When it comes to the fat on your body, there are actually two types that can cause huge differences in the way you burn fat and maintain weight. Numerous studies have corroborated that brown fat cells actually burn more calories than white fat cells, making them the more desirable of the two types of fat to have.

A recent study actually showed that mice who have higher concentrations of brown fat over white fat cells burned more calories and maintained a trimmer physique than the mice that had more white fat cells.

Brown fat is found a lot in newborns, and is found a lot more in thinner people, leading researchers to find that this type of fat is much more beneficial than “white fat” is on the human body. 

So what accounts for the brown color of brown fat? Well, it contains many more cells, and it actually contains iron stores, which makes it appear the brownish color versus the white color.

It is thought that due to the higher energy need of brown fat, it helps the body to burn more fat by having a higher thermogenic property than white fat. This means it generates more heat and burns a lot more calories and therefore a lot more “bad fat”.

Brown fat actually “takes” energy from white fat cells, and is therefore an excellent mode of burning extra fat and thinning down the body, as well as sculpting the body and helping to reduce things like big thighs, jiggly arms, and reduce cellulite on the body.

In short, there are sure to be more studies on white vs. brown fat, and I’m sure we’ll see more ways to take advantage of this for our weight loss goals. For now, there are really no published ways that we can figure out how to increase our good body fat while decreasing bad body fat.

One of the best ways to make sure you keep a lean, sleek physique that’s not bulky or overly manly and “muscular” if you are a woman, is to combine a lot of stretching types of exercises with any weight lifting and cardio that you do.

Cardio is a must if you are going to get that lean look, since it is still the most effective way to get the heart rate up and strip fat from the body quickly and efficiently.  I have found that one of the best combinations for me personally to get lean and sleek looking (and I’m only 5′ 4″, so it’s tough for me to look this way), is to combine running and yoga.

Unfortunately, I run mostly when it’s nice outside, and since I live in Northeastern Ohio where the days can be extremely rare that you can get outside in the months of winter.  So then, I just have to resort to either an elliptical trainer or a treadmill and just run inside.

It’s just a lot tougher to keep your focus when you can’t be running outside past pretty green scenery, landscapes and other visually appealing and entertaining sights. Not to mention, you don’t get that same fresh air and the same runner elation that typically comes, for me anyway, more when I’m running outdoors.

I’ve found that combining running and yoga practice really makes me keep my weight at a nice level as well. The running provides me with pure cardio, a great heart pumping practice, and also great for trimming down my legs as well as my arms since I pump my arms quite a bit when I run.

The yoga takes those same muscles that I work so hard when running, and it stretches them back out. It keeps me flexible, and it also elongates my muscles, which helps me to keep that longer, leaner look, and helps to “stretch” my naturally shorter body out a little more, making me walk and appear taller.

It’s also great for flexibility, as well as mood. Studies have shown that women who practice yoga regularly experience much less depression, and tend to have healthier attitudes toward their life and toward stressful situations.  A good yoga DVD is worth its weight in gold, and if you combine this with running as your cardio practice, then you can get a sleek, mean, lean look that you are going for.

One huge benefit that I personally notice from working out, is that I seem to keep a lot of the mushy, smushy pesky water weight off my problem areas like my thighs and my belly (althought that used to not be a problem area, as I get older, it’s getting harder to maintain). 

Why would working out regularly help you to lose water weight? Well first off, you lose a lot of that water weight through sweating. When you lead a sedentary lifestyle, you probably don’t sweat a whole lot, which means you aren’t getting rid of excess water weight on a daily basis.

Not sweating can be very bad for your health, as this is the way that your body not only gets rid of water (besides urinating), but it is also the body’s way of getting rid of some of those toxins that can build up in your body as a result of your diet or lifestyle, and environmental toxins that can enter our body.

I notice a huge difference in my body when I’m working out reguarly – the kind of workout where I sweat a lot – aka, where I do lots of tough cardio work.  I notice that my body seems more sleek and streamlined, and I can fit into my clothes better, even if I have not changed my diet at all.

Anyone who has lost five pounds (which is almost all water weight usually, since the first five usually are, especially when lost quickly), can tell you what a huge difference this small weightloss can make in the way your clothes fit. It can make a large difference in your tummy area, your butt and thighs, all of which are the buzzwords for most women.

Guys will notice it a lot in their bellies, which always tends to be one  of the problem areas for men.  Men tend to get jiggly here, and they tend to retain water there and in their love handle region, on the sides of the belly, when they retain lots of water from consuming too much salt or not working out enough and sweating.

Working out and moving, and doing intense cardio, not only helps you keep water weight at bay, but it also keeps your circulation going, which can help with everything from cellulite to water retention.  The cellulite reduction part is obviously very appealing to women. 90% of women (at least) admit to having cellulite.

I wrote a while ago about how I was going to treat myself to a set of body wraps at a local place that specializes exclusively in herbal body wraps.  I wasn’t a huge believer that it would reduce my butt and thighs, which have forever been my biggest problem area, without diet or exercise, but I figured it might at least help me to reduce my cellulite problem areas.

Sometimes, merely reducing cellulite actually makes you look a lot thinner and fit into your clothes better. Not to mention, a good cellulite reducer will also make you feel like a million bucks when you’re standing in front of the mirror naked after a shower.

Aren’t us women so good at criticizing our bodies!?  Anyways, every woman knows what I mean when I say the eternal battle against cellulite is a war that never really dies.

So, I signed up for ten sessions. I had really great results in inch reduction after I had five in a row, once a week of the herbal body wraps. I was really excited about the possibility that I could reduce my inches and cellulite even more by doing 5 more treatments.

However, I did fall off the wagon and haven’t been back in two and a half weeks. I’ve already seen the results go out the window. Which begs the question – is this really just very temporary tissue shrinkage that is caused not only by the constant compression, but also by the herbs that are in the mixture they soak the wraps in, seeping into the skin and causing some sort of chemical reaction?

I’m not really sure. And to boot, when I asked one of the technicians what the herbal mixture was, she had no idea. She said she’d go ask another technician and still never responded to my question.

That made me lose a little confidence in it, but I still felt like I got good results from the five treatments I had, and I did feel like it helped shape and lift my problem areas and diminish the appearance of the cellulite.

I just wonder, are the results of herbal body wraps always really just going to be temporary?  And by temporary, I mean days or weeks, then the results go away? Has anyone else had any long term results using this method of slimming?  Do body wraps work?

One things for sure, I really miss my dear, dear infrared sauna, which has been broken for a few weeks. We are waiting for a guy to fix it, and I really miss it. I felt like that did help me a bit with cellulite and weight loss – plus it deeply relaxed me, like my own private sanctuary.