The Fat Fight: Part 2
In Part 1, we discussed the purpose of fat, minimal amounts of body fat and the adverse effects of having too much fat. Now, let's dive into Part 2.
Why is it hard to lose?
In addition to its usefulness, fat is hard to lose because it is not your body’s preferred energy source. That’s right, fat is easy to store when you are in a caloric surplus but once stored, your body tends to cling to it and not let go.
Glycogen is much easier to tap into during times of energy expenditure, such as running or weight lifting. Not only is it easy for your body to tap into glycogen, but we also tend to give our body a steady supply of it. When was the last time you went an extended time without food in general or without carbohydrates in particular? Likely, that hasn’t happened recently or often. Meaning, your body has a constant supply of the carbohydrates it needs to form glycogen and use it for energy. Fat is hard to lose because we do not often give our body a reason to lose it.
Fat is useful and it is hard to lose, in light of this, how do we go about losing it?
You could mimic the starvation scenarios talked about in part 1, but that is not ideal. If you “starve” yourself you will be losing muscle in the process. Regardless of how often people say, “I want to lose weight”, what they really mean is that they want to lose fat.
Losing muscle will leave you with less energy, less strength and a slower metabolism. That is quite counter productive to an individual’s fat loss goals. You need energy and strength to engage in fat burning activities and you need a smoothly running metabolism to be burning the calories to help you achieve a caloric deficit. Therefore, since retaining muscle is a priority when you want to lose fat, you cannot starve yourself.
However, when you eat, your body releases insulin to help store the nutrients of the meal you consumed. Therefore, since your body is in “storage” mode, you will not be burning fat in the period after a meal. So you cannot starve yourself but you also cannot burn fat when you eat. Sounds tricky doesn’t it?
Hopefully, you can see why losing fat can be difficult for many people. You have an actual organ of your body which has useful functions (insulation, protection, metabolic), which is efficient at storing energy. To decrease the amount of fat on your body you must be burning more calories than you consume but this also puts you at risk of losing muscle mass. If you are not careful with your caloric deficit you wind up slowing your metabolism and setting yourself up for a rebound of fat gain after a period of dieting.
It is a balancing act and it requires discipline. As the title suggested, it will be a fight, and you must be tough. Before we discuss some of the disciplined behaviors that will help you lose fat, let’s take a closer look at your physiology.
How does the actual process of burning fat work?
There are three stages from fat leaving a cell to being burned in another cell.
Mobilization or Lipolysis - is the process of triglycerides in adipose cells being broken down into free fatty acids
Transport - is the free fatty acids being transported in the blood to cells in the body that will convert the fatty acids into the energy your body needs
Oxidation - is the actually conversion of the free fatty acid into ATP, which is the body’s fuel.
What is ATP, I thought fat and carbs were energy?
They are, but think of it as a currency exchange. Your body has one primary form useful energy and that is ATP. All fats and sugars get broken down through complex biochemical processes into ATP. Then your body can use the ATP to fuel many different functions.
This may sound silly, but picture someone trying to buy something online. You have access to your credit card, we’ll call that fat, and you have access to your bank account online, we’ll call that carbs. However, the website you are purchasing from, which we’ll call the human body, only takes paypal. In this case, paypal is our ATP. Luckily for you, money on a credit card or in a bank account can be converted into money on paypal. You have to give the credit card or bank account permission (mobilization), then submit the transfer to paypal (transport) and finally make your purchase with paypal (oxidation). As all analogies go, if you did not find that helpful, please disregard it.
In Part 3, we will dive into more detail for each stage!
