Oct. Challenge Week 1 Open!

SOME INFO ON FAT!!! ENJOY!!!

First of all, your body stores fat in your midsection (your abdomen, hips or buttocks) due to basic biomechanics. The midsection of your body is the best place to store extra energy because it takes less energy to carry it around. Remember, fat storage is a survival strategy, so your body wants to maximize energy efficiency in the creation, storage and use of body fat.

It wouldn't make sense to have a lot of extra fat on your fingers and toes because you'd have to swing those around when you moved and that would require extra caloric expenditure. So given that your body wants to store fat as a way to have portable energy, it makes perfect sense that it would prefer to store that fat in your midsection.

Secondly, from an anthropological point of view, the placement of body fat also has some implications for mate selection. This is especially true in women, where fat is stored in locations like the hips, buttocks and breasts to actually create a more attractive physical body in order to attract a potential mate. In this way, the fat is stored in predetermined locations on your body for much the same reason that a male peacock has brightly colored feathers -- it's part of the mating game, so to speak. Exaggeration of physical traits is a common evolutionary strategy for mate attraction in primates, including humans. And body fat can be used cosmetically to pursue this strategy. (Of course, it all happens automatically. You don't have to "think" about where to put your body fat on any particular day, any more than you have to "think" about why you might sometimes feel attracted to another person.)

Thirdly, your body stores fat wherever you have fat cells. This may sound obvious, but it's actually interesting when you realize that people who undergo liposuction to remove fat cells from their body end up causing a redistribution of fat to other locations that might be less desirable.

For example, if a person follows an unhealthy lifestyle that results in the accumulation of excessive body fat, then they undergo liposuction to remove that body fat from their abdomen, but they continue to pursue the same overconsumption lifestyle that creates more body fat, then the body has to store that fat somewhere and since the fat cells have been removed from the abdomen, it's going to put that fat somewhere else like the knees, or under the chin, or under the arms and so on. Your body has to work with the fat cells that exist, and if you start removing certain fat cells, you end up with fat being stored in places you might not have expected.

I usually slack on weekends but I'm kinda proud of myself for staying on track this weekend! I worked out a LOT yesterday and while I splurged on a cheeseburger, I still came in under calories. Today, I inadvertently skipped lunch (I was busy and didn't realize I did) but I ate a healthy dinner and completed my 30DS when I thought I wouldn't! To others, it may not seem like much but it is such a VAST improvement from where I was three months ago. This challenge is keeping me on my toes, for sure!

Hey that is wonderful! Congrats!!!