Always wondered where all the flab on your tummy comes from? Inquisitive to know what happens when we lose weight or when we pile on the pounds? We met up with nutritionist Nandini Balakrishnan to know what goes on behind the scenes. Here’s the story.
Where Are My Fat Cells?
The adipose tissue (formed out of fat cells) resides at various spots in your body just under our skin – and the location of the tissue depends on your sex (arrrgh..you can’t do much about it!). A man may have it in the chest, abdomen and buttocks while a woman has it in her breasts, hips, waist and buttocks. It’s a fact that the number of fat cells only grows till puberty, post which the existing fat cells only increase in size and not in number. Fat cells increase in number only under one circumstance – when the existing fat cells are full with fat!
How Do My Fat Cells Make Me ‘Fat’?
You know it now – you grow bulky due to your fat cells. But it’s not due to the increase in the number of cells but because the cells themselves grow bigger in size. After the food enters our body, it gets decomposed into tiny particles of fat that start to flow through our blood. The insulin triggered enzymes called lipases get activated and absorb fat, further storing it in the cells. The more the insulin, the more triggered the lipases get, resulting into added absorption and bloating of cells.
How Can I Reduce The Number Of Cells?
You can never cut down on the number of cells in your body. The average range of fat cells in your body is 10 – 30 billion. Fat cells are an integral part of our body and play the role of energy store houses in our physical system without which we cannot sustain our life processes. The size of your body depends on how much fat these cells absorb. In case the body loses weight, the cells simply shrink and decrease in size and not in number. When you workout and eat less, the entry of fat reduces while the consumption of fat for energy increases in the body, making the cells shrink and voila, you go slimmer.
Do Fat Cells Grow In Size Endlessly?
Fat cells have a limited capacity to grow. When a person overeats, he or she tends to develop a condition where the access fat gets no space to be stored in the existing cells, so to accommodate excess fat, the body creates new cells. Yes, the number of cells grows. But the bad news is that once the cells are created in the body they never go away. This gives a good reason why fat people tend to gain more weight, because they have more number of cells.
Even though cells can be removed by surgery, the body is capable of creating new cells at just about anytime to store surplus fat that comes in. So frankly, surgery is not the ultimate solution – no matter how much adipose you have, you can always stay in shape by not letting your body produce that extra fat. So, eat and work out right. (inspiration: heathviva.com)
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