What is Fat Even For?

Ready for a brief physiology lesson about the awesome thing we call FAT?

I’m not kidding. Fat is fantastic!

Here is what your body is doing right now:

•         We eat food and it is ultimately broken down into components including glucose, which is the fuel for all of our body’s cells.

•         Glucose circulates in the blood stream.

•         Insulin opens the cell to accept this circulating glucose. Insulin is like the butler opening the door for the guest (glucose) and allowing it inside.

•         Insulin moves glucose into all cells that need fuel. Some cells, like muscle cells, store some extra glucose for quick energy whenever we need it.

•         When muscle cells are full of glucose, insulin facilitates filling our liver with glucose for the next level of energy storage. If muscle cells run out of glucose, glucose can be accessed quickly from the stores in the liver and sent to the muscles for energy. This is useful physiologically – we need to be able to run away from the tiger and not run out of fuel in the muscles too quickly!

•         When the liver is full, insulin helps the liver turn extra glucose into triglycerides and stores them away on our body in the form of body fat. If the stored glucose in the liver is used up, the stored body fat is mobilized for fuel.

What a fantastic system! As long as we have body fat, we won’t starve even when food is unavailable. We can access the fat on our body for fuel! And if we are trying to lose weight, this is actually our goal - promote a physiological environment in which we access our own body fat for fuel and use it up!

But what happens when there is just too much food coming in too often?