| Author | Post |
|---|
Bluebelle
New Member
| Joined: | 14 September 2007 |
| Location: | Finland |
| Posts: | 10 |
|
Posted: 4 October 2007 08:32 pm |
|
I would like to know what happens to fat cells in your body, when you lose weight? Do they disappear or do they just decrease in size?
I've read from some beauty magazine once, that fat cells only ever decrease in size, and that's why if you've been overweight once, it's easier for you to gain that weight back since you already have more fat cells in your body than people who have always been skinny.
I would like to if that is actually true or not. I've read from other source that fat cells do decrease in numbers as well as in size when your body burns off fat.
|
Nir
Senior Administrator
|
Posted: 4 October 2007 08:44 pm |
|
| I'm afraid it is true. When you put on fat, fat cells grow in size but only up to a point - after this, more fat cells are created. Once created fat cells shrink if you lose fat but they don't go away. Someone who has been obese might have twice as many fat cells as someone who has always been normal weight
|
Ohm
Senior Member
|
Posted: 4 October 2007 08:45 pm |
|
Yes, I am afraid that you are right.
A buddy of mine, who I cannot name for the reason that he has not yet published his thesis, has spent that last few years fudding (doing his PhD) on exactly that subject, or close to it.
He has found that if you are obese, you really are more likely to shunt calories into fat storage than to excrete them - aparently naturally thin people just have the tendency to excrete excess calories rather than store them. And what is more, if you lose a lot of weight, the fat cells are simply deflated and sit there waiting for the chance to reinflate themselves with any excess calories you consume - but only a for a given period of time - which, darn it, has slipped my mind. I think it was more than a year - at which point they are slowly brokwn down - but only if they have not become reinflated AT ALL for a given period of time - which means holding your weight absolutely stable for a given time period.
So, the implication of this is that if we can stay slim for a year we have a marked increase in our chances of staying slim forever.
Last edited on 4 October 2007 08:48 pm by Ohm
|
Bluebelle
New Member
| Joined: | 14 September 2007 |
| Location: | Finland |
| Posts: | 10 |
|
Posted: 5 October 2007 11:00 am |
|
Thanks so much for both of your replies. So it is true after all (you can't always be certain with women's mags, they're sometimes to full of bulls...!)
What about people who have always been underweight or have always had low body fat percentage, do they have less fat cells than people who are normal weight? Or do we all have the same amount of fat cells to begin with and then only when we gain weight, they start to go up.
|
Ohm
Senior Member
|
Posted: 5 October 2007 11:16 am |
|
According to my friend, the essential difference between fatties and non-fatties is our body's tendency to store fat. Basically (he says) thin people will excrete more usable calories in their waste matter than fat people. They literally tend to flush more calories down the toilet! Wish I could do that!
The question I asked him is "why is this fact not more widely known?". And his reply was that it was generally thought by the medical proffession that if people were aware of the inequity they could do nothing to address the balance - sp best not to tell us. The medical professions also encourage the belief in a level playing field, because otherwise overweight people might not stop trying to lose excess weight and therefore may have greater health risks.....
Last edited on 8 October 2007 05:19 pm by Ohm
|
NevD
New Member
| Joined: | 26 October 2005 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 1536 |
|
Posted: 7 October 2007 05:18 pm |
|
I hate to generalise from a few particulars, but I had friends when I was younger who seemed naturally slim. Most of the boys drank beer more regularly than me, but never put on fat.
They seemed to be blessed by Nature.
Years later, with jobs, mortgages and families having taken their toll, they are all in much poorer shape. Almost to a man, they are now fat and unhealthy. It seems they were lucky enough to get away with it for years, but lifestyle has a way of catching up.
Meantime, I, who had always been the chubbiest one, and had struggled with yo-yo dieting for decades, had learned to eat properly, exercise properly and take care of myself properly (because I had the reason to do it) have become slimmer than they were back then.
If you want better examples, look at many retired sporting stars. They go from being exemplars of physical excellence to out-of-shape has-beens. Because their training kept them slim despite their huge appetites, they were bound to gain once they were no longer so active. Many of them, who fail to correct the problem end up dying young. Tragic, but without knowledge and application, no-one is immune to years of abusing the body.
It's a bummer that fat cells don't disappear (at least in the short term) but our behaviour has to be modified for the long term if we're to enjoy reaching old age.
I'm off to walk the dogs now, as I've sat around long enough today. That's another behavioural modification I made - I no longer worry about not exercising enough, but instead spend that worry-time exercising!
|
Peter
Founder, caloriesperhour.com
| Joined: | 24 May 2005 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 4179 |
|
Posted: 9 October 2007 08:47 am |
|
Trying to hold 50 full water balloons would break your back. But empty, you could easily fit them in your shirt pocket!
Don't get discouraged. 
Peter
|
abnormalapathy
Distinguished Member
|
Posted: 9 October 2007 09:19 pm |
|
Ohm wrote: According to my friend, the essential difference between fatties and non-fatties is our body's tendency to store fat. Basically (he says) thin people will excrete more usable calories in their waste matter than fat people. They literally tend to flush more calories down the toilet! Wish I could do that!
The question I asked him is "why is this fact not more widely known?". And his reply was that it was generally thought by the medical proffession that if people were aware of the inequity they could do nothing to address the balance - sp best not to tell us. The medical professions also encourage the belief in a level playing field, because otherwise overweight people might not stop trying to lose excess weight and therefore may have greater health risks.....
I think this is a really important point about the "level playing field." I think people should be armed to the teeth with readily available accurate information so that they can make more informed choices. Withholding such information is to me, a hypocrisy of the medical profession. Just because overweight people have a stronger tendency to hold onto their fat doesn't mean it's impossible to overcome. It will certainly be more difficult, but not impossible. If people had a truer sense of what it would take, maybe they wouldn't be so willing to spend the billions of dollars on the quick fixes that are out there, thinking that they'll have some effect.
|
Ohm
Senior Member
|
Posted: 9 October 2007 10:21 pm |
|
I think people should be armed to the teeth with readily available accurate information so that they can make more informed choices.
I agree with you, Abnormalapathy. I wholeheartedly agree with you.
B
|
Bluebelle
New Member
| Joined: | 14 September 2007 |
| Location: | Finland |
| Posts: | 10 |
|
Posted: 10 October 2007 12:15 pm |
|
And also, withholding such information might lead to frustration in general. A person who's always been overweight might look at smaller people around him losing weight more easily, and feel frustrated when results aren't visible as easily as they are for some other people with less fat cells in their body. Eventually that person might give up, not knowing why weight loss is so much more difficult for him. Knowing this fact might help them to stay with their weight loss plan for longer.
|
Ohm
Senior Member
|
Posted: 10 October 2007 12:29 pm |
|
Yes, but they would say that for soe fat people, if they knew that it was not alevel playing field they might decide not to try, because they are likely to achieve less, even with more effort.
Just putting the other side/playing devil's advocate.
|
suenos
Distinguished Member
|
Posted: 10 October 2007 02:01 pm |
|
Then again....just because "somebody said that somebody said" doesn't really make it so. Becci's friend could be 100% dead spot-on correct - both in the basic "fact" that "naturally thin" people simply excrete more usable calories than others and in the idea that there's some really widespread (I guess it would have to span across multiple countries) agreement among the medical establishment to conceal this particular bit of information to encourage a belief in a level playing field. Then again he could be right about the "fact" itself, but wrong in his theory about the motivation of the medical establishment. Or simply wrong on both accounts. Who knows?
I'm just thinking that, whichever scenario applies, at some point I think that most of us eventually realize that the playing field regarding weight gain/loss/maintenance is not level - for a host of reasons: gender, genetics, environment and more. Some of us will just always have to work a little bit (or a lot) harder than others just to achieve/maintain a healthy weight. It sucks that what seems to come so easily for some people is so darned tough for many of us.
And, since the problem of obesity seems to be ever increasing, it does seem like a lot us sometimes just give in and give up. I'm personally surrounded every day by people who say, and firmly believe "I just can't do it...it's impossible". Which makes me even more motivated and inspired by the people (like the ones on this forum) who hang in there day after day, proving to themselves and others that level playing field or no, "difficult" does NOT equal "impossible".
|
Ohm
Senior Member
|
Posted: 10 October 2007 03:27 pm |
|
Actually, my friend (who I met through my brother) is a PhD student currently completing his PhD in biomedical studies at Exeter University - which is the reason for his research.
Nice, guy. He's asked me not to use his name and not to give out too many details until his work is published - but within a year you will be able to check it for yourself - that is, if you believe what scientists say . Some of us are OK.
Becci
|
suenos
Distinguished Member
|
Posted: 10 October 2007 04:01 pm |
|
Neat for your friend that he's completing his studies in a field he's interested in- and I'm sure he's a great guy - neither of which changes the "somebody said that somebody said something"
For the record I totally agree that some scientists are "okay"...I've met one or two I quite like personally, and one or two I can only say the opposite about....but I could say the same about sales clerks and cooks and professional athletes.....and car mechanics and lawyers.....like my kid brother says "peeps are peeps".
|
Current time is 06:09 am | |
|
