Scientists keep giving us new ways of thinking of our bodies. The latest research indicates that one person’s fat may be quite different from another person’s. Whether you have healthy fat or unhealthy fat depends on how you use it.
Imagine two friends named David and Rohan who have similar builds, each with a potbelly or spare tire. At least four times a week, David takes his belly to the gym, giving it a 30-minute workout on an exercise bike. While David’s belly is on a stationary bike, Rohan’s belly is merely stationary. It’s stationed on a stool at the bar.
After two years, their bellies look the same. Despite his effort at the gym, David has been unable to reduce his belly. And despite his effort at the bar, Rohan has been unable to expand his.
David wonders if he should quit trying. What’s the point of exercising regularly if you can’t lose weight?
Well, as countless studies have shown, exercise can improve your health in many ways, even if you don’t lose weight. But here’s another reason for David to keep working out: a new study at University of Michigan has found that regular aerobic exercise makes your fat tissue healthier.
To conduct the study, researchers recruited 32 overweight adults with a similar amount of body fat. Half of them had exercised regularly like David for at least two years, while the other half were sedentary like Rohan.
Researchers examined samples of their subcutaneous belly fat and found significant differences. The fat of regular exercisers had more blood vessels, more protein and less inflammation.
Perhaps most importantly, the researchers found that the fat of regular exercisers wasn’t rigid and had the capacity to expand and accommodate more fat. By exercising regularly, David had made his fat more welcoming to immigrants (other fat cells). Rohan’s fat had erected a sign that said, “Go Back to Where You Came From.”
Actually, Rohan’s sign was more like this: “Go Somewhere Else in My Body.” And that’s why his fat is unhealthy. As Jeff Horowitz, a professor who led the University of Michigan study, notes, it’s safer to store fat just under your skin than in other parts of your body.
“Unfortunately, most of us, even regular exercisers, gain weight as we get older,” Horowitz told CNN. “If we have a greater capacity to store that in our fat tissue, less of it’ll go to our liver, less of it will go to our heart, less will go to all these other places that in excess can be really problematic.”
Many of us exercise to make our muscles stronger, but we should also exercise to make our fat healthier. After a good workout, don’t just look in the mirror and flex your muscles — flex your fat too. Or give it a jiggle.
Many people have a negative view of fat, but Horowitz wants us to recognize its importance for our bodies.
“Fat tissue itself is very, very important for health,” he said. “It’s actually an important reservoir of our extra energy.”
While both David and Rohan have reservoirs of extra energy, David can now brag to Rohan: “My reservoir is more accommodating than your reservoir.”
And he can laugh when Rohan responds: “Oh yeah? Come to the bar with me and prove it!”
“The secret lives of fat” - there’s a lot going on there, below the surface.