T Nation

To Jay Truly and T-Folk

Bodybuilding
#1

Since i have not been accepted to the Pound as of yet, wanted to address this issue here…
Jay, was reading the Pound board and saw your comment regarding Alessi’s theory that fat placement tells you alot about your metabolism.

T-Folk:
If iliac fat is associated with insulin resistance then,
1)why is:
this the last fat to go on most of us? (would suggest some other factor)

  1. We know that leptin is the key player in subcutaneous fat and this is what we are measuring when we do calipers…research has documented that insulin resistance is more associated with the visceral fat…

3)…what are peoples’ opinions on this matter…i did not see any credible info in alessi’s article/statement…it would make sense that if iliac fat is the last to go (lower abs) in the majority of us…then another factor besides insulin resistance is at play…(my opinion estrogen)

?
thoughts
Vain68

#2

I wondered about this when he wrote the article too. He said that most men lose weight from the inside out. It seems the opposite to me on most men.

#3

I do believe that most lose fat from the inside out…when starting to diet, your waist size will decrease and pants will become looser before noticing any subcutaneous fat loss…meaning that intial fat losses were visceral fat which caused your waist size to decrease with no change in lean defination. And this is why the body stores visceral fat…as the 1st energy storage “tank” to draw upon when not eating and running out of freshly digested energy. If eating near maintenance, your visceral fat will always be changing, either up or down as you either slightly over eat at say a cheat meal or party or as you maybe miss a meal or 2 on a busy day…or if you get sick and cann’t eat lets say…your body will use the quicker available visceral fat before drawing on subcutaneous fat, which also serves the body as insulation whereas visceral is just for quick energy storage…and excess visceral fat as in the obese is what causes the pot belly or beer belly look and when an obese loses weight, they lose the pot belly first along with the smaller waist/pant size before eventually losing subcutaneous fat. But what Alessi is refering to is not the obese or some one with high BF%…but a somewhat leaner athlete…and if that leaner athlete already has fairly low visceral fat (probably a given), and seems to store their excess subcutaneous fat in the iliac region, then that is an insulin related problem. But note that the body stores subcutaneous fat not only for energy stores but for insulation properties as well, among many other reasons I’m sure also.

#4

I also wanted to clarify the association between visceral fat and insulin resistance…the association is based on the observation that obese individuals have both lots of visceral fat and have some degree of insulin resistance/type 2 diabetes…but I feel this association doesn’t mean much as it only relates to the obese with the big pot belly and lots of visceral fat…and it’s pretty common sense that if you’re vastly overweight or obese that you are going to have a pot belly with lots of visceral fat and are also going to have insulin resistance as these are symptoms of being vastly over weight…but these 2 are related only in the fact that you are vastly overweight…visceral fat and insulin resistance are not symptoms of each other but systems of some degree of obesity…but people of normal BF%, such as athletes, store visceral fat as temperary reserve energy much in the same way that you store liver glycogen for temperary blood glucose reserves…and this amount of visceral fat will vary in the same individual as diet and activity levels vary as well as when BF% varies with a range (of say running between 10 or 12% when bulking to running 6-8% when cutting…then visceral fat will be part of the change)…but note that just as your body stores subcutaneous fat also for insulation (in addition to energy reserves), your body stores visceral fat for other reasons also including to cushion and protect your organs…but this visceral fat is mainly quick access energy fat stores. Anyway, it’s a no brainer that if you allow yourself to get obese, you’re going to have lots of visceral fat and in the process of getting obese, you will damage your insulin sensitivity and cause eventual type 2 diabetes along with heart disease, high blood pressure, and all the other ills of obesity…high visceral fat doesn’t cause insulin resistance per say (or vice-verse), but allowing yourself to become obese (through over eating and lack of exercise) is what causes both the high visceral fat and insuing insulin resistance…Heb