Breaking Down Fat

When you are not eating, your body is not absorbing food. If your body is not absorbing food, there is little insulin in the blood. However, your body is always using energy; and if you're not absorbing food, this energy must come from internal stores of complex carbohydrates, fats and proteins.

Under these conditions, various organs in your body secrete hormones:

pancreas - glucagon
pituitary gland - growth hormone
pituitary gland - ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone)
adrenal gland - epinephrine (adrenaline)
thyroid gland - thyroid hormone

These hormones act on cells of the liver, muscle and fat tissue, and have the opposite effects of insulin.
When you are not eating, or you are exercising, your body must draw on its internal energy stores. Your body's prime source of energy is glucose. In fact, some cells in your body, such as brain cells, can get energy only from glucose.

The first line of defense in maintaining energy is to break down carbohydrates, or glycogen, into simple glucose molecules -- this process is called glycogenolysis. Next, your body breaks down fats into glycerol and fatty acids in the process of lipolysis. The fatty acids can then be broken down directly to get energy, or can be used to make glucose through a multi-step process called gluconeogenesis. In gluconeogenesis, amino acids can also be used to make glucose.

In the fat cell, other types of lipases work to break down fats into fatty acids and glycerol. These lipases are activated by various hormones, such as glucagon, epinephrine and growth hormone. The resulting glycerol and fatty acids are released into the blood, and travel to the liver through the bloodstream. Once in the liver, the glycerol and fatty acids can be either further broken down or used to make glucose.

Understand that if you starve your self in order to allow this process to happen , you will be also sacrificing your hard earned muscle too. Your body will not just use the fats and glucose only but use your proteins from your muscle cells too. So when you starve and begin to lose weight, you are also greatly eating away your muscle .. which is your support system . It gives you the shape and curvature that is very desirable on most women.. muscle is the key to ultimate help. It greatly reduces osteoporosis post menupause. .

It allows you to look younger for a long period of time as you age ... It release hormones that heals the body and make the body a powerhouse. So the next time you think of starving your self from great calories to lose body fat , also remember that you are shooting your self in the foot at the same time. Fat lose should be done with a great plan and strategy that allows your body to lose weight freely while maintaining the integrity of your muscle cells. When it comes to dieting to lose weight , it must be for a very short period to get some fat off then move into a more sustainable strategy to continue the fat loss process
by Melissa of VHF