shock of cold water that increases your metabolic rate (source).

Regularly finding yourself in an ice bath can do more than boost your metabolism, too. It can help with muscle recovery and burn fat more effectively (source).

How to Do It

Many gyms or health spas offer cryotherapy. This is where you get into a chamber for a set period of time and are exposed to frigid temperatures.

You could do an ice bath for one to five minutes. You can also practice your breath work during your bath to combine two powerful biohacks into one.

If you don’t want to do anything fancy, a cold shower can even provide some of the same benefits!

We personally don’t do cold therapy. Luckily biohacking is individual, and while it may work, we’re not willing to be that cold even for a short period.
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10. Supplements

Depending on how your body is currently functioning, your doctor may be able to recommend or approve some supplements to help you with your goals.

We personally take:

• • Codeage’s Multivitamin – We take Codeage Multi-Vitamin, and we love that it has a good blend of everything in it. You can also get it on Vitacost,
  • Hum’s Omega fish oil – This helps with our joints and brain health. (See why we take Omega 3 Here)
  • Codeage Liposomal Turmeric+–  Liposomal turmeric has been linked to several health benefits including: in aiding oxidative and inflammatory conditions, metabolic syndrome, and anxiety. You can also get it on Vitacost,
  • Probiotics – These help support your gut’s microbiome. We usually get Garden of Eden on Vitacost or use Beachbody’s.
  • Digestive Enzymes – This is probiotics best friend and help the gut process food. We like Flatter Me; it helps so much with bloating!
  • Codeage Hair Vitamins – This one does what it sounds like — helps us have thicker, shinier hair! (See how it compares to Nutrafol)
  • Collagen + Amino Acids – Collagen can help with gut health, as well as, joints, hair, skin, and nails.
  • + Elevate Nootropic – If you’re struggling with energy or focus, we love Elevate! Just 2 pills in the morning help us feel energized and mindful through the day.  You can get 40% with code SOREYFITNESS.
  • Mighty Night – If you’re struggling to get good-quality sleep, Mighty Night has been a game-changer for us. Grab our full Mighty Night review.

All of the supplements we take are 3rd party tested.

11. Blood Tests

If you want to dig deeper than just a wearable device (Apple Watch, Oura ring, Whoop, etc) — a blood test is one of the greatest weight loss biohacks.

Benefits

Blood tests can help identify underlying health issues that could be stalling your weight loss or making you feel bad. For example, thyroid issues, PCOS, and hormonal imbalances can be found with a blood test. They can also tell you if you have any nutrient deficiencies.

How to Do

You’ll may need to talk to your doctor to get a blood test, but it can worth while. You can also buy blood test kits online as well. Ulta Lab Tests allows you to order online.

Bonus: Drink apple cider vinegar

Drinking apple cider is our bonus biohack for weightloss because while it’s been studied, we just have a hard time believing it personally.

Benefits

One study showed it can suppress your appetite, and another study found drinking apple cider vinegar helped reduce weight loss and body fat!

How to Do It

You can add a tablespoon or two to your water and drink it before meals. We don’t recommend drinking it straight because it can hurt your throat. 

We buy Braggs Apple Cider Vinegar off of Vitacost, but we don’t use it before every meal. We use it occasionally and for salad dressings.
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In Contrast, What Ages Us Faster?

The American Journal of Public Health studied over 16,000 people, and they found smoking, alcohol consumption, an unhealthy diet, and living a sedentary lifestyle are major contributors to aging prematurely.

What are some good biohacking books?

If you want to dig into biohacking your body more, Kien Vuu, M.D.’s book Thrive State and Dave Asprey’s Super Human are great options!

You could also look into nutrigenomics. This is the study of how a person’s genes and nutrition interact with each other.

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Is Biohacking Safe?

Biohacking fights a bad reputation because some of the “new biohacks” lack of scientific oversight (source). With that said, biohacking is generally considered safe. You just want to look for evidence-based information, consult with your doctor when necessary, and monitor how you are feeling.

At the end of the day, biohacking is just evaluating how you feel, tracking your habits, and making small changes. Then, you listen to your body again and keep responding with small tweaks. It can be really empowering and help you build consistent habits.

When we’re consistent, studies show we are able to lose weight each week and maintain an ideal weight long term.

Quick Summary

Biohacking can help you optimize your habits, increase your weight loss, and even break up stubborn plateaus. It can also lead to better overall health.

When it comes to biohacking your body, everyone is individual.

With that said, here are the products we’ve found that have helped us!

Sleep

• Mighty Night 
• Blue light blocking glasses
• Oura for tracking

Stress Management

• Calm and Headspace for guided breathwork
• Oura for tracking
• Apollo Neuro for stress management.

Workouts

• LIIFT4 combines HIIT and strength training

Red Light Therapy

• Mito Red Light Mat and a Current Body Face Mask

Supplements

We personally take a multivitamin, fish oil, turmeric, probiotics, digestive enzymes, collagen, an nootropic for focus, and Mighty Night.

We hope this guide of weight loss biohacks helps you find what works for you and your body!
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