When researchers stopped the protein carnitine acetyltransferase from affecting the genetic coding in laboratory mice as they yo-yo dieted, the mice used stored fat at a far faster rate than a control group of mice dieting in the same manner.

While the above information may seem like Greek to you, it actually comes from Melbourne, Australia and professor Zane Andrews’ research team at Monash University. Metaphorically, though, it’s not of this Earth.

It’s absolutely, positively out of this world.

For while the discovery may or may not be the sole antidote to the obesity epidemic, it is certainly a component to creating permanent weight loss.

As a result of their research that Cell Reports published in its February issue, professor Andrews and his colleagues believe that if they could find a way of switching off the protein’s activity in humans, that would prevent the body from perceiving dieting as a sign of starvation, which would in turn keep the body from hoarding fat during dieting — and also keep it from instinctively storing more after the diet ends.

In Maria Cohut’s account of this research, “Can’t keep the weight off? This may be why,” found at Medical News Today.com, professor Andrews explains that “manipulating this protein offers the opportunity to trick the brain.”

Fortunately for you, you do not need to become such a scientific trickster. There is even no need for you to understand the role carnitine acetyltransferase plays in your body, how to tame its production, alter its utilization — or even how to pronounce it correctly.

What you do need to recognize are the ways to eat and exercise to achieve what this research did: burn stored fat. To aid in that, here’s the lowdown on two oh-so-important hormones.

When insulin is secreted, it transports broken down fats, proteins, and carbs throughout the body. When glucagon is released, it allows fat in the bloodstream or in storage to be used as immediate energy.

Which hormone your produces is influenced by the meals you eat. Consume a well-balanced meal, and your body responds to the subsequent increase in blood sugar with a moderate secretion of insulin. Consume an unbalanced meal of mostly simple carbohydrates, and your body responds with so much insulin that too much blood sugar is transported to the muscle cells.

The muscle cells are overwhelmed. They shut down and the energy that could be used to refuel them goes instead to the fat stores.

“Unbalance” the meal differently by eating a mixture of mostly complex carbs and protein with a bit of healthy fat thrown in for good measure, however, and you produce far less insulin. As a result, more energy gets stored in the muscles while protein gets used to maintain or grow muscle.

Equally as important, neither complex carbs nor protein breakdown into fat efficiently, so if there’s an excess of either, many calories get wasted in the process.

Furthermore, eating this way allows your blood sugar to get back to fasting level quicker, which is when your body secretes glucagon. Glucagon must be present in your bloodstream to turn stored fat into energy.

So the more meals you eat that engender this, the more fat you burn.

Exercise also allows you to burn stored fat.

While that statement may strike you as an obvious one, when you eat affects the degree to which this occurs. If you have a snack an hour or so before you workout, for instance, your body will use that energy first.

If the exercise is moderate and the snack beforehand is a larger energy bar, a buttered bagel, or pretzels with string cheese, you may do no more than break even. In other words, you may only expend as many calories as you ingested to fuel the workout.

If you avoid food for about three hours before your workout and make the effort a bit more intense, though, you’ll cause a secretion of glucagon in 40 minutes or so and begin to use fat as energy.

There’s also a second benefit to the more-than-moderate exercise: It causes your muscles and fat to release a molecule called IL-6, furthering the likelihood that fat will be burned. Better still, it increases the odds that the carbs consumed after you exercise go toward refueling the muscles instead of adding to the fat stores.

In short, you need to tap into your fat stores when you lose weight or the weight loss is counterproductive. Any radical reduction in calories creates a quick weight loss, but about half of that comes from water-weight loss and your body breaking down muscle for energy as a way to save body fat to survive what the body interprets as famine.

All of this is why low-carb diets work temporarily. Your body ingests fats and proteins to keep the body from burning muscle for fuel, yet the lack of carbs keeps blood sugar levels so low that you secrete more glucagon than insulin.