Question on adipose tissue (fat)

well, from my biochem class: fat cells do not divide (i.e.
you don't make more when you gain weight/fat) they just get
bigger. Fat cells are masters and packing it in (sadly...to
efficient sometimes!). Anyway, when you diet and exercise to
burn fat, the cells get smaller and hence you get smaller.
The double edge sword, however, is that it's easier for them
to get big again in the future. Think of it like a baloon.
The new ones that have never been inflated are hard to blow
up, but once they get blown up once and have the air let
out, they are easier to blow up the second time. Bottom line
is you gotta eat and exercise for life!! Hope that helps!!

Cheers, Lisa (student of nutritional epidemiology)

[email hidden] (Heywood Mogroot) wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

I was skinny and well-conditioned for the first 25 years
of my life (6'1", ~175lb, 34" waist). For the next 7 years
I gained fat & muscle steadily, going from 175 to 200 (38"
waist). For the next 3 years I gained quickly, mostly to
my waist/belly, going up to 235 (~44" waist), on a very
high-carb, high-fat, low-exercise diet. I suspect insulin
issues were responsible for a lot of this fat gain (I
drank ~120g/day of HFCS-55 sugar in sodas alone)

Over the past year I have lost ~30lbs, back to ~200
through dieting (1000 kcal/day deficit) and exercise
(cycling for an hour or two, 4 days/week).

My question is simply did the 30lb gain I experienced from
age 33-35 add adipocytes (fat cells) (known as
hyperplastic growth), or did the existing fat cells just
expand (hypertrophy)?

(I'm hoping it's mostly the latter, of course)

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Quoted message said:

well, from my biochem class: fat cells do not divide (i.e.
you don't make more when you gain weight/fat) they just
get bigger.

These 'classes' people go to are so full of cosily
unchallenged [censored] orthodoxies that they ought to be
called 'religious education'...

Maybe the number of fat cells in a person is *not* a
constant: channel4.com0Open ↗
9/4health/food/ove_fatvirus.html

Philippic

[email hidden] wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

well, from my biochem class: fat cells do not divide (i.e.
you don't make more when you gain weight/fat) they just
get bigger.

the reading (on the web) I've done says that the fat
precursor cells grow in number via mitosis during the 3rd
trimester and during adolescence, and later in life if/when
the carrying capacity of existing fat cells is filled.

Quoted message said:

Fat cells are masters and packing it in (sadly...to
efficient sometimes!). Anyway, when you diet and exercise
to burn fat, the cells get smaller and hence you get
smaller. The double edge sword, however, is that it's
easier for them to get big again in the future. Think of
it like a baloon. The new ones that have never been
inflated are hard to blow up, but once they get blown up
once and have the air let out, they are easier to blow up
the second time. Bottom line is you gotta eat and exercise
for life!! Hope that helps!!

hmm, so there are also physiological changes even if there
are no new fat cells made via hyperplastic growth. At this
point I'm interested in the physical characteristics of what
the depleted fat deposits will look like, and less about
their physiological impact (I think I've addressed the over-
eating problem).