🚦 Metabolism as a Traffic System

Imagine your metabolism is a busy, beautifully designed highway system.

Subcutaneous fat? That’s like cars parked safely in designated lots on the side of the road—not ideal if there are too many, but generally they’re out of the way.

Visceral fat? It’s the 18-wheelers that jackknife right in the middle of the freeway during rush hour. They block key exits, clog the lanes, and create chaos for every other system trying to do its job.

Your immune system, liver, and pancreas are like emergency vehicles trying to get through—but they can’t, because visceral fat is not just in the way—it’s sending out its own signals, rerouting traffic, and making things worse.

Let’s break that down more literally.

Visceral Fat: Not Just Storage—A Sabotaging Dispatcher

Unlike other fat, visceral fat acts like a rogue dispatcher in your body. It’s not just storing energy—it’s sending out messages.

And unfortunately, they’re usually the wrong ones.

1. To Your Immune System: “Sound the alarm—nonstop.”

Visceral fat becomes filled with immune cells called macrophages. These should be your cleanup crew, but in VAT, they get cranky and start blasting out pro-inflammatory signals like IL-6 and TNF-alpha.

It’s like they’re constantly hitting the panic button—even when nothing’s wrong. And that constant false alarm creates a body-wide inflammatory environment.

You might not feel it right away—but this chronic inflammation:

• Damages your blood vessels

• Increases your risk of clotting

• And accelerates inflammatory aging from the inside out

  
  

2. To Your Liver: “You’re overloaded—but keep processing more.”

Because visceral fat drains directly into your portal vein, it sends a nonstop flood of free fatty acids straight to your liver.

Your liver becomes overwhelmed. It starts turning those fats into stored fat in the liver itself, leading to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). This is happening even in people who don’t drink alcohol and who look “healthy” on the outside.

VAT also blocks insulin signaling in the liver—meaning your liver stops listening to insulin and starts pumping out more sugar into your bloodstream, which keeps your blood sugar elevated and your fat-storing pathways turned on.

3. To Your Pancreas: “Insulin isn’t working—make more.”

Now your pancreas gets pulled into the mess.

Because your liver and muscle cells aren’t responding to insulin, your pancreas has to pump out more and more of it just to manage your blood sugar.

Insulin is a storage hormone. So more insulin = more fat storage. And guess where it likes to store it? Right back in the belly—adding more visceral fat. It's a vicious loop.

And over time, your pancreas starts to get tired. Burnout sets in. This is how visceral fat leads to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, even if you’re not eating a high-sugar diet.

So What’s the Bigger Picture?

Visceral fat communicates with your immune system, liver, and pancreas in a way that:

• Keeps you inflamed

• Keeps your blood sugar high

• And blocks your body’s natural systems from doing their jobs efficiently

  
  

And all of this is happening before your scale weight changes. You could be at a “normal” weight and still have high visceral fat if your habits, stress, sleep, or nutrient balance are off.

This is why visceral fat is a silent disruptor. It’s not just fat—it’s a hormonal, immune, and metabolic mess-maker.

To get a complete deep dive on all things visceral fat, its impact on your metabolic system and practical strategies of how to reduce it, listen to Episode 16 of Backyard Health podcast...and as you go through this episode, I want you to remember:

You don’t need to be scared of fat—you need to understand what kind of fat is running the show.