26 Apr The Truth About Body Fat

The truth about body fat Did you know that not all fat is bad? Sounds strange but true! Our bodies contain a fat called brown fat which is distributed around the body. This brown fat helps burn calories so it is not surprising that slim people have more of it while obese have a lot less. But how does this fat work? It was only 6 years ago that it was discovered and now scientists are working tirelessly to try and use it’s existence to decrease obesity and diabetes. It has been found that the way to activate it is to get cold! So good news for us boot campers. Apparently training outside in the cold will burn more fat and more calories then say working out in a gym. A study was conducted on a group of Japanese men who spent 2 hours a day in a 17 degree room for 6 weeks. They ended up activating 50 percent of their brown fat and decreased 5 percent of their body fat. It wasn’t just the brown fat alone though that helped decrease their body weight. Shivering because of the cold can burn quite a few calories, in fact about 300 extra if in the cold for 30 minutes. However the problem with this is that we don’t particularly want to cold just to lose weight, to some, feeling cold is about as unappealing as living off lettuce alone! So until they design a drug that can stimulate this brown fat, it is suggested we definitely get some cold exposure, exercise and make sure calories in either maintain or encourage slow weight loss. Good news since winter is here! Bring it on! Source: New Scientist Magazine