Relaxing builds fat
There is no doubt that if you want to lose weight then exercise helps. When you exercise you burn kilojoules and the essence of losing weight is to burn more kilojoules than you consume. There is however, more to the story. It is not only the exercise itself that strips away the fat, it is what you are not doing when you are exercising that is important. New research has revealed that being sedentary actually encourages your body to produce more fat.
What has been found in the latest research is that force placed continuously on a part of your body that contains fat cells can encourage those fat cells to produce more fat at a faster rate. So engaging in “active inactivity†by lying on your lounge and watching television, for example, could actually be promoting the laying down of fat.
In the research preadipocyte cells (the precursors to fat cells) were stimulated in the laboratory using either glucose or insulin to turn them into fat cells. The fat cells were then placed on device that would stretch the cells for long periods of time as would happen when you sit or lie on your fat cells for long periods. A control group of cells was not exposed to this stretching.
Both the stretched and the non-stretched cells developed fat droplets over time. However, after two weeks of receiving regular and sustained stretching the stretched cells produced 50 per cent more fat than the non-stretched cells.
So the kind of cell stretching that comes from inactivity encourages fat cells to produce greater amounts of fat.
That means that weight gain is about more than an imbalance of kilojoules (ie. consuming more than you burn). Cells also respond to what is happening to them mechanically, and being stretched as they would be if you sit behind a desk all day or spend hours on a couch watching television or reading, encourages your fat cells to make you fatter.
So if you are still here reading this…WTF!? Get out of here now, burn some calories, take the weight off your adipocytes, and discover the leaner you.
