About That Weight Loss (Part 4/6)

Finally, We Get to the Nitty Gritty

Welcome to Part 4 of About That Weight Loss. In Parts 1 and 2, I shared some of my own life-long struggle with weight loss and dysmorphic body image and in Part 3 I talked about how my self-loathing started to shift.

Today, we’re going into a few of the reasons that our bodies hang onto weight.

Here is some of what I’ve learned about our body’s storage of fat:

1) Fat Cells Stretch. Fat cells are hugely elastic and they stretch out to hold large quantities of fat. New cells are only created when the existing cells reach capacity and we continue to pack it in.

2) Fat Cells are Loyal Customers. There are ‘natural’ deposit areas for fat on each of our bodies that fat prefers to be. However, if we continue to add fat, our body will find new areas to store it.

It’s totally got our back if we’re determined to get bigger.

3) Fat Cells Store Toxins. Sometimes, fat is used as a way to ‘hide away’ toxic chemicals and substances that would hurt our body if they were in circulation.

That’s why, sometimes, when we start to release that old fat from the cells, the toxins are also released and they can make us feel sick, sluggish, and trigger survival mechanisms in our body (like fat storage).

That’s why you have to drink loads of water and eat healthy fibre (chia, flax, etc) when you are releasing fat. It’s also why you have to be gentle with yourself. There are days when you aren’t going to feel very good. And, there are days when you are purging some pretty brutal trauma.

4) Fat is Inert, Kind Of. Fat is relatively inert – kind of – and our body has to use up other energy reserves before it will dive into the stored fat reserves.

In other words, it prefers to keep fat as fat and use straight up sugar instead of going through all the work of converting fat back into sugar.

It’s efficient that way.

Fat is also not demanding. Per pound, it consumes fewer calories than an equivalent amount of muscle tissue. 

5) Fat is NOT Inert. Fat is not as inert as we thought it was.

It turns out that fat tissue (adipose tissue) also creates and secretes proteins and hormones like aromatase, adinopectin, and leptin which affect sex hormone levels, appetite, and can (wait for it!)increase the tendency toward fat storage and poor blood sugar regulation leading to increased risk for diabetes and heart disease, and a host of other diseases.

Nice, huh?

Plus, a whole bunch of other functionsthat are super-important for healthy living but that, when there is too much or too little, create deep imbalances in the body. In all, there are at least 80 proteins produced by fat tissue that impact the body’s function.

So, not inert at all, then.

6) Our Bodies Don’t Like to Starve.Fat storage is a natural reaction to starvation diets. Y’know all those diets that tell you to severely restrict your calorie intake? Yeah, you know the ones I mean.

Well, those diets crush your metabolism – which means they drive down your body’s ‘natural’ calorie requirements – to such a low level that you actually require fewer calories to live which means that you can eat way less food and still gain fat.

Because your body freaks out when you are starving and will store any excess fat or sugar as fat for when there is no food.

7) Fat is Necessary.Fat is a necessary, natural insulator. Our nerve cells are wrapped in a fatty tissue ‘myelin sheath’ to make electrical transmission possible. If something happens to that fatty sheath, our nervous system starts to break down. This is what happens in Multiple Sclerosis and in people who do not eat enough fat.

8) Obesity is a Positive Feedback Cycle. What does that mean? It means that once you are obese, the fatty tissues actually create imbalances in the body that encourage your body to not only keep the fat on, but to add lots more.

Here’s just one example with leptin regulation and one more about how high lipid levels contribute to sleep apnea. And those are both from ONE day of Science News. There are thousands of studies that show links between obesity, more obesity, and lifestyle diseases. Once you’re sliding down that slope, it’s way too easy to continue.

Okay, so there are a few physical ideas about fat and fat storage in the body for you to think about. Now, here are a few energetic ideas to add to that soup…

9) Fat is a Natural Insulator.Remember when I was talking about fat being a natural insulator.

(it’s just up there in #7, you can go back and check it out)

Well, when I started digging into empathy and what it means to be an empath I realized very quickly that when we walk around as untrained, unshielded empaths we are sponges for everyone else’s energy.

Like, we suck it ALLup. Like a Hoover.

And it poisons us. All that energy.

And we need a way to process it. But we don’t know how, consciously.

(if you want to change that, check out my Energy Hygiene for Empaths courses)

So we just sit in the stew of it and feel sicker and sicker.

And our body helps as much as it can by storing those toxins away 

(yes, emotions have molecules that can be stored. Read Candace Pert’s phenomenal book (and the Canadian link) if you want more or watch What the Bleep Do We Know?!)

And one of the ways that our body can help is by creating an inert layer of fat all over our bodies to ‘insulate’ us from the bombarding energies.

(haven’t been bubbling? well, here’s one more reason to make it happen)

10) Fat is a Symbol. We keep fat on our bodies because we want to ‘punish’ someone or show them how much they have hurt us. Or to keep us safe from them.

Yup. We do.

We want to make sure that they know just how badly they hurt us. How damaged we are.

(of course, this isn’t usually conscious, it’s usually a few layers down into the Unconscious Mind)

In fact, in my work with women over the years, this is one of the most common reasons why they aren’t releasing weight.

They don’t want to be attractive to their husbands.

They don’t want to be noticed by anyone, especially not strangers, especially not men.

They are afraid to be sexually desirable or attractive.

This is a safe way, so society tells us, to not be noticed. To be invisible.

(this was a big one for me… being invisible and safe)

11) We Stuff Our Emotions. We eat to repress emotions we consider to be uncomfortable or wrong. Remember me stuffing bread into my mouth to keep from screaming at my disabled mother. Yeah. Like that.

Which means that a good chunk of the fat you have smeared all over your body is symbolic of all the times you swallowed your anger and rage. 

Which means that when you start releasing it, you’re going to have to process that old, toxic anger and rage.

Fun, right?

Nope. Not at all. In fact, for most women, they would rather DIE than have to re-experience that anger or BE angry. And so they get their wish.

They slowly poison their bodies with too much fat instead of working through the anger.

Especially, for those of us with thick thighs, as Louise Hay pointed out in her work, symbolic of anger at ‘the Father’.

Oh. Yeah. Just sit and breathe and take in that bitterness.

Angry at God? Angry at your earthly Father?

Holding onto a bit too much weight?

Boom!

Make sure you tune back in for Part 5 where I’m going to talk about some healthy ways we can start to shift our weight and choose to live. Also? Don’t miss Part 4.5, where I get all up in addiction’s grill.

Because, ultimately, when we choose to be obese, we are choosing to slowly kill ourselves.