The different types of fat and how we can lose it

This time of year, a lot of people are making efforts to lose weight, including myself. The body is amazing at how well it can store and retrieve calories. Some of us just seem better at storing, thus the added pounds I put on during the holidays.

There are about as many ways to lose weight as there are to gain it. But when we talk about losing, I think generally we are thinking of reducing the amount of fat our body is carrying.

We’re not really talking about dehydrating ourselves or having an empty intestinal tract. This is neither sustainable or healthy, but you certainly can lower pounds either way. Our brain is 60% fat but we don’t want to shrink that either.

It’s the body fat that we are after. The stuff we see around our belly, thighs, buttocks, and arms. Though it’s not always the places we can see that need some attention. We have places in our body where fat can accumulate that will cause us problems down the road.

There are several types of stored fat, also called adipose tissue, in our body. White fat is the one we typically want to get rid of when we think about losing weight. This is the most prevalent in our body and is stored around our organs and beneath the skin. This cushions us from shock, insulates us, as well as stores calories as energy. It is also part of our immune system.

Subcutaneous fat is the stuff we see on the outside. The fat that is hidden in and around our organs is called visceral fat. It’s not squeezable like our belly. Actually, it will feel much harder. You don’t really want much of this. The good news about visceral fat is it is the easiest to lose.

Another type of fat is called brown fat. It’s typically found between our shoulder blades, in our neck, and along the spinal cord. Infants have more of this, but it gets more white-like as we get older.

This fat helps regulate body temperature by burning calories to keep you warm. You can stimulate this fat by taking cold dunks in the lake during the winter.

Because fat itself produces and releases hormones, having more visceral fat in close proximity to organs is not healthy. Not at all. This can give rise to elevated bad cholesterol levels and make you less sensitive to insulin.

Even skinny people can have too much visceral fat.

Ectopic fat is a type of fat that may be found in our liver, muscles, heart, and pancreas. It can cause problems with normal cellular functions and interfere with insulin sensitivity. This is not the kind you want either.

Fat doesn’t magically leave our body by entering into the colon to be excreted with our stool. Nor does it get converted to muscles when we exercise. Actually about 85 percent of converted fat is exhaled through our lungs in the form of carbon dioxide. The rest is excreted as water.

During the fat burning process, fat is converted into usable energy and our fat cells begin to shrink. It is in this process that the cells also release the carbon dioxide and water. Breathing faster won’t help you lose more weight though, it will just make you dizzy.

While we may be able to produce fat cells quickly, they do not disappear. The number of these cells increases as we move into adulthood and then stabilize. When old ones die, they are just replaced by new ones. Each fat cell can expand greatly in size.

The bottom line to shrinking fat cells, is to eat less and move more. Keep in mind it’s better to think long term and maintain an ongoing healthy, planned diet with thought given to portions. It also helps to remove foods that create cravings. And don’t forget about supporting your body to remove any toxins that get released as these cells shrink.

We can talk about this more if you’d like to come down.

Scott Porter, a functional medicine pharmacist, is the director of the Center for Functional Nutrition at Sandpoint Super Drug.