Does stubborn fat make you feel ugly and unhappy?

Is stubborn fat being unfair to you, clinging to your body despite your best efforts?

Stubborn fat is a nightmare to deal with. They stick around like the plague despite your best efforts. Not only does it make you look bad, it makes you feel bad too.

Do you want to fight stubborn fat once and for all? Then you’ll need to understand what it’s really all about.

Here are 8 facts about stubborn fat that’ll blow your mind.

1. You are NOT what you eat

You may feel quite depressed seeing your stubborn fat cling to you despite eating a healthy diet. And it’s not really your fault. Stubborn fat is resistant to triggers and changes. They are already “stubborn” to begin with. Eating unhealthy doesn’t change their status or structure. Dr. Rudolph Leibel from Columbia University cautioned that diet composition is “not a major player” in weight control because “a calorie is a calorie, no matter where it comes from. 1

Don’t get us wrong though. This doesn’t mean you go eating burgers and fries in every meal, slacking off your exercise completely, and expect your weight to go down. Eating unhealthy will make your stubborn fat even worse. You should still make healthy eating a part of your life. Don’t worry, we will show you how to make healthy eating effective at the end of this article.

2. Stubborn fat attributed to their receptors

A receptor is a point that receives a trigger message from the body. Think of it as a lock waiting for a key to activate it. Our fat cells contain 2 main types of receptors, namely the alpha and the beta receptors.

Beta receptors permit more blood flow and allow the fat cells to be easily utilized by the body. Stubborn fats on the other hand have a high concentration of alpha-2 receptors. These receptors, when activated, directly block the breakdown of fat, making your fat cell stick stubbornly.2 Simply put, beta is the good receptor, and alpha-2 is the bad.

Belly fat contains many alpha-2 receptors, making it a challenging area. Other areas of fat like your arms, face, and chest have more beta receptors, which is why you may notice sudden drops in those areas much quicker.

3. You can’t remove it with liposuction

It’s tempting to go for liposuction, seeing how some people looked slimmer from this procedure. But what you may not know is that liposuction does not eradicate the problems that were initially associated with stubborn fat.

There are 2 kinds of fat, visceral and subcutaneous. Subcutaneous is the layer directly under your skin, the one that you can directly pinch, and is responsible for your appearance. This layer is however quite safe for our health. Visceral fat on the other lies deeper inside us, cautiously surrounding our organs. This is the dangerous one that affects your hormones, and insulin sensitivity, and brings about diseases.

Liposuction eradicates only your subcutaneous fat. This makes you look slimmer on the outside and is purely cosmetic, but the visceral fat that remains in you still poses a threat to your health. In fact, there have been deaths when liposuction accidentally punctured the patients’ visceral fats.3 So think twice before heading for liposuction. It’s better to shed visceral fats naturally.

4. Crunches alone will not burn it

Crunches are good for building strength and working out the muscles near the belly, but they don’t burn off those persistent fats there. The same thing goes for other strength-training exercises.

You have to incorporate cardio exercises like jogging, swimming, and cycling to get your heart pumping and promote blood flow throughout your body. Implement your cardio together with your strength exercises to make progress.

5. Your genes play a role

Those stubborn fats on your belly? You’ve probably inherited 56% of it from your family genes, as discovered by Claude Bouchard from the Physical Activity Sciences Laboratory, Laval University.4

You can’t stop this, but you can do something about it.

6. You’re setting yourself up for even more diseases

You may feel lethargic and low in self-esteem due to your image. As if being fat wasn’t tough enough, you are subjected to health risks when the stubborn fat stays there. Some of these scary, yet common, diseases that arise from stubborn fat are:

• Heart problems
• Stroke
• Diabetes
• High blood pressure
• Arthritis
• And even cancer

It’s not worth putting yourself in such risk. It’s worth taking action.

7. It is caused by inflammation in the brain

You might find it odd that even our brain is responsible for your cursed fats. You see our brain has a protection barrier to prevent toxic stuff from entering. But when your brain is inflamed, this barrier breaks down and allows toxins to mess up with the brain.

Our brain is a very important organ. It controls your body’s metabolism (fat burning and energy production) via its thing called the hypothalamus. When toxins get in and mess up your hypothalamus, your body can’t utilize its fat efficiently. Eventually, your fat clings stubbornly and gives you problems.

8. Your gut bacteria is just as guilty

Many of us would know this condition as leaky gut. This is where bad bacteria escape from your gut into your bloodstream and enter your brain. It is known to keep triggering the hunger signals in your brain, making you crave more food even when you are full. Taking a proper probiotic for weight loss can help you correct this imbalance.