It may be strange to hear that reducing fat is not the same as losing weight. It’s both about what happens to fat cells. Losing weight reduces the size of fat cells but, losing weight does not make fat cells go away. The number of fat cells in our bodies typically becomes a fixed number sometime in our teenage years. Losing or gaining weight generally does not increase or decrease the number of fat cells. Instead, it changes the size of fat cells.
After dieting and weight loss, fat cells get smaller but the number of fat cells stays the same. When weight is gained, fat cells get bigger.