This Japanese Food Destroys Visceral Fat by Rebuilding Your Mitochondria

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]This Japanese food destroys visceral fat by rebuilding your mitochondria.

[00:00:06]That's something I'm going to talk about today, so stick around. Hi, my name is Satiak Takamya, a 63-year-old biohacker based on Japanese natural health and the author of Live Wiser, Not Smart. Now, do you know about visceral fat fat surrounding your organs? When we think of fat, we usually think of subcutaneous fat that is just underneath of your skin. The fat that you can pinch. But visceral fat is inside the body. It is fat surrounding your organs and usually we can't see it. And even a thin person can have a lot of viseral fat.

[00:01:00]Therefore, we need to be careful.

[00:01:03]And this fat is considered to be more dangerous than subcutaneous fat because it act as an endocrine organ releasing toxic substances, inflammatory chemicals and hormones that trigger insulin resistance, heart disease, high blood pressure and chronic inflammation.

[00:01:30]But many of you who watching this channel may think you have no problem with this fat because you lead a relatively healthy lifestyle and I thought so too. In fact, I have come across videos on visceral fat but I haven't been interested in it so much because it wasn't really my problem. As a matter of fact, fat has never been my problem. As you can see, I am a thin person. So obesity has never been my issue but this can be caused through aging especially after 60 visible fat begins to increase just like anything else. Many of our functions start decreasing after the age of 60 such as bifido bacteria autopagi function and so on. And the same thing is true about this fat. So we need to be extra cautious.

[00:02:31]And then I came across this video called the single Japanese for shut down fat storage and rebuilt mitochondria Dr. David Sinclair. So I watched it.

[00:02:46]Actually it wasn't done by David Sinclair. It was done by someone else.

[00:02:51]But the content was interesting because it basically said this Japanese food destroys visceral fat by rebuilding mitochondria through activating the EMPK pathway. Do you know about thempk pathway? It is something similar to autophagy or satin that often deincla talks about. Anyway, I explain it later, but for now, just understand it as something important for your longevity.

[00:03:28]And this Japanese food, whatever that is, is not known for that. It's not known to destroy visceral fat by activating the MTK pathway. Therefore, this was new information to me. And if this is true, this revelation can be groundbreaking in the field of health and longevity. So that's what I would like to talk about in this video today.

[00:04:00]So first I'll share with you what Japanese food destroys visceral fat by rebuilding your mitochondria and then what is the EMPK pathway and how do mitochondria reduce visceral fat and how this food activate the EMPK pathway through but production. So there's a connection with but that is the key that is the most interesting part of today's video. And finally how to eat this food to maximize visceral fat loss. So if you are interested in losing visceral fat or just increasing your health span because this is the key to increasing your overall health span.

[00:04:52]Please watch the video until the end.

[00:04:55]For those of you who just discovered this video today, this is the Iky Guy Diet channel which is about how to increase health bound for people over 50 or 60. I am the author of four books. I usually cover things like diet, exercise, mindset, and anything else that is related to increasing health span. So if you're over 50 or 60 and interested in health plan extension, please subscribe to this channel. Thank you.

[00:05:29]Okay. What Japanese food destroys visceral fat by rebuilding your mitochondria?

[00:05:36]So, the video talked about several Japanese foods such as seaweed like wakame and koo and then matcha with a kim and fatty fish with omega-3 fatty acids and mugi meshi which is rice with bar.

[00:05:58]This was common in the rural area of Japan. In fact, I talked about Mugi Messi in other video before because remember Dr. Shoji Condor who discovered long lived villages and short-lived villages in Japan and then Mugi was common in the long lived villages in Japan and finally not. So which one destroys visceral fat? Actually all of them are important according to the video but especially the video talked about natto. Yes, of course natto. Natto is the healthiest food in Japan. It was selected to be the number one healthy food by 300 Japanese doctors. So natto is the consensus that many doctors agree it is the super superfood but natto's health benefit is usually not known for this not about reducing visceral fat. So what is natto known for? The most famous one is nattokinade, a unique enzyme known for supporting healthy blood flow and cardiovascular health. And vitamin K2, crucial for bone density and ensuring calcium is directed to the bones rather than the arteries.

[00:07:33]sparmed in a natural compound that supports autophagy server renewal and healthy aging. So this is slightly related to the EMPK pathway, but the video didn't talk about spam. It talked about something else.

[00:07:53]And then finally, protein bioavailability.

[00:07:57]An enzyme called protease breaks down the protein into amino acid and peptides during fermentation.

[00:08:06]And now NATO seem to help visceral fat loss through rebuilding mitochondria through activating the EMPK pathway.

[00:08:20]Okay. So what is the EMPK pathway? The MPK is the metabolic master switch.

[00:08:29]Think of as the general manager of your body's energy. Every single cell in your body had this switch. Its only job is to monitor your fuel levels.

[00:08:43]When you have plenty of energy after a big meal or while resting, the switch stays off. The manager tells the body, "We have plenty of supply. Go ahead and store the extra and keep growing."

[00:08:59]When energy is low during exercise or fasting, the switch flips on. The manager tells the body, "We are low on fuel. Stop all new construction and start burning our reserves to keep the lights on."

[00:09:16]In short, it is the switch that moves your body from storage mode to repair and bal mode.

[00:09:26]Okay. So how it is different from autophagy or satu three longevity system etc management team empk is the manager autophagy is the cleaning crew. So the MPK gives order to autopagy to start cleaning the cells and satin is the repair engineer. It basically repairs and protect DNA blueprints.

[00:10:02]So they have a different roles but they work in a team. So how does AMK rebuild mitochondria?

[00:10:13]First of all through the work of mopagy mitochondria is more like a pharmacies and mpk identifies and recycles old nonfunctional mitochondria and prevent rusty cera furnaces and two activate master regulator called PGC1 alpha So it orders creation of new building blocks and trigger gene transcription and then result in a new efficient mitochondria.

[00:10:56]So increased metabolic capacity, improved fat oxidization and you will have support and youthful cells.

[00:11:06]Okay. So how does the rebuilding of mitochondria reduce visceral bar? So first mitochondria releases fatty acid from stubborn storage and the fatty acid enters target cells such as muscle and liver.

[00:11:27]So in the second box you see the most critical step. Fat can't just float into the furnace. It has to pass through a controlled gateway in the mitochondrial membrane. In a sluggish metabolism, this gate is often stuck. But when your newly built efficient mitochondria, the fatty acid pass through easily. This prepare them for beta oxidation, the process that ready the fuel for the fire.

[00:11:59]Finally, mitochondrial fat oxidation.

[00:12:04]Efficient breakdown of fat molecules generate massive cellular energy and heat consumes fat mass reducing storage.

[00:12:15]Okay. How natto activates the pathway through but production.

[00:12:23]So according to this video, traditional Japanese foods like natto, fermented soybeans promote a gut microbiome that produces butray, a short- chain fatty acid that activates the EMPK pathway, signaling the body to build new mitochondria and reduce visceral fat.

[00:12:46]Now, but that is produced by butrate producing bacteria and I talk about this bacteria all the time in this channel because it is called longevity bacteria in Japan because this bacteria was discovered abundantly in the gut of the Japanese centurians in Kyotango region and the Kyoango region has three times as many centurion as the Japanese national average. Therefore, but producing bacteria was the key to longevity.

[00:13:30]That's what many scientists thought.

[00:13:34]But we didn't know about this connection. So now that video was saying that but activate AMPK that is a new information.

[00:13:50]Up until now but was regarded something to improve your immune function not about the EMPK.

[00:14:01]Even Dr. Yuji Nito who is one of the researchers of the Kyotango longevity cohort study didn't talk about MPK as far as I can remember I don't think he has spoken about MPK so here's the research that talked about but activating the EMPK so for details please visit this website but this is incredible because up until Now this was more epidemological. The fact that many centurians have butrate producing bacteria a lot in their g means this is the key to longevity but we didn't have mechanistic connection but this discovery changed it to mechanistic evidence. So now we can pay attention to this bacteria a lot more. This is the key to increasing your health plan.

[00:15:06]Okay. So how natto produce but because natto is not known for producing but that is a but producing bacteria not natto bacteria. Well that's where this chart comes in. You know the bacterial relay I have shared with you before. So, so propionate, acetate, butrate these are the short chain fatty acid and butrate is produced by butrate producing bacteria. But to complete this process, there is this relay taking place in the gut. And in the relay, there are three runners. the first runner, the second runner and the third runner. The butr producing bacteria eat the third runner.

[00:16:01]So you need the second runner and the first runner and the first runner is natto bacteria or any kind of a sacrifying bacteria but natto bacteria is a well-known sacrifying bacteria. So what they do is they convert fiber and oligosaccharides into sugar which makes it easier for the second runner to consume and second runners are lactic acid bacteria and bifido bacteria. For the case of butrate the bifido bacteria is important. So because of natto bacteria's help bifido bacteria now can consume sugar easily and produce acetate and then using this estate but producing bacteria produce but so natto bacteria indirectly support the production of butray through creating the environment in the gut.

[00:17:10]that is easy for butrate producing bacteria to do their work. By the way, there's a research saying fermented soy bean suppresses visceral fat. But this one is more interesting because natto doesn't just support the production of butyrate. is support the production of all short chain fatty acid and they do all kind of great things in our body.

[00:17:41]Therefore, eating natto makes so much different. It basically creates a healthy gut microbiome and that is a longterm measure not a shortterm measure. So it is a more holistic approach because when you try to lose visceral fat you only focusing one area but working holistically you solve the problem of the visceral fat but you also solve the problems of many other things. Okay. How to eat natto to maximize visceral fat loss.

[00:18:19]First let's look at what activities reduce visceral fat. Uh first one is exercise especially aerobic exercise. Low intensity aerobic exercise such as zone 2 training uh which is exercising at 60 to 70% of your max heart rate. Um, so zone 2 enhances mitochondrial function and density and training at this intensity improves the body's ability to burn fat for fuel and switch efficiently between fuel sources.

[00:19:04]And if you do it for 30 to 60 minutes three times a week, it can increase butrate producing bacteria.

[00:19:13]also hit high intensity intero training is considered to be effective. Uh I practice tabata where you do high intensity exercise for 20 seconds and rest for 10 second and you do that eight set. Actually, I rest slightly longer like maybe 30 to 60 seconds because I do kind of more sets like maybe 10 or uh 12 sets all together. I do a sprinting pull-ups and chin-ups and box jump. Now, some people argue which is better steady zone two or some says vigorous intensity exercise is more beneficial.

[00:20:03]But I think the whole argument is pointless because you want to do both.

[00:20:09]Both are important. There's no superior exercise to other exercises. They are just different. They serve different purposes. Remember I shared with you this video before. How about confirms why Japanese centurions live longer? In the video, I talked about how doing a wide variety of exercise was more beneficial.

[00:20:37]So, choosing one optimal exercise and doing that is not as good as doing a wide variety of exercises. Even though each exercise is not optimal, diversity is the key. The same thing is true with your gut microbiome. You don't want to have one optimal microbe. You want to have a diverse microbe in your gut. Therefore, in my case, I alternate the two. On Mondays, I do zone two exercise, but on Tuesday, I do Tabata hit with strength training. So I kind of alternate aerobic exercise and strength training. But when I do my strength training, I do it in the format of highintensity interval training. Now another activity is intermittent fasting especially prolonged fasting which means fasting over 24 hours. So 24 hours fasting, 36 hours fasting, 48 hours fasting or 72 hours fasting. And the minimum rent to show some kind of results is considered to be 16 hours of fasting. And this type of fasting is very popular among most people.

[00:22:13]And any kind of heat exposure such as suna or the cold exposure such as cold shower are beneficial as well. And sleep. You want to sleep well to reduce visceral fat. Okay. So what about activities that increase visceral fat?

[00:22:34]Any sedentary lifestyle is bad. So sitting all day on a chair in front of your computer and drinking alcohol isn't good or staying up late at night isn't good including eating late at night or screen time late at night. So you know all those unhealthy lifestyle technically speaking but surprisingly even some healthy activities can be harmful such as ura endurance training or even regular marathon depending on the individuals of course but there are cases some marathon runners have a lot of visceral fat. This is because high stress keeps the body in survival mode where it wants to hold on to visceral fat as emergency protection. So raising cortisol can be a problem. Cortisol itself isn't bad but if you raise cortisol constantly it can be a problem.

[00:23:45]Therefore we need to be careful when we choose exercise. Now I said highintensity interval training is good and there's one popular highintensity interval training called Noring 4x4.

[00:24:03]This is you exercise at zone four or zone five intensity for 4 minutes and you have a 3 minute less and you do that four set. That's why it is called four by four. Now this type of exercise is very popular and it is considered to be the most effective but it depends on individuals.

[00:24:30]So people who are athletic, people who are athlete or people who have done sports uh all your life maybe it is okay to do that. But people over 60 I don't personally recommend it. Again, it really depends on how you feel, how much stress you get from the exercise. It's not so much about the type of exercise, but how you feel when you do that exercise. If you find it very challenging, you feel very good, then that is fine. But if you feel a lot of stressful exercise, this can be counterproductive.

[00:25:09]Personally, I find 4 minutes is very long. So for tabata it's okay because only 20 seconds it is hard but I know it is going to end soon but when I do norm 4x4 so after 1 minute I feel already tired I feel already pain and then I feel like oh my goodness I've got another 3 minute left and then even after 2 minutes or I've got two minute left it's too long to continue such high intensity activity therefore the stress becomes it's bigger than the effect from the exercise personally. So it really up to you but you need to pick an exercise that is appropriate for you not too much. The same thing is true with fasting. You don't want to fast too long. I mean I said prolong fasting is effective such as doing 48 hours fast or 72 hours fast but you don't want to do it every week. Not not even every month.

[00:26:14]If you do a 72 hours fast, I recommend you do that just once a year and maybe 48 hours fasting, maybe once every 3 months and so on. And but again, it really depends on how you feel when you do fasting. You don't want to stress yourself. That's all I'm saying. The same thing is true with the cold prime.

[00:26:36]You know, Joe Rogan once did a 20 minutes of cold plunging. Oh, I thought that was crazy. How could you stay in the cold for such a long time? Maybe he can do that, but I don't recommend you do that for such a long time. 20 minutes is way too long. Even five minute. I mean, I don't actually recommend cold pl that much. I mean, cold shower is better for people over 60. Cold shower is much safer than cold plunging. So you want to do these activities moderatory.

[00:27:11]You need to make sure to have plenty of rest in between an activity too. Resting is as important as exercising. So always it is a cycle. Apply stress, rest, stress and recovery. Stress and recovery. stress and recovery and then natto can supercharge the process. So those are the activity that can reduce viseral fat along with natto eating. So what I recommend is you want to combine natto eating with fasting and exercise.

[00:27:54]That will be the optimal way. So, first I recommend intermittent fasting, not prolonged fasting, but something like 16 hours of fasting.

[00:28:08]But even with 16 hours of fasting, you have a problem. Often you skip your breakfast. That means you may have a nutrient deficiency because you can have only two meals a day. Therefore, I recommend 14 hours of fasting.

[00:28:27]Basically, you fast between 700 p.m. and 900 a.m. So, you have 10 hours of eating window where you can have three meals, then you can gain sufficient nutrient intake. But I said 14 hours is not enough. I said the minimum rent is a 16 hours. So what can you do then you want to exercise fasted by exercising during your fasting window it changes everything either doing a zone 2 or high intensity interval training whichever is fine but faster exercise boost MPK activation tremendously. So it becomes as effective at 16 hours fast or even longer. So the combination of fasting exercise becomes very powerful a lot more than some of the prolonged fasting. So if you want to endure yourself with the prolonged fasting maybe it is better to do exercise while you practice shorter fast. And on top of that you can have natto and it gives additional boost to yourmpk activation.

[00:29:58]So how natto can supercharge your fast and exercise? By utilizing spermine.

[00:30:06]Remember spermine a natural compound that supports autophagy.

[00:30:12]Remember autophagy you know one of those longevity system. So the cleaning crew that repair your cellular damage to utilize sperming you need to think of the timing when to eat natto. It changes the effect of sperm depending of the time of your natto consumption. The best time is to eat it for dinner the night before. If you exercise in the morning then the protein in natto because natto is a high protein food. So protein natto induces mto fast. MTO is the opposite of autophagy. It is the opposite of MPK.

[00:31:03]And spaming starts working when you are in a fasted state. And it takes 8 to 12 hours to switch from a fed state to a fasted state depending on the individuals and depending on how much you eat too. So, that means if you finish dinner at 700 p.m., you'll be in a faster state between 3:00 a.m. and 7 a.m. Let's say if you become in a fast state at 700 a.m. And then if you have breakfast at 9:00 a.m., that means you have just 2 hours of your fasted state.

[00:31:46]That is why you need exercise during those two hours to activate the autophagy further and sperming can even further boost the process. So the combination of spermin exercise boost your intermittent fasting.

[00:32:10]Another way is by producing butrate. So you can have natto for your breakfast at 900 a.m. So postworkout meal definitely you want to eat natto.

[00:32:24]In my case I have a natto salad and soy yogurt musuri and soy yogurt made with bifido bacteria. This way I get to have both natto bacteria and bifido bacteria to support the production of butray. And in the m3 you can have oats and bar or any kind of whole grain that but producing bacteria love. Then you can support the butr producing bacteria to produce butr.

[00:33:04]You can also have a natto good that I shared with you recently and but I usually like to have whole natto beans.

[00:33:14]I mean I do have natto good sometimes too. I mean I do make musi with natto good as well but this is because I have jako inside this salad and jacko is a baby sardine which is a very good source of calcium. So the combination of jakqua and natto gives both calcium and vitamin K2 to support your bone health. And you don't have to have bifido bacteria yogurt every day. As I said before, you can rotate your yogurt. You can make your soy yogurt using bto bacteria, Greek yogurt, caspian sea yogurt or keia. And you can rotate it on a monthly basis or weekly basis. You don't have to have bifto bacteria every day. This is because you can increase bifto bacteria inside your gut. How do you do that? By feeding this bacteria through fiber and orosaccharides and natto. If you eat both fiber and natto, by the way, natto contains fiber and orosaccharide on its own. So natto is a complete food in that way. It contains both natto bacteria, fiber and oligosaccharide. And then natto bacteria makes it easier for victory bacteria to consume the fiber and oligosaccharide. Therefore, natto can increase vido bacteria inside the gut. It is very powerful when you think about it. So I talked about many things you know autophagy but producing bacteria and you know zone 2 high intensity interval training and so on but you want to have a holistic understanding of your body and your health. If you don't have a holistic understanding sometime you have a narrowminded view such as you know oh which is better you know vigorous intensity exercise or you know zone 2 kind of thing but if you understand health holistically you know diversity is the key. So to gain that kind of understanding and wisdom please read live wiser not smarter.

[00:35:40]Okay, summary.

[00:35:43]Natto destroys visceral fat by rebuilding mitochondria by activating EMPK.

[00:35:51]Emp is a metabolic master switch.

[00:35:56]Empager, autophagy is the cleaning crew and Satwin is the engineer.

[00:36:04]MPK reviews mitochondria.

[00:36:07]Mitochondria reduce visceral fat.

[00:36:11]Natto creates a healthy gut microbiome that supports the production of short chain fatty acid including butray. But activate thempk pathway.

[00:36:24]This shows a direct correlation between butrray producing bacteria and longevity.

[00:36:32]By eating natto with bifido bacterium, soy yogurt and some prebiotic whole grain that can support butrray producing bacteria, you can reduce visceral fat.

[00:36:45]You can also utilize spammed in enough to boost your autophagy activation during your morning fasted exercise which further contributes to visceral fat loss. Okay, that's it for today.

[00:36:59]Thank you for watching again. [music] My name is Hachi Takamya, the author of Live Wiser, Not Smart. If you like this video, please give me your thumb [music] up and subscribe to my channel and please leave your comment. How do you deal with visceral fat? What are your strategies to lose visceral fat? Please share your protocols in the comments below. Thank you. Now I talked about natto bacteria, bifido bacteria, butrray producing bacteria [music] and gut microbiome. If you're interested in knowing more about how those bacteria work, you may also want to watch this video