I am a fat cell, and I can just tell that today is going to be a great day. Breakfast today is my favorite, pancakes. Yummy! Oh, pour on that maple syrup. I really love maple syrup. Listen to the sizzle of the bacon on the stove. That bacon fat really snaps. And the orange juice – please, no pulp. I don’t like those funny little bits of pulp in my juice.

Here comes the first bite. That maple syrup taste is so sweet! It sends a signal to the command center of this operation (the brain) that something really good is coming down the old hatch. Time to rev up the system for digesting something sweet. Even before the first bite of pancake hits the stomach, the message goes to the brain: send out the insulin!

Once the pancakes and maple syrup arrive in the stomach, other hormones called GIP and GLP-1 are put out by the body. These hormones increase the release of insulin, affect the rate at which the stomach empties, influence appetite and feeding behavior, and affect the function and size of beta cells (the cells that secrete insulin) in the pancreas. . Insulin is our very best friend as fat cells, because it is the key to filling us up with more and more fat. And we love getting fatter and fatter!

Okay, all that sugar has been absorbed by the blood stream now and it’s heading toward the liver. There are sensors in the vein leading to the liver that sends more instructions: Start storing that sugar in the liver and other tissues! Stop, repeat, stop, eating! Insulin, let’s go!

In the liver cells, called hepatocytes, biochemical reactions get started that will convert the sugar into glycogen, which can be used for short-term energy needs. The liver has only a limited capacity for glycogen storage, so once it is filled up, the rest of the sugar is converted into fat. That makes today my lucky day. This breakfast will exceed the glycogen-storage capacity of the liver by several hundred calories of sugar, so we fat cells are going to get pumped up!

Some of the glucose is chemically changed into xylulose-5-phosphate ( a slightly different sugar with a phosphate molecule attached). That guy is really our friend, because it moves into the nucleus of the cell and turns on genes that will ultimately make fatty acids. Fatty acids are the molecules that move into us fat cells and plump us up.

The sugar also turns on cholesterol synthesis, so those blood vessels better watch out or they’ll be clogged before you know it. Best of all (from my humble point of view) the sugar in the blood stream tells the pancreatic beta cells to put out insulin. That insulin is great stuff. Fill me up, baby!