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Why fat is a vital part of our body — from boosting metabolism to feeling fuller

Why fat is a vital part of our body — from boosting metabolism to feeling fuller for longer

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/fa...ler-for-longer/

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WORRIED about piling on the pounds while stuck at home on lockdown?

Give yourself a break, because fat is VITAL.

New book Fat: The Secret Organ by doctors Mariette Boon and Liesbeth Van Rossum, an obesity specialist, aims to shed light on an aspect of our body that gets a bad press.

But it does not mean you should reach for the ice cream tub just yet.
Natasha Harding looks at the authors’ fat facts and tips on how to boost metabolism and feel fuller for longer.

Kinds of fat

FAT is an organ, just like our heart and lungs, and is spread over our entire body.

The largest fat masses are found in the belly and just beneath the skin in areas such as our faces, feet and upper arms.

But we have two kinds of fat — white and brown.

The main one is white. It provides energy when no food is available for an extended time. Brown fat converts calories into heat, and in this way can help you lose fat.

Mariette and Liesbeth say: “Fat provides our other organs with a continuous supply of fuel. It also produces countless hormones to communicate remotely with organs such as the brain.For example, it produces hormones that curb your appetite if you’ve just eaten a big plate of chips.”

When we are underweight, our fat does not produce enough of certain hormones. This hormonal imbalance has various effects and can result in infertility.

If we are overweight, our fat releases too many hormones that interfere with all kinds of bodily processes.

Conditions linked to being overweight include Type 2 diabetes, heart diseases, infertility, depression and also some kinds of cancer.
Learning to increase the effects of our brown fat can boost our metabolisms and help us lose weight.

Try these ways to “train” this fat.

Train your fat

Brown fat is sensitive to cold and remember, there is nothing wrong with being cold once in a while, so try these tips every day:

Use cold water for the last few minutes of your shower to switch on your brown fat stores. The cold water will also strengthen your immune system and boost your mood.
Take a cold bath occasionally. It promotes fat loss.
Turn down the heating by a few degrees for a few hours every day, without putting on a sweater. Recent research revealed that when healthy young men were exposed to a temperature of 17C (just below room temperature) for two hours a day for six weeks, they lost nearly two pounds of body fat.
Allow children to play outside without a jacket more often. It will boost their resilience as well as their brown fat stores.
Even after gyms reopen following lockdown, exercise outside rather than in, especially when it is chilly. Exercising outside also lowers blood pressure, reduces stress and gives us a much-needed shot of vitamin D.
Eat red pepper and drink coffee and green tea. These have been shown to activate brown fat.

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...It also produces countless hormones to communicate remotely with organs such as the brain. For example, it produces hormones that curb your appetite if you’ve just eaten a big plate of chips.

I must not have much of that hormone they are talking about or the hormone that my fat produces does exactly the opposite :lol:

Curbing your appetite when you've just eaten a big plate of chips isn't that helpful anyways. You already ate a big plate of chips.

Leptin does seem to decrease palatability of boring foods. i've seen some stuff on people with higher leptin levels having higher taste thresholds for both fat and sugar. An apple stops tasting sweet is my go-to example. Today we have all you can eat sugar, honey, various syrups--that can blast right through that sweet threshold, add sugar to that bland apple, it becomes appealing again.

Sort of a catch--22 with the palatability/reward issue--lose weight and the senses sharpen, the range of foods that count as highly-palatable broadens.

I couldn't help but find this amusing - and frustrating:

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Turn down the heating by a few degrees for a few hours every day, without putting on a sweater. Recent research revealed that when healthy young men were exposed to a temperature of 17C (just below room temperature) for two hours a day for six weeks, they lost nearly two pounds of body fat.

Amusing: because of course healthy young men lost 2 lbs of body fat in 6 weeks just by turning the thermostat down a bit for a couple hours - healthy young men could probably lose 2 lbs of body fat in 6 weeks just by blinking their eyes an extra dozen times a day. :rolleyes: (Yes, that's an exaggeration)

Frustrating: Because this tells us nothing about how such a temperature for 2 hours a day would affect young unhealthy men, middle aged healthy men, middle aged unhealthy men, older healthy men... well you get the idea, but the most frustrating thing about studies like these is that these studies never include women, period. If a post-menopausal woman subjected herself to that temperature for 2 hours a day for 6 weeks, chances are pretty good that she wouldn't lose an ounce, especially if she had any underlying conditions at all.

Exactly, back in my carb-addicted days, I could eat a large meal and never get full enough to consume one or more pizzas or other massive plates of food and then progress to one or more desserts. I needed that signal before I started the food fest, and when I did start, it never came when carbs and especially sweet carbs were available. Realistically, that behavior is what made me conclude that I was an addict and had no "off" switch.

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Originally Posted by Calianna

I couldn't help but find this amusing - and frustrating:

Amusing: because of course healthy young men lost 2 lbs of body fat in 6 weeks just by turning the thermostat down a bit for a couple hours - healthy young men could probably lose 2 lbs of body fat in 6 weeks just by blinking their eyes an extra dozen times a day. :rolleyes: (Yes, that's an exaggeration)

Frustrating: Because this tells us nothing about how such a temperature for 2 hours a day would affect young unhealthy men, middle aged healthy men, middle aged unhealthy men, older healthy men... well you get the idea, but the most frustrating thing about studies like these is that these studies never include women, period. If a post-menopausal woman subjected herself to that temperature for 2 hours a day for 6 weeks, chances are pretty good that she wouldn't lose an ounce, especially if she had any underlying conditions at all.

Yes, a little Wim Hof situation here, as we seem to miss most of the population in these claims, particularly those of us who've been around the block a bit.

Many vitamins are fat soluble, so fat is required to transport them and hormones around the body. If you are eating a low-fat diet, most of them get excreted and are not available to the body.

Before I broke isolation to go shopping my eating was really bland and boring. Lost 7 pounds!

No matter how much I weigh, I don't tolerate cold well
For three years of my past life i took cold showers daily - not my choice
These simplistic solutions - sit in the cold every day - just annoy me. Obesity and thinness are complex issues not to be treated summarily by a single stupid suggestion

Being cold for a while might work for a temporary weight loss but no one is going to voluntarily stay cold for the rest of their life. As soon as you start wearing warm clothes again, the weight will come back.

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Originally Posted by Calianna

But not by much 🙄

And they are seeing this effect on healthy young men WITHOUT weight problems WITH all their hormones running full blast. I live in a cold climate and if exposure to cold was that dramatic I'd have gotten it.

Exposure to cold for its health benefits it not new, ie polar plunges, jump in snow after a sauna, etc.

Exposure to cooler weather requires MORE calories. Just ask my horses. They eat about 20% more feed thru the cold winter months than summer months.

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Eat red pepper and drink coffee and green tea. These have been shown to activate brown fat.

For the amount of green tea guzzled everyday, I wonder how much brown fat hides on this bod. Will continue the green tea if only for the chemicals that support brain function !

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Originally Posted by Ms Arielle

That's just the thing, we're automatically going to eat more to make up for things like cold exposure, exercise, whatever uses up and removes energy from the body. Human body, just like those horses, is designed to survive and isn't going to just fail to notice energy burned and then fail to make up for it. If we had to do all that consciously we could risk dying of starvation with food in front of us because we forgot to do the CICO math! I cold plunged all winter in my little back yard pool (now I can actually stay in and swim with spring here but end of cold plunge season in Texas). Good for other health reasons but weight loss, no. Same with my active exercise plans. Great for health, no weight loss.

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Originally Posted by Zei

My experience as well, which is the reason I used the Wim Hof reference. Eating the right things has far more to do with successful metabolic health than eating too little or too much.