How Fat Cells Work?

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Fat Cells, Know How They Work
Help You Lose Weight Effectively!

Do you Know How Fat Cells Work?

How the fat burning process takes place and where the fat goes when you burned it?

Let's start from when you lose body fat.

The cells don't go anywhere or move into your muscles cell, to be burned.

They stay right where they're, which could be under the skin in your stomach, thighs, hips, arms and etc. and also on top of your muscles (which is why you can't see muscle definition when the layer of fat is there......).

You store fat in the cells in the form of triaglycerol. You don't burn the fat right there - the fat would have to be liberated from the fat cell through somewhat complex hormonal & biochemical pathways.

When stimulated to do so, the cell simply releases its contents (i.e. the triaglycerol) into your bloodstream as free fatty acids (FFAs) and the blood transports the FFAs to your tissues to supply the needed energy.

The Trigger

What then triggers the release of all these stored fatty acids from your cell?

Well, it's like this.

When your body needs energy (say when you're consuming fewer calories than you're burning, causing an energy deficit), your body releases hormones and enzymes that signal your fat cells to release your fat reserves instead of keeping them in storage.

For your body to liberate the stored fat from the cell, a process known as hydrolysis (lipolysis or fat breakdown) splits the molecule of triaglycerol into glycerol and the fatty acids, catalyzed by an enzyme called hormone sensitive lipase (HSL).

The stored fat (energy) gets released into your bloodstream as FFA's and shuttled off to your muscles where the energy is needed.

As your blood flow increases to the active muscles, you deliver more FFAs to the muscles that need them.

An enzyme, lipoprotein lipase (LPL), then helps the FFAs get inside the mitochondria of the muscle cell, where your body can burn the FFAs for energy.

(Note: Mitochondria is the "cellular powerhouse" where energy production takes place and this is where the FFAs go to be burned for energy)

When your body releases the FFAs from the fat cells, the latter shrink. Whoa! You get leaner!(because the cell is now smaller!)

The Fat Cell Population

Many of us think that the number of fat cells could not increase after maturity, only their sizes could increase (or decrease).

Ready for some surprises!

Because they can indeed increase both in size (hypertrophy) and in number (hyperplasia) and that they're more likely to increase in number at certain times and under certain circumstances, such as:

During late childhood and early puberty,

During pregnancy,

During adulthood when a person gains lots of weight

You, your friends or some others may be genetically predisposed to have more cells that are fat, than others.

And women have more of these cells than men.

An infant usually has about 5 - 6 billion of them. This number increases during early childhood and puberty and a healthy adult with normal body composition has about 25 to 30 billion of cells that are fat.

An overweight adult typically has around 75 billion of them, but in the case of severe obesity, this number can be as high as 250 to 300 billion!

The average size (weight) of an adult fat cell is about 0.6 micrograms (mg),but they can vary in size from 0.2 mg to 0.9 mg.

An overweight person's cells which are fat can be up to 3 times larger than a person with ideal body composition.

Remember, body fat is basically just a reserve source of energy and fat cells are like the storage tanks, which can expand or shrink in size depending on how "filled" they are.

Fatty cells start as almost empty fat storage "tanks" (when you are lean) and when your energy intake exceeds your needs, they "fill up" and "stretch out" like balloons filled with jelly........

So when you get leaner, you don't actually "lose" fatty cells, you "shrink" or "empty" them out.

Balance your Intake of Calories

So, what's my message here for you?

Yes, calories count!

The signal that triggers your body to release the stored fat from cells that are fat, is an energy deficit...

So, you've to burn more than you eat, to trigger this deficit.

Gradually cut your calories because starving yourself is a real "no-no" thing because it may actually decrease the activity of fat burning enzymes that release fat from the cells.

Be smart, use exercise to burn the fat, not very low calorie crash diets or "starvation" (which can cause quick weightloss at first, but never works long term because of the above-mentioned reason).

If you're gaining weight or if your weight is climbing up out of control, get it stopped and get control of it now.

The cells might be multiplying, making it more difficult for you to burn fat in the future. Now is the time!

If you've already lost weight, you would need to maintain it by exercise and eat a healthy diet. Your fat cells aren't gone; they've merely "shrunk" or "emptied out."

Genetics are only a minor factor. Granted, you may not have control over how many fat cells you were born with, but you do control the major factors that determine how much fat you store: exercise, healthy diet, attitude, commitment.....

Genetics, well, isn't an excuse.

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