why we get fat

the short answer

“We get fat because the carbohydrates in our diet make us fat.”
Gary Tabubes, Why We Get Fat (2010)

the not-so-short answer(s)

How do carbohydrates in our diet make us fat?

The way Gary Tabues describes it is something like this:
Imagine you have a fuel gauge on a car and there’s Full on the right and Empty on the left with a needle that shows you where you’re at. Now if you imagine the fuel source in your body you replace the FULL with STORING FAT and the EMPTY with BURNING FAT. The needle can only point in one direction at a time.

When we eat carbohydrates, like bread and pasta our bodies release insulin which makes the needle point to Full (Storing Fat). This insulin is in our system means we are in fat-storing mode. But when the insulin subsides, the needle shifts over to Empty (Burning Fat) and we start burning our fat cells. Yay!

This means that when we eat carbohydrates and have insulin in our system, we aren’t physically able to burn our fat for fuel. All we can do is store the carbohydrates as fat in our fat cells.

So too many carbohydrates = too much insulin = fat bodies.

Of course it’s not that simple. Some people are naturally more sensitive to insulin than others.

This means that for the same amount and type of carbohydrate, the less sensitive people produce more insulin and so spend more time in Storing Fat mode (one of the reasons why some people are more likely to put on weight than others). Also as we age, we become less sensitive to insulin (hello middle-aged spread).

so what is insulin?
Insulin is a hormone that regulates our blood sugar levels.

Too much sugar and too little sugar are both bad things. So when our blood sugar gets too high, insulin is released to facilitate the storage of the excess sugar in our bodies as fat.

isn’t insulin what diabetics inject?
Correct. People with type 1 diabetes aren’t able to produce enough insulin to regulate their blood sugar levels. So they are encouraged to manage their blood sugar by diet and also by injecting insulin.

what other factors can influence whether we get fat?
Glad you asked.

cortisol:
Blood sugar levels and insulin play the major part in controlling whether we store or burn fat. But there can be other factors. When we are stressed or anxious, our bodies produce the hormone cortisol. Cortisol can work to both burn fat and store fat.

When insulin is present, cortisol acts to magnify the effect of insulin in storing fat. When insulin is absent, cortisol magnifies our ability to burn fat. So by keeping insulin low, we minimise the negative impact of stress on our waistline.

Minimising stress is also beneficial in the first place.

other hormones:
Other hormones such as growth hormones, sex hormones and adrenaline have the ability to help us use our fat cells for fuel. The thing is when insulin is high, it trumps the action of the other hormones, making it difficult for them to facilitate fat burning. So they aren’t important compared with insulin.

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