Understanding Weight Loss: The Concepts that you should be Familiar With
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, being overweight or obese is 39.8% prevalent in the US adult population. The rest of the world is also getting bigger, and several countries together with the World Health Organization have already waged an actual war against obesity. This disease now joins cancer and heart failure in the list of the world’s most threatening health issues.
While shedding the extra pounds is not always an easy battle to win, it is not impossible. There are just some concepts and principles that you need to understand to be more strategic in your fight against uncontrolled weight gain. Read on to know what these concepts are.
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Fat cells only decrease in size, they never really get eliminated.
Fat cells are not really our enemy per se. In fact, all of us are born with a number of fat cells in our bodies. They serve crucial functions, and one of them is to make your skin look supple and full.
These cells only become problematic when they become so inflated that they are forced to split into at least two new cells. Quite frankly, when you gain fat cells, you can never lose them in the sense that the body keeps their number as is. So even when some of the cells die, they will still be replaced by the body’s natural replenishing processes. With weight loss, they just shrink like deflated balloons.
The presence of fat cells makes it easy for the body to store excess energy as fat. This is one of the many reasons people who have been fat find it a bit challenging to keep the pounds off.
Setpoint and settling point, what’s the difference?
Scientists previously thought that the body has a fixed set point, which is basically the level where the person’s metabolic level is at its most basic. This is the level that the body always returns to no matter how high the arousal or physiological change was.
However, new studies and insight show that a fixed set point is a matter of fiction. It does not really exist. While it’s true that there really is a level that the body returns to, this level is easily modified by the current state and activities of the body. Gaining weight, for example, brings this base level up, and this is now called the body’s new settling point. If the person ingests less in an effort to lose weight, their body will go below the settling point. This triggers the slowing down of the body’s metabolic process in order to save energy. The result is a starved individual who doesn’t really see that much change in the numbers reflected on the weighing scale.
Given the new pieces of knowledge discussed above, it becomes apparent that losing weight is indeed a difficult task. Good thing science has come up with products that aid the persons who are trying to win their battles. There are now hypoallergenic food supplements like Pure Encapsulations that help control cravings. They are made of the most organic materials so consumers can be sure that they are safe.
Author: Sahendra
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