If you are trying to lose stubborn pounds, it is important to understand where they come from. So, what is fat? When you eat foods, you take in calories. Even healthy foods have calories. Calories are not bad – they are needed and are used as fuel by the body. The problem occurs when you take in more calories than you burn. These extra calories are converted into fat cells and stored in the body, mostly beneath the skin.

Your body stores fat in order to use it for energy later. After calories are consumed, your body will begin to break down stored fat deposits and use them as fuel. Even when you are at rest, your body is still using fat stores and burning calories, simply to run what are sometimes referred to as the “background processes” – breathing, circulating the blood, blinking. Think of your body like a vehicle. Even when the car is not running, there are processes going on that have a small but constant pull on the battery. In your body, the energy source is your fat.

Many people struggle when trying to lose weight because they do not understand how fat is stored or what its purpose in the body is. As a result, they try to eat very little. While the only way to lose weight is to burn off more calories than you consume, trying to do this in too extreme of a way can actually cause your body to enter starvation mode. When this happens, the body detects a shortage of fuel – calories and fat – and tries to conserve that source by storing more fat in the body to be used at a later time. The healthiest and most effective way to lose fat is to up your activity level and eat in a healthy way. Never starve yourself.