Types of fat, and the role it plays in our health
Carrying fat is a normal part of life. However, how we store it, that is completely different depending on genetics. Apple or Pear are the shapes you've heard of and android and gynoid is the technical terms you might have seen. These have to do with the way our bodies store fat, generally premenopausal females store in pear shape, postmenopausal females start to become apple and males spend their whole lives storing that apple shape. If you're annoyed with the muffin top, or your easter egg on match sticks, then we've got you covered, why it's not good for you and some tips on how to improve it.
As we're discussing internal health, our disclaimer is that you should always aim to reduce either of these levels when it's excess body fat from a health standpoint but of course it can happen, so we're here to help you understand the differences between them, and that not all body fat is created equal.
We mentioned the basics of these different fat types in our Body Fat article, but let's dive into why they create differences to your internal health.
The Health Risks
Too much fat we know has been linked to a variety of health risks including metabolic syndrome, some cancers, cardiovascular diseases and early mortality but as research has continued to advance we've gained deeper knowledge of the differences between subcutaneous adipose tissue and visceral obesity. Even starker knowledge is the fact that someone with a healthy body mass index score may have visceral obesity and this raises their risk of all death mortality rates by almost double that of a healthy individual with healthy visceral fat content.
You don't get to choose distribution.
Of course we don't get to choose how body fat distribution works for our body, and we'll prove this with two of our coaches. When looking at these images, you'll see Scott has more subcutaneous belly fat to look at than Anthony but look isn't (as above) always the true answer. Both of these guys workout regularly and follow nutrition protocols for their chosen goal, Scott to maintain bodyweight for BJJ competitions and Anthony to gain mass for his strength and power goals. Anthony has a slightly higher body fat percentage but both guys are inside the level of fitness body fat percentage.
Here's the numbers thanks to our most recent dexa scans. *Ant Scott
Now reading these numbers, and looking at the image, we can tell where the differences lie. However, what do these visceral fat numbers really mean to us?
We know that carrying over 100cm leads to an increased risk and over 160cmmcarries a high risk of all stages of disease. As with any of us there are sometimes an unfair advantages of our genetics, and the same is the case with body fat distribution, of course Anthony and Scott don't know these differences and many things come into play to get you to today. (Anthony has now changed his training and nutrition to align with his new health goal of reducing visceral fat).
What's the cause of visceral obesity?
First noticeable factor, it's bigger in the west than any other part of the world but rising in other countries with large socioeconomic growth, why? Due to this it decreases activity levels and increases overeating habits. Secondly as we age, and yip this is one of the facts of ageing, we reduce the level of fat we use for energy (lipolysis), so if our nutrient balance is in surplus, so is our fat storage. Lastly, there's always the luck of the draw card, the good old fashioned genetics card that stores it, where it stores it. Young females have the favoured fat storage route, hips and thighs but males and postmenopausal females, it's going to your stomach and some of this will always be inter abdominal fat storage.
How each of us store it and why.
Females, your genetic gift pre-menopause, awesome body fat distribution for internal health, but that doesn't mean just crack on because it won't get you, it just means it's slower. Why is this, when women become pregnant their bodies are under huge demand and will need extra stores of energy to allow the child to survive and afterwards this is seen again during lactation when healthy females tend to lose higher amounts subcutaneous fat from their hips and thighs than at any other time. Since we have the results, we thought we'd show you a healthy female, Joana has a very low overall body fat level of 16.2% which actually takes her into the female athlete section, she also has a very healthy abdominal visceral fat level of 32.1cm2 and as we know under 100 is the healthy range to this. This isn't for bragging rights, but to show that maintaining healthy balanced lifestyles can pay off and monitoring your numbers also you to know to make changes in your lifestyle. Jo's Dexa
We know men carry more fat on their stomachs, but why? There are previous studies showing that the fat tends to be stored in the abdominal cavity due to the lipoproteins that are created in males being different to that of females. These lipoproteins tend to be larger and of higher quantity and as the area that aims to clear them is of low pressure, it's harder to clear specifically post prandial. It's pretty simple science that's not favourable for males but it of course can be maintained pretty easily with correct nutrition and some online personal training. Men do have an advantage of muscle mass which can bring the balance back faster if they sway to the wrong side. (Let's see Anthony's 6 month results).
Men have this issue throughout their lives which means they should learn the best way to look after themselves to mitigate this. However, postmenopausal women have to figure things out all over again, this change with their internal health changes their body fat distribution and their energy expenditure. Studies have shown that there is an energy dip causing reduced activity 2 years previous to menopause, reduced energy expenditure during sleep in post menopausal women and increased storage of abdominal visceral fat vs premenopausal women. As this is a natural part of life, having support to best understand what solutions you can plan and implement will always allow you the best balance.
Solutions please.
Solutions are why you're here, so what do we suggest? On this topic, it's got some simple options. The first and best, you can join Resilient Human to get supported solutions to suit your needs, with lots data to back it up.
Let's show you what we use as solutions. Let's attack each of these reasons one at a time. This is a simple fix, exercise more, and most definitely, just move more. Moving more throughout the day will increase non exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT), this is just doing more, walking, house work, playing with the kids and so on, the more often you move the higher this is. Increasing this will increase your daily expenditure higher than getting that 1 exercise session in and sitting at your desk all day. (We do know that sometimes the world we're in today doesn't allow for this but you can also ask us for some tips via email or social media).
The bit we love, training. Over all the studies written on visceral fat and training, higher intensity training seems to be the thing that solves the issue, (to an extent). This comes with our caveat, high intensity training is different to everyone, it's not always spin, HIIT or moving as much volume of load as you can until you're spent on the floor. Look some personal trainers and coaches have made businesses on this but understanding where you are along the fitness level spectrum will enable you to increase intensity correctly for you, so our suggestion is reach out to a personal trainer or coach that you feel can support you correctly, and take the time and effort with the to become resilient.
We all age, right we can't stop this but there are a few things we can do to increase the lipolysis we mentioned earlier. Firstly is staying ahead of the curve, this doesn't mean not carrying excess body fat (even though that's included) this is training when we're younger. You'll gain two benefits from this, firstly you'll add muscle mass which will increase your overall daily expenditure and keep you leaner as everything you do takes more energy, and secondly if you train in specific intensities you'll create more mitochondria which helps your body create energy and work better on a cellular level due to decreasing inflammation. This help will see your body store less fat and specifically less inside the abdominal wall reducing visceral obesity as you age.
Energy balance is of course the simplest form of keeping this at bay, that's simple maths, in vs out nutrition. When it comes to this for the majority it sounds boring, however simply get something like myfitness pal or another calculator live your life, use this for no longer than 3 months and find out where your balance is. If you feel you need a check in, play with it again. We all go through times of feast and holiday prep, we're normal but understanding your body is one of the best things you can do to support yourself.
Next Steps.
If you're looking to know your baselines, check MyVitalMetrics and use code RESILIENT to start that journey.
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