Jason E. Andersen

Bonus Fun Fact: Fat cells are forever. When you diet and exercise to lose weight, you will lose fat, but you don’t lose fat cells. In fact, once new fat cells are made, they are permanent (unless they are vacuumed out, that is). Fat cells, or lipocytes as fancy doctors like to call them, are the long-term energy storage cells of the body. When you consume excess energy (food), the body will store it away for later use. Each individual lipocyte has a maximum capacity of fat it can store. When the limit is reached, the cell divides to create more cells. More cells means more storage capacity and, more fat. This is an oversimplification of course, but it’s the general idea.

When you burn fat, the lipocyte shrinks. It’s kind of like a deflating balloon, except with less fart sound. The fat is burned, the lipocytes shrink, but they remain in the body, ready to store fat once again. This is why it’s so easy to gain weight when you stop taking care of yourself, even for a relatively short period of time (like winter). This is especially true the older you are, because you have had more time to build fat cells (and your metabolism slows down, but that’s a discussion for another time).

You will probably not look at your belly the same again. Sorry.