What Are Fat Cells?

Whether you want to avoid gaining weight or you need to lose weight, it's important to know what fat cells are and how they work.

Fat cells are also called adipocytes because they are the cells that primarily compose adipose tissue (fat). The main role of fat cells is to store fat so it can be used by the body for energy.

When you eat more calories than your body needs, regardless of if the calories come from fats, carbohydrates, or proteins, the extra calories are stored primarily as fat. The fat is stored in fat cells in the form of triglycerides. When your body needs to use stored fat for energy, fat is released from fat cells and the cells shrink. This is why you look leaner when you lose body fat - because your fat cells are now smaller. The way to trigger the release of fat from fat cells is to consume fewer calories than you burn, which creates an energy deficit in the body. The optimum way to create this energy deficit is by cutting back on calories and increasing your physical activity.

It was once believed that the number of fat cells a person had could not increase in adulthood and that only the size of the cells could increase (or decrease). It's now known that fat cells can increase both in number and size during adulthood. What happens is that when fat cells expand to their maximum size they can divide, producing an increase in the actual number of cells. And once fat cells are formed, they can't be eliminated (except through liposuction). A person becomes overweight when their fat cells increase in number, in size, or in both.

Some people are genetically predisposed to have more fat cells than others, and women have more fat cells than men. An infant usually has about 5 to 6 billion fat cells. A healthy adult with normal body composition has about 25 to 30 billion fat cells. An overweight adult's number of fat cells depends on how overweight the individual is, and can range from 75 billion to over 300 billion. And an overweight person's fat cells can be up to three times larger than the fat cells of a person with normal body composition.

In conclusion, the more fat cells you have and the larger those cells are, the more difficult it will be for you to lose weight. But if you're overweight, don't get discouraged. Anyone can lose body fat and become leaner and healthier by making the right lifestyle changes. Visit the Best Way To Lose Weight page for more information.

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