I have noticed over the last few weeks that my wobbly bits have been getting, well, wobblier. (I hope you appreciate the use of technical terms here.) It's difficult to describe and I don't want to give people mental images that require brain bleach, but the fat bits seem definitely softer, with more give. Dream has assured me that this is a good sign and means the fat cells are giving up their vice-like grip on the fat, but the geek in me requires scientific explanation.
The first step was to work out what search terms to enter into the fount of all knowledge, Dr.Google. "Why are my wobbly bits wobblier?" wasn't hugely successful. Further searches turned up lots of articles about what to do with excess loose skin after weight loss - yeurch... something to look forward to...
I haven't found any information that satisfies my need for properly conducted research, but the consensus appears to be that something like this is happening:
When your body runs out of sugar (in the bloodstream from carbohydrates that you are eating) and glycogen (sugar stored in the liver is the next source in line) your body turns to the fat cells for energy (hurrah). The stuff in the fat cells is triglyceride which is formed of glycerol and fatty acids. When the fat cells get the signal to give it up, the triglycerides break into their component parts and enter the bloodstream, where they are cleverly converted to energy and the liver restocks with glycogen.
So now you have fat cells with less triglyceride in them, but they are essentially still the same size - it takes longer for the cell to physically shrink to the appropriate new size. This makes sense as if the sugar deficit is short-lived, as the fat cell is ready to fill up again when the next doughnut appears. If fat usage is going on at a steady rate (we hope) the cell is constantly trying to catch up with the new lower required size.
What appears to happen (and this is where the evidence gets a bit hand-wavy) is that the fat cell temporarily fills up with water. If no new fat is made to replace what was lost, eventually it releases the water and shrinks. So the wobbliness is due to a higher water content in the fat cells, and will hopefully be followed by shrinkage.
All of which goes to prove that Dream was right and I should just listen to her and accept her wisdom ;)
References
I'm sure that my explanation above is a highly simplified version of reality, if anyone out there knows better please tell me! The are the two main articles I shamelessly plundered are:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/human-biology/lost-weight1.htm
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/of-whooshes-and-squishy-fat.html
Exceptionally interesting today. xx
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