If
you're anything like over sixty percent of Americans, you've got a few pounds
of fat you could stand to lose. If you saw what a pound of body fat actually
looks like, you might be double-motivated. Yet there are a ton of
misconceptions about fat-some of which could inform mistakes in our weight-loss
endeavors. Let's see if we can't cut through some of the misinformation with a
little bit of knowledge.
What
Is Body Fat, Like, Really?
Let's
start with a positive spin, shall we? Think of body fat as "potential
energy." Calories, which you consume through the food you eat, are fuel.
Once these calories make it into your bloodstream, this fuel is burned by your
various bodily processes. Yes, your muscles burn them, sure, but so does
digestion, breathing, brain function, growing hair, etc. Basic being-alive
stuff. Now, sometimes we consume more calories than our bodies are presently
prepared to burn. When that happens our bodies say, "Oh dang, I don't need
all of this energy right now. I'd better save it, in case I need it
later." And so the miracle of fat begins.
Your
body then takes these free-wheelin' calories and packages them into cells of
fat. So, if calories are gasoline, think of fat cells as rubber balloons filled
with gasoline. They expand as they collect more fuel, and they shrink when you
use some of the fuel. Now, that's a very high-level explanation. An
important note is that when this potential energy is stored inside fat cells,
it isn't ready to use, as it was when it was coursing through your blood
stream. It undergoes a chemical conversion so that it stores the energy more
efficiently. It's kinda like a .ZIP file; it makes the energy more compact and
storable, but makes the content itself harder to access. When it's time to pull
some energy out of the cells, another chemical conversion takes place to turn
it back into usable energy.
How
Is Fat Burned?
So,
when you lose fat, where does it go? Most people don't really know. If you
remember the Principle of Mass Conversion from chemistry, you'll know that matter cannot simply
appear or disappear-instead, it goes through chemical conversions and changes
states. Just like your car's engine turns gasoline into heat and exhaust, your
body utilizes a similar process.
The
mitochondria (cellular energy centers) in your muscle or liver cells pull some
of the fat (stored as triglycerides) from within your fat cells and put it
through a metabolic process. This converts the fat into heat, carbon dioxide,
water, and ATP (adenosine triphosphate). Let's break those down.
- Heat: Heat energy is vitally important for being not-dead. You
know how you, being a warm-blooded mammal, keep your body temperature right
around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit pretty much all the time? Yep, it's by burning
calories. When you're cold, you burn way more calories to keep yourself warm.
And in case you're wondering just how much heat energy is stored within fat,
next time you make a pan of bacon, pour the excess fat into a can and put a
wick in it. You will be shocked by how long it
burns.
- ATP: As you may remember from our look at creatine, we need ATP
for muscle function. Our primary source of immediate energy is produced
when we break a phosphate molecule off the ATP, and it makes a little explosion
of available power in your muscles. Then it becomes ADP, and it can't be used
again until it picks up another phosphate molecule. Krebs Cycle,
baby. Basically, it carries fuel to your muscles.
- Carbon
Dioxide: Whenever you burn anything (see
heat, above), it gives off carbon dioxide. It's true with gasoline, and it's
true with body fat. The carbon dioxide will travel through your bloodstream
until it returns to your lungs to be exhaled out.
- Water: Fat typically feels kinda wet to the touch, right? That's
because there's some water in it. You'll pee it out.
So
that's where the weight actually goes when you lose it.
The
Scary Stuff About Fat Cells
Here's
one of the big misconceptions: When you lose weight, you don't actually lose
fat cells. Nope, none of 'em. The average human body contains between 10 billion and 30 billion fat cells, and they are yours forever. Oh, but guess what? If you
gain a lot of weight, you can grow more fat cells (obese people may have
as many as 100 billion), and again, these cannot be lost (the one exception
being liposuction, which actually removes the physical cells). So how the hell
do you lose weight?
Remember
how we said fat cells were like balloons? When you lose weight, you are letting
some of the stuff out of the inflated balloons, thus shrinking the fat
cells. You can shrink them all the way down until they're practically empty,
but they will always be there-waiting to be refilled, haunting your chubby
nightmares.
More
bad news: Fat loves to hang out with more fat. Because fat and muscle are
basically enemies (we'll get to that in a minute), your fat cells are trying to
erode your muscle cells. Worse, while most fat resides under your skin, the
more dangerous fat actually accumulates around your internal organs (this is
why belly fat is more medically problematic than fat in other areas). This fat,
called visceral fat, is metabolically active, and it secretes biochemicals that
increase your risk of heart-attack, stroke, liver failure, diabetes, and high
blood pressure. Additionally, visceral fat inhibits a very
important hormone called adiponectin,
which regulates metabolism in your body. In other words, the more visceral fat
you take on, the slower your metabolism will be, and so the more easily you
take on more fat. It's a tough cycle to break.
Burn
Baby Burn
Because
body fat is basically just stored calories, the widely-known broad-stroke
method for losing weight is essentially this: Make sure you are burning more
calories than you are taking in. Do that and your body will begin to pull those
calories out of your fat reserves. There's a significant amount of nuance, but
for the most part, that's true. But how exactly are those calories burned?
If
you've ever done a programmed workout on a treadmill or stationary bike, you've
probably seen phrases like "cardio zone" and "fat-burning
zone." We'll get to those in a minute, but for now, all you need to know
that direct exercise is the smallest slice of the pie when it comes to
fat-burning.
There's
a terrific Active.com article that breaks this down in a lot of detail, but here's the
gist. There are three categories of processes responsible for you metabolic
burn. 60 to 70 percent of the calories you burn in a given day are burnt just
by being alive. That's with no movement at all. It's called basal metabolic
rate (BMR). Another 10 to 15 percent is accomplished by the simple act of
digesting your food, known as digestive metabolism (or thermic effect of food,
TEF). As Active points out, that's between 70 and 85 percent-without so much as
lifting a finger. That last 15 to 30 percent comes from physical activity,
either in the form of working out (exercise-activity thermogenesis, aka EAT) or
just shuffling around your apartment (non-exercise-activity thermogenesis, aka
NEAT).
What's
the take away? Well, if 60 to 70 percent of your caloric burn comes from your
resting metabolism, doesn't it make sense to start with the biggest piece of
the puzzle? It does! Going back to our fat candle analogy for a moment, if you
look at the video above, you'll see that when the wick is short, the fat is
burning off very slowly. Around the 1:50 mark, the wick becomes longer, which
gives the candle a much, much bigger flame. With the larger flame, the fat
starts burning off much faster.
So,
how can we turn up the internal flame of your metabolism?
The
simplest answer is by adding muscle. Muscle tissue, at rest, burns two to three
times more calories than fat tissue does. So while cardio is certainly
important for your overall health and stamina, if fat burning is your goal,
then focusing a little more on weight-bearing, muscle building exercises will
likely yield better results, and faster. Not because it burns more calories while
you're working out, but because it turns up your metabolic flame so that it
burns more calories all the time.
Next,
let's look at eating. Remember, 10 to 15 percent of your metabolic burn comes
just from digesting food. If you want to push that higher you can add more lean
protein to the mix. Digesting protein burns two to three times as many calories
as digesting carbohydrates or fat. Additionally, while any calories consumed
(be they from protein, carbohydrate, or fats) can be stored as fat, the body
more readily stores fat taken in from fat consumed, rather than carbs or
protein consumed. All that said, a balanced diet is extremely important
to keeping healthy, and again-if you want to shed fat, keep the calories coming
in lower that the calories you burn.
Lastly,
there's the exercise component (15 to 30 percent of your metabolism). So, that
whole fat-burning zone and cardio zone on your treadmill? Technically, it isn't
wrong. When you exercise at a lower intensity, you are burning more calories
that are pulled from fat, whereas when you exercise at high intensities, more
of the calories you burn come from the more-readily-available carbs that you've
recently consumed.
BUT,
here's the thing: Remember how more than two-thirds of the calories you burn
have nothing to do with exercise? That only happens if you can create a caloric
deficit, and you can create a caloric deficit much, much faster by engaging in
high-intensity, interval-type exercise. It simply burns far more calories, so you're getting a lot more bang (fat-loss) for your
workout buck. To say it another way: While the slower, "fat-burning
zone" technically pulls more calories out of the fat while you're doing
it, high-intensity stuff will burn more calories over all, which will
result in more calories being pulled out of your fat reserves over time, which
will shrink them more. That, and high-intensity exercise, builds muscle
better-just look at sprinters versus marathoners. And again, more muscle
equates to a higher metabolism, and that equates to faster fat burning.
To
be honest, this really barely scratches the surface. This article is intended
as a high-level overview, and as such, there is a ton that couldn't be
included. The articles we linked to include a lot of the more technical stuff,
and for those inclined, we recommend diving in. For everybody else, we hope
this gave you a little more insight into the junk in your trunk.
How Does Your Body Burn Fat?
How would you like to magically
burn off about 40 calories in the next 15 minutes, without even breaking a
sweat? Want to try? Okay, here's what you do:
Go into the bedroom. Open up the closet. Look
inside. Anything need to go to the dry cleaner? What about that pashmina you
spilled New Year's bubbly on? Toss it in the laundry bag. Straighten a few
hanging items and refold your sweaters so the inside of your wardrobe doesn't
look like you had to flee the paparazzi. Good job. Now have a seat.
Ta-da! You've just smoked 40 or more calories in
less time than it takes to put on your makeup, and all you did was neaten up
your clothes. Magic, right?
Well, not really. You see, your body is already
primed to be a
fat-burning machine. All you need
to do to start changing your body's shape is tune up that fat furnace and get
it revving at maximum efficiency so you're burning even more fat while going
about the mundane rituals of life.
This fat-burning magic comes from
your metabolism, a word you've probably heard tossed around a lot but maybe
don't quite understand. What is metabolism? Simply put, it's all the various
chemical reactions that happen inside your body, 24-7, that keep you alive.
It's
food being turned into energy and that energy being burned
off to keep your hair growing, your heart beating, your liver pumping out bile,
your lungs transferring oxygen into your bloodstream, and your intestines
turning Amstel Light into urine (not that there's a huge leap there).
It's the engine room of your individual starship,
your never-ending calorie burn. And while you may imagine that the majority of
your calories get burned while you're engaged in some strenuous activity like
riding a bike, diving into a pool, or getting jiggy with your honey, you're
actually burning most of your calories, well, just keeping the lights on.
In fact, think of metabolism as your caloric
401(k) program. It's not going to give you instant gratification, like hitting
a slot machine jackpot. It's a long-term strategy, but it's a sure thing:
Invest in it and you'll get slow, steady, effective returns that will keep you
happy and healthy for years to come.
Now, like any long-term investment, it needs a
little maintenance from time to time. In this chapter, we'll show you the smart
ways to tweak your metabolism, improving your burn just enough to gain even
more over the long haul. (Or to borrow what they say in financial circles, it's
time to work less for your calorie burn and have your calorie burn start
working for you!) Prepare for a few surprises, starting with...
Why Burning Calories in the Gym Is a Waste of Time
Whoa—did we just say what you
thought we said? That burning calories in the gym is "a waste of
time"?
Well, stay with us here. Burning calories in the
gym is great. But the energy you expend while you're in the gym isn't as simple
as those tired old LED readouts on the treadmill might make it seem. See, we
all have three "burns" that make up our
metabolism.
Burn One
Basal (resting) metabolism: Your
basal metabolic rate (BMR) accounts for 60 to 70 percent of your overall
metabolism, and surprisingly, it's the number of calories you burn doing
nothing at all: lying in bed staring at the ceiling or vegging on the couch
watching TV. As we said earlier, it's fueled by your body's inner workings—your
heart beating, your lungs breathing, even your cells dividing.
Burn Two
Digestive metabolism, or thermic
effect of food (TEF): Simply digesting food—turning carbs into sugar and
turning protein into amino acids—typically burns 10 to 15 percent of your daily
calories. Digesting protein burns more calories than digesting carbohydrates or
fat—about 25 calories for every 100 consumed. Digesting carbohydrates and fat
burns about 10 to 15 calories for every 100 consumed.
So pause a moment to think about this: Between 70 and 85 percent of the
calories you burn every day come from either eating or just hanging around
doing nothing.
So, what about the other 15 to 30 percent?
Burn Three
Exercise and
movement metabolism: This part of your metabolism includes both workouts at the
gym and other more enjoyable physical activities (we call this
exercise-activity thermogenesis, or EAT) along with countless incidental
movements throughout the day, like turning the pages of this book and twiddling
your thumbs (that's called non-exercise-activity thermogenesis, or NEAT).
So, here's an interesting question: Why is it so hard to lose
weight just by exercising? Why are there so many fat people
in the gym? The answer is simple. Exercise only targets 15 to 30 percent of
your fat burn. Up to 85 percent of the calories you burn in a given day have
nothing to do with moving your body!
So, skip the gym, right? Not quite.
Why the Fatter You Get, the Fatter You'll Get
Fat doesn't just show up at your door one day, rent a room, and live alone
quietly. Fat loves company. Fat's organizing a cocktail party where nobody ever
goes home and everyone hangs out around your midsection. The more fat you open
the door to, the harder it will be to stop even more fat from inviting itself
in. Here's why:
Your BMR, or resting metabolism—the body system
that eats up the majority of your daily calorie burn—is determined by two
things: your parents, and the amount of fat versus muscle in your body. And
while you can't choose who your parents are (if you could, there would be no
children on The Real Housewives of New Jersey), you can improve the other part
of the equation and turn your resting metabolism up a few notches.
Problem is, fat plays its own role in the metabolic
game, and it's literally working to slow down your calorie burn. See, the term
"fat and lazy" is pretty accurate from a scientific standpoint. Fat
is lazy, on a metabolic level. It barely burns any calories at all. For your
body to support a pound of fat, it needs to burn a mere 2 calories a day.
Muscle, on the other hand, is very metabolically active.
This is key (and why muscle is your BFF): At
rest, 1 pound of muscle burns three times as many calories every day just to
sustain itself—and a lot of those calories that muscle burns off come from
fat's storage units. That's why fat hates muscle (and why you should love
muscle), because muscle is constantly burning fat off.
So fat actually fights back, trying to erode
muscle and fit more of its fat friends into your body. The real villain in this
internal battle happening right now, in your body, is a nasty character called
visceral fat. Visceral fat is the kind that resides behind the abdominal
muscles, surrounding your internal organs (viscera).
And visceral fat works its mischief by releasing
a number of substances, collectively called adipokines. Adipokines include
compounds that raise your risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, inflammation,
and heart disease. Visceral fat also messes with an important hormone called
adiponectin, which regulates metabolism. The more visceral fat you have, the
less adiponectin you have, and the lower your metabolism. So fat literally
begets more fat.
A study
published in the Journal of Applied Physiology showed that those biologically
active molecules that are released from visceral fat can actually degrade
muscle quality—which, again, leads to more fat. The solution?
More Muscle
After age 25 we all start to lose muscle mass—a fifth of a
pound of muscle a year, from ages 25 to 50, and then up to a pound of muscle a
year after that—if we don't do anything to stop the decline. And on top of a
slumping metabolic rate, loss of muscle strength and mass are empirically
linked to declines in the immune system, not to mention weaker bones, stiffer
joints, and slumping postures. Muscle mass also plays a central role in the
response to stress. And further research is expected to show measurable links
between diminished muscle mass and cancer mortality.
When you're losing weight, where does the fat go?
- You can't alter change your body shape, just your size
- Visceral fat is medically more dangerous than the fat
you can see
- Fat cells expand when a person consumes more than they
can burn
(CNN) -- Multiple chins, bulging tummies and flabby arms: It's
easy to see where fat accumulates on the body.
When
a person starts losing weight, where does the fat go? And what parts of the
body can you expect to see results?
Headlines
from fitness magazines promise exercises to blast away belly fat and activities
to spot-reduce flab. The scientific evidence, unfortunately, doesn't
back those sexy headlines.
Here
are three things to know about weight-loss and body fat.
You
can't change your shape, just your size.
You
can't cherry-pick where you shed fat; weight loss doesn't work like a
point-and-shoot.
MRIs,
CT scans and dexa scans, which use X-ray beams to measure body composition,
show no evidence for spot reduction.
"Basically,
when we lose weight, we lose weight all over in exactly the proportion that's
distributed throughout our body," said Susan Fried, director of the Boston
Obesity and Nutrition Research Center at the Boston University School of
Medicine.
This dexa scan of a woman who
underwent bariatric surgery shows where she lost her body fat.
A
pear-shaped woman who loses weight will remain a pear, just a daintier one, say
researchers who specialize in body fat. More women tend to be pear-shaped, with
fat around their hips and thighs. Men tend to be apple-shaped, because they
have fat that accumulates around their waist.
"People
come in with unrealistic expectations from magazines and spot-reducing,"
said Gary Foster, director of Temple University's Center for Obesity Research
and Education. "That doesn't happen. When you start to lose fat, it's
proportionate throughout your body, whether it's your neck, waist, ankle
circumference. You'll come out smaller but have the same body shape."
She and her husband, Andy, who live
in Nashville, lost more than 500 pounds combined.
Sorrells essentially retained her
pear shape, although she's 300 pounds lighter. "I'm still rounder in the
bottom part of my body. I'm still pear-shaped," she said.
Maggie Sorrells said she essentially
retained her pear shape, although she is 300 pounds lighter.
For most people, the problem is
their weight, not their body shape, Foster said. Whether you're a pear or apple
may be determined by genetics or hormones.
Not all body fat is created equal.
When Joe Dragon, an insurance
company supervisor in Albany, New York, started losing weight from his
425-pound frame, he noticed the biggest difference in his stomach.
"I was never heavy on the
bottom; it was more the gut, belly area," the 34-year-old said. "The
differences I noticed, I have a flat stomach. It used to be huge round
ball."
Joe Dragon lost 135 pounds
Like
Dragon, men tend to be apple-shaped and carry more belly fat, known as visceral
fat. This is a dangerous type of fat because it surrounds abdominal organs and
is metabolically active.
Essentially,
it disturbs the regular mechanisms in your body.
The
fat cells release biochemicals that lead to inflammation, which could lead to
heart attacks, strokes and joint and muscle pain. This accumulates in the
liver, said Dr. Robin Blackstone, surgeon and medical director of Scottsdale
Healthcare Bariatric Center in Arizona.
"Fat
is basically a store of energy," she said. "When you need energy, you
break down the fat. That breaks down into a component called free fatty acid
and goes into the liver for energy. When you have a lot of excess fat, it
generates so much free fatty acid, the liver can't handle it, so it stores
it."
That
triggers a host of problems including non-alcoholic fatty liver disease,
insulin resistance and diabetes.
"Belly
fat is much more harmful than the so-called big butt," Foster said.
The
fat in the hips causes much alarm because that part of the body is highly
visible. Called subcutaneous fat, the masses of this fat may be unsightly, but
scientists believe they're not as dangerous as internal abdominal fat.
For
cosmetic or social reasons, women are more likely to seek obesity treatment
than men.
"What
that says is that men are likely to need obesity treatment more than women, but
women, likely due to stigma socially for being overweight, are more likely to
present for treatment," Foster said.
Where
does the fat go?
Fat
cells expand when people consume more energy than they can burn. During
weight loss, the cells shrink.
"The
fat is a very specialized cell, and it takes basically the fat we eat and it
stores it in form of triglycerides," said Fried, who researches how fat is
deposited. "It's doing that for the purpose of releasing it when other
parts of the body need it."
Humans
carry about 10 billion to 30 billion fat cells. People who are obese can have
up to 100 billion.
"If
anyone of us overeats long and hard enough, we can increase the number of fat
cells in our body," Fried said. "When we lose weight, we don't lose
the number of fat cells."
The size
of the cells shrinks, but the capacity to expand is always there.
Liposuction
can remove fat cells, but this procedure is ideally for people who are not
obese.
"The fat cells are actually being removed," said
Tony Youn, a plastic surgeon who performs liposuctions. "It doesn't mean
that fat cells that remain can't get bigger."
Despite
the extraction of fat cells, the ones remaining can always get bigger or
smaller depending on a person's diet and fitness.
