Lose Stubborn Fat



Stubborn Fat:Does It Affect You?

EVERYONE walking the face of this earth has an abundance of
fat cells throughout their bodies. In fact, if you’re a healthy
adult with normal body composition, you have approximately
30 billion fat cells. This is an astronomical number when you
think about it. Did you ever wonder why you have so many?
Have you ever wondered what those fat cells are for?

Fat Cells Are Genetically Programmed

The answer is, fat cells are part of our genetic code and they
enable us to use stored energy when food is scarce. This survival
mechanism works very much the same today as it did 10,000
years ago. However, there is an abundance of food in modern
society today, and we no longer need to store so much fat to
survive.
When you consume too many calories, your body goes into
storage mode for the “lean times,” so to speak, but the lean
time never comes. So your body simply stores those extra
calories as fat. When you eat fewer calories than your body
demands, your cells release stored fat for energy. Pretty simple
equation; however, not all fat is the same.

Placement of Fat Deposits in Your Body

The placement of fat deposits on our bodies varies depending
on each person’s genetic influences, lifestyle choices, and
Your Hormones and Stubborn Fat
Stubborn fat develops when your hormonal pathways are
broken down. Age does play a role in this: fat deposits increase
and become more resistant to fat loss methods as you get older.
This you have little control over, but some things that lead to
stubborn fat development are under your control. Yo-yo dieting
is one of them. Losing weight on crash diets and then regaining
it—often known as the “rebound effect”—only increase
stubborn fat in the long run. A decrease in exercise and activity
level also compounds the stubborn fat problem. This is why
people who crash-diet on low calories and refuse to exercise
often have the worst stubborn fat problems of all.
Our ancestors really never had to deal with this problem
because they moved and engaged in physical labor as a regular
part of daily life, whereas technological conveniences and the
modern lifestyle have caused many of us to become lazy and
inactive.
Stubborn fat is metabolized extremely slowly and resists the
hormonal process that takes place when the fat burning process
starts up. To burn fat, the adrenal hormones (better known as
adrenaline and noradrenaline) attach to the fat cell receptors
and essentially “open them up” so the fat can be used in the
energy pathways. There are two kinds of receptors in your fat
cells: one is alpha and the other beta. The beta receptors are
much more active and respond to adrenal hormones. To lose
body fat, the adrenal hormones switch on and the body begins
to use fat as energy. However, in the case of people with
stubborn fat, this does not occur, so no body fat is lost.
According to my good friend and colleague Ori Hofmekler,
author of The Warrior Diet, stubborn fat has a lower ratio of beta
receptors to alpha receptors. Therefore, your body’s hormonal
“fat dissolver,” adrenaline, is unable to enter the fat cell and
open the door. Hofmekler also points out that “to make these
matters worse, stubborn fat has more estrogen receptors, which
cause even more stubborn fat.”

If all this sounds bad enough, what makes it even worse is that if
you indulge in the typical modern diet and sedentary lifestyle,
this often results in insulin sensitivity. (For more information,
read my past article on “Insulin Sensitivity.”) On top of
everything else, your fat tissue becomes so incredibly resistant
to your attempts to lose it, it seems like you will be stuck with it
forever.

Why Dieting Alone Doesn’t Work

Diets fail because they only look at the caloric reduction side of
the equation. You need to understand the other variables in the
equation—exercise and lifestyle. You must understand the
deeper issues you are really dealing with. Getting rid of
stubborn fat is not nearly as simple as just slashing calories and
dieting. Stubborn fat is the result of a complex interplay of
biological and hormonal processes—all of which are affected by
how you eat, how you move, and the type of lifestyle you lead.
The Crucial Question
Now that you understand why you have stubborn fat, right
down to the hormone and receptor level, the question is: How
do you alter your nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle to get rid if this
resistant body fat?
The answer is revealed in Part 2. Read on…


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