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FAT FACTS #1: WHAT IS BODY FAT? Body fat is an organ like your heart or liver but instead of being in one place it is located not only under the skin but inside your body around your intestines and behind your kidneys. The fat you see under the skin can fool you. On the slide there are three women with similar appearances of body shape in the normal range with percent body fat from 11% to 18%. Two other women have the same 15% body fat but different shapes because they have very different amounts of lean body mass. Everyone talks about percent body fat, but it is less important than lean body mass and where your fat is located. The fat inside your abdomen evolved to protect you from starvation and infection, by storing fat in fat cells and interacting with your immune system. When you have too much it is bad for you. The lower body fat in the hips and thighs in women is formed under the influence of the female hormone estrogen. It increases during pregnancy in order to store fat for breast feeding and its immune effects are the opposite of the abdominal fat. The abdominal fat stimulates inflammation to fight infections while the lower body fat acts to calm the immune system which is especially important during pregnancy when the foreign DNA form the father is expressed by the baby in the uterus. This is healthy fat but you may want to lose some of it. In this series you will learn all about fat: What happens in your body when you lose fat; How to lose fat; and What makes fat grow-So stay tuned!! #drdavidheber #fat #weightlossjourney to learn more go to www.drdavidheber.com and www.herbalifenutritioninstitute.com and read PERSONALIZED NUTRITION AND TRANSFORMATION available as an e-book on Amazon.com for $ 5.49

A post shared by Dr. David Heber (@drdavidheber) on Mar 29, 2018 at 6:17am PDT