What happens to the fat cells?

S

sharoo

New member
I've been hearing all my life that when you lose weight your body doesn't consume the excess fat cells - they just "shrink." Lately I've been thinking about that.

Does anybody here know that that really means? How does a cell "shrink?" Some of the material that comes out of the cells must be water, but what's the rest of it - proteins?

Does all of this mean that formerly fat people are full of shriveled little cell membranes with just a nucleus inside? Are these shrunken cells really so small that they have no appreciable volume?

And does the same thing happen with muscle cells? When you "lose muscle" for whatever reason, are the muscle cells actually consumed by the body, or do they just shrink, like fat cells?

Just wondering...
 
You've pretty much got it right.

How many fat cells you have and where they're distributed is pretty much genetic - for the most part. How big those fat cells get is what determines if you're fat or thin. Fat fat cells are filled with triglycerides. As you lose weight, the cells shed those triglycerides (often filling up with water in the middle of the process, which leads to a sort of "squishy fat" situation before the fat cells shrink down).

Now that said, I believe some recent studies have shown that people who are extremely obese do gain some fat cells and then lose them again after reducing weight and keeping it off for a length of time. But I haven't really read those studies in depth, so I'm not sure exactly where the proportion is.

Muscle is much the same - the fibers of the muscle remain present, but the size of the muscle depends on all the variables - how much protein you eat, how much you use the muscle, etc.
 
Katherine Zeratsky, R.D., L.D. says...

Body fat breaks down during a series of complex metabolic processes.

When you burn more calories than you consume, your body uses fat (triglycerides) for energy. This causes your fat cells to shrink. In turn, triglycerides are broken down into two different substances — glycerol and fatty acids — which are absorbed into your liver, kidneys and muscle tissue. From there, the glycerol and fatty acids are further broken down by chemical processes that ultimately produce energy for your body.

These activities generate heat, which helps maintain your body temperature. The resulting waste products — water and carbon dioxide — are excreted in urine and sweat or exhaled from your lungs.

...learn something new every day :)
 
KaraCooks said:
You've pretty much got it right.

How many fat cells you have and where they're distributed is pretty much genetic - for the most part. How big those fat cells get is what determines if you're fat or thin. Fat fat cells are filled with triglycerides. As you lose weight, the cells shed those triglycerides (often filling up with water in the middle of the process, which leads to a sort of "squishy fat" situation before the fat cells shrink down).

Now that said, I believe some recent studies have shown that people who are extremely obese do gain some fat cells and then lose them again after reducing weight and keeping it off for a length of time. But I haven't really read those studies in depth, so I'm not sure exactly where the proportion is.

Muscle is much the same - the fibers of the muscle remain present, but the size of the muscle depends on all the variables - how much protein you eat, how much you use the muscle, etc.
Click to expand...

Katherine Zeratsky, R.D., L.D. says...

Body fat breaks down during a series of complex metabolic processes.

When you burn more calories than you consume, your body uses fat (triglycerides) for energy. This causes your fat cells to shrink. In turn, triglycerides are broken down into two different substances — glycerol and fatty acids — which are absorbed into your liver, kidneys and muscle tissue. From there, the glycerol and fatty acids are further broken down by chemical processes that ultimately produce energy for your body.

These activities generate heat, which helps maintain your body temperature. The resulting waste products — water and carbon dioxide — are excreted in urine and sweat or exhaled from your lungs.

...learn something new every day
Click to expand...

tl;dr = yes, but not to worry, this is true for all of us.
 
KaraCooks said:
You've pretty much got it right.

Fat fat cells are filled with triglycerides. As you lose weight, the cells shed those triglycerides (often filling up with water in the middle of the process, which leads to a sort of "squishy fat" situation before the fat cells shrink down).
Click to expand...

Very interesting. I think that's what I was looking for - thanks!

Perhaps that explains something that I've been wondering about for years - why weight loss doesn't follow a smooth curve. What always happens to me, even when I am logging food and exercise and consuming/burning pretty much the same calories every day, is 7-10 days of no weight loss and then suddenly losing 3-4 pounds in a couple of days. On the days when the weight comes off it seems like I'm peeing every 10 minutes.

It never made any sense to me, but I started thinking of it as a two-step process: first the fat turns to water, but for some reason the body hangs onto it for a week before finally excreting it. I never for a minute thought this was TRUE - it's just an observation on how it behaved.

Then it occurred to me that this might actually be what's happening, but on a cellular level. Cells aren't full of little sticks and tinder to be thrown on a fire, they are full of chemicals and water. I've hypothesized that the fat cells just hang onto the water until they are depleted of fuel (or reach some threshold) and then they excrete some or all of the water. It sounds like you're saying that the fat cells actually take on a little extra water to replace the fatty acids they've given up? That works.
 
It's totally the way I lose weight as well. In "whooshes". Check out Lyle McDonald's article on the phenomenon:
 
KaraCooks said:
It's totally the way I lose weight as well. In "whooshes".
Click to expand...

That explains a lot for me too.

I'll drop 4-5lbs from one day to the next then nothing or a slight increase for 7-10days while I fight to regain that magical number on the scale. Eventually that 'low number' will be my baseline.
 
Empty Pantry Syndrome

So, if your fat cells stays the same amount, with a lesser volume, wouldn't that put your body in permanent 'starving mode'? Surely your body, having to survive, likes having all its little pantries stocked fully?
 
Catharina said:
So, if your fat cells stays the same amount, with a lesser volume, wouldn't that put your body in permanent 'starving mode'? Surely your body, having to survive, likes having all its little pantries stocked fully?
Click to expand...

Naw, i think then you are overweight they are over-full, so like a garbage can with trash flowing over, but when you are within "normal" weight range they are like the trash can can be between semi-full to just to the top before overflowing and that is why there is such a big difference between "normal" weight ranges. I could totally be wrong, I am just speculating.
 
So, without getting into details I don't really understand, there isn't really a 'starvation mode' like you're talking about. Some hormones that increase hunger (Look up leptin & grehlin for more info) are actually suppressed by having really full fat cells, but your body doesn't go around screaming "I'm on empty!" just because your fat cells aren't overflowing ;)

Mind you, when you get to really low body fat (I think <8% for guys and 15% for women?) your body 'fights back' from a hormonal perspective and doesn't want to let go of any more tissue - but it's not 'starvation mode' as defined by the media/common knowledge.
 
The simplist example i t like to use is think of your fat cells as a balloon, they fill up with stored fat and expand. When millions of fat cells expand to hold excess fat that is what makes you look larger. When you lose fat it is just like letting air out of those balloons, they shrink back down. However they can always fill back up again if you consume too many calories. Fat is mearly a stored source of energy, like gasoline in your car. As you burn that fat off it is burned off like gasoline.

I realize this is not the most "scientific" answer lol but I just wanted to try to give a simple analagy to try to help answer the question.
 
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