George Washington University Weight Loss Expert Reveals 4 Fat Cell Facts

By Josef Brandenburg

Have you been trying to get rid of all that extra weight for quite some time now? Are you confused as to why you just can't seem to get rid of it? A George Washington University weight loss expert discloses four facts related to fat cells that may help you get back into shape and stay that way.

Fact Number One: "Pre-fat cells" desperately want to become fat cells, and you're probably helping them do just that

Even now, you are producing millions of pre-fat cells and all these get converted into full fledged fat cells. In scientific terms these cells are referred to as adipocytes. Even though you do not wish to transform them, unintentionally you help them in getting converted. How can you prevent this?

Our George Washington University weight loss expert reveals this: The thing is, pre-fat cells don't store fat; full-fledged fat cells do. So when you help a pre-fat cell become a full fat cell, you do it by encouraging two hormones to produce themselves to excess in your body.

Those two hormones are insulin and cortisol, and you encourage their overproduction with your lifestyle.

Most often, cortisol is overproduced when you get too little sleep and have too much stress. Does that sound familiar? If it does, guess what? That's right; you are stressing and under-sleeping your way to fat cell growth.

The second hormone - insulin is produced in excess due to the same reason as cortisol - lack of sufficient sleep and too much stress. Eating improper diet that is high in simple carbohydrates is also another reason. A diet rich in simple carbohydrates stimulates production of insulin which in turn leads to weight gain and storage of body fat. Lack of proper exercise too can result in high insulin levels.

Fact Number Two: Once the fat cells are accumulated, they don't go away

You have got no one to blame but yourself. Your eating habits have resulted in acquiring these fat cells, and once you have them, they tend to stay with you for a life time. You have welcomed these unwanted friends because of lack of proper personal care. Since you never had sufficient sleep, right food, proper exercise and underwent severe stress, it has resulted in development of fat cells.

What can you do to change this?

Fact Number Three: Proper sleep can help you shun excess body weight

Getting a good night's sleep for seven to nine hours, with no disturbances, can reduce the levels of cortisol and increase levels of testosterone, leptin and growth hormones that are beneficial for cutting down fat. Proper quantities of leptin keep you less hungry and increase your metabolic rate (useful in burning excess fat). Growth hormone and testosterone are required by both men and women (in lesser quantities, of course) since these stimulate the fat burning process and muscle growth.

You need not provide your body with any artificial supplements of these hormones. Proper sleep alone is sufficient in doing this job.

Fact Number Four: Proper sleep also reduces cortisol and insulin levels that keep fat storage under control

As our George Washington University weight loss expert says, once you've got those fat cells, you've always got them -- but they don't actually have to store fat unless you invite them to. You need a little fat on your body, of course, but to avoid carrying around the excess stuff, lowering insulin levels is going to help you raise your levels of something called hormone sensitive lipase (HSL), which in effect keeps fat out of the fat cells, while raising them encourages production of something called lipoprotein lipase; lipoprotein lipase, or LPL, in effect opens the door to that fat and says, "Come on in and set a spell!" Not exactly what you want, right?

The solution is simple. All you have to do is get more sleep and be relieved from stress as far as possible. This along with regular exercising and proper diet can successfully help you get rid of all that unwanted weight. - 29951

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