I’m excited about this post because I feel like people need to understand exactly what promotes weight gain, in order to make better decisions when it comes to their food choices.
For the longest time, fats have been demonized and were presented as the sole reason why we gain weight, suffer from high cholesterol rate and other chronic diseases. But are fats really to blame for putting on extra pounds? The answer is… no.
Therefore, what in the world makes us gain weight?? Quite simply put, carbohydrates, or carbs, as we commonly call them.
In the rest of this post, I will explain how carbs promote weight gain, and what you can do about it.
There are two factors that determine the quantity of fat that we stock, both of which are linked to a hormone: insulin. A high rate of insulin leads to fat accumulation in fatty tissue. When this rate decreases, fatty tissues free fats which are burned by our organism to produce energy.
The rate of insulin is determined by the carbs we consume. The more carbs you ingest, the more insulin you secrete and the more fats you stock in fat cells.
What regulates our fatty tissues are hormones, enzymes and growth factors.
Body fat takes two forms and is used for two distinct reasons:
– The fat that enters and comes out of fat cells is called fatty acids. It is under this form (fatty acids) that our body burns fat to produce energy.
– The fat that we stock is called triglycerides, because it is made of three (tri) fatty acids linked to a molecule of glycerol (glycerides). Triglycerides are too big to go through the membranes that surround each fat cells, whereas fatty acids are small enough to slide through these membranes. Fatty acids can be burnt at any time to produce energy. And it is as triglyceride that fat is fixed inside fat cells, where it is stocked for future use.
The hormone that rules this complex system is insulin. Insuline regulates simultaneously fat and protein stocking, and fat and protein usage. For instance, insulin makes sure that enough proteins reach our muscle cells to rebuild and repair what needs to be rebuilt or repaired; it also ensures we stock enough fuel to function efficiently between meals. Since the area where we stock our fuel for future use is our fatty tissue, insuline is the main regulator of fat metabolism.
Insuline works thanks to two enzymes:
– LPL (Lipase Lipoprotein), which can be found on the membranes of different cells and transfers in these fat cells blood fat. When LPL is on the surface of a muscle cell, it leads the fat toward the muscle in order for the muscle to use it for energy. Whenever the LPL is found on a fat cell, it makes it even fatter. LPL breaks down triglycerides into fatty acids, and it is as such that they penetrate in a cell.
During physical exercise, LPL decreases in fat cells and increases in muscle cells, which leads to liberation of fat out of muscle tissue and can now be burnt in fat cells which need fuel. But this process is reversed after exercising: LPL surges in fat cells and the latter gain fat again. That’s why you’re hungry after exercising: not only do your muscles need to restock and rebuild, but the organism also restocks in fat. Insulin being the main regulator of fat metabolism, it is not surprising that also regulates LPL. Insulin activates LPL in fat cells. The more insulin you secrete, the active the LPL is in the fat cells and the more fat is diverted from blood circulation to fat cells in order to be stocked. Furthermore, insulin surpasses LPL activity in muscle cells, reducing the quantity of fatty acids to burn. Insulin forces muscle cells and other cells not to burn fatty acids and keep burning glucose. So when you exercise, the first thing you burn is the glucose (sugar).
– Hormone-sensitive Lipase (HSL). Acts to decrease the size of fat cells. To do so, it breaks down triglycerides inside fat cells, thus making them return to the initial state of their components. Fatty acids can then be freed from fat cells and return to blood circulation. The more active the HSL, the more our cells liberate fat that can be burned to produce energy. But insulin suppresses this enzyme. There doesn’t have to be a lot of insuline to repress HSL. Slightly high blood sugar can lead to fat accumulation in fat cells. Moreover, insulin instigates inside fat cells a mechanism of glucose absorption that increases the quantity of glucose that fat cells metabolize. This process increases the quantity of glycerol present in fat cells and these molecules can can then be attached to fatty acids to make triglycerides, which results in an increase of fat stocked. In order for the organism to have enough space to stock fat, insuline’s role is to create new fat cells whenever existing fat cells are almost full.
- To slim down, one must not only get fatty acids and burn them, but also decrease blood sugar and secrete less insuline.
Whenever the food industry claims a product is “light” and contains less fat, it means they remove part of the fats and calories and replace them by carbs.
What a healthy diet must do is re-regulate one’s fat tissue in order for it to liberate the excess of calories it had accumulated.
It is the carbs we consume that increase our triglyceride. Fats have nothing to do with it. - When our diet does not contain carbs, our brain and central nervous system are nourished with molecules called Ketone. The ketones are synthesized in the liver from the fat we eat, fatty acids mobilized in fatty tissue following a diet poor in carbs and the resulting low blood sugar and even certain amino acids. When eat very little carbs, ketones provide about 3/4 of the energy our brain needs. That’s why low carb dies are called “Keto diets”. The rest of the energy needed by the brain is provided by the glycerol, which is also liberated by fatty tissue during the break-down of the triglyceride molecule; and by the glucose synthesized by the liver from amino acids contained in proteins. To conclude: the reason why we gain is not because of the fatty food we eat, but because of the carbs!
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