Fat Cells
photo: sciencing, an exotic forest or jungle scene
R U ready to stretch your imagination?
I grew up near a piece of timberland in Southwest Iowa, a patch of trees and its own little 'ecosystem', perhaps 10 or 15 acres, surrounded by corn and soybean fields.
With a creek feeding a pond nearby, and all the wildlife that came with it, squirrels, rabbits, deer, racoons, pheasants, etc., this patch was my own private nature reserve.
It had wild grapevines to swing on, large anthills to marvel at - a marvelous part of my childhood.
But back then, when I looked at the trees, I thought each tree just did its own thing,
growing and shedding leaves in the fall and being a place for a squirrel to build its nest.
Apparently, I was wrong.
I'm reading now that a forest is actually an interdependent ecosystem where one tree growing near a rusty old plow, can take iron from that plow and move it to a tree several hundred feet away.
And I'm reading that this happens with other nutrients for many plants in such a setting. Wow.
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Now then, can this apply to those of us who struggle to control our weight
by controlling our calorie intake? Here is my thought-train, and it is quite imaginative:
What if fat cells, once enlarged by over-eating, seeks to retain their size - that fat cells
are not just benign, impulse-less cells that take what they are given and surrender what is required of them upon demand?
What if... fat cells, once stretched, have a memory - that they try to satisfy,
to regain the largest size they have 'known'?
We know that cells can thirst, they can starve, they can freeze, they can overheat.
Whether this is an individual thing or a collective thing, I don't know.
So, can once-stretched fat cells actually crave more mass, once they have been made smaller due to weight loss?
AND... do fat cells in different part of the body act differently?
It's a common saying that a person is either 'an apple' or 'a pear' body shape,
according to where they carry excess weight. So, are those fat cells different somehow?
I ask this question as a dieter...someone who used to wear 40" pants - under his belly - and now wear 34" pants. But I have been at 34" for over a year now and still have a roll that I can't get rid of, my appetite keeps me there, even after joining a gym in January of 2025.
(In my website HorseshoeCrabClub.com I talk about obesity and my weight loss journey.)
So, I'm wondering, if my fat cells are able to feel deprived, and are able to invoke my appetite?
Would I lessen the cravings if I had liposuction on my waist and remove several of those fat cells?
What do you think?
