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I believe that generally when you become obese your fat cells are just becoming enlarged

Hey! How dare you, I resemble that remark!

My understanding is that only happens to a point, then new fat cells are generated, which will then just deflate/inflate when weight is lost and regained again. I think it's one of the reasons that losing fat is so much harder than gaining fat.

The obvious benefit is having a greater ability to produce cellular energy, in principle also having the feeling and experience of having more energy. When you gain weight your overall energy expenditure does go up a lot, but not really in a useful way- you are just supporting the maintenance and physical movement of the extra weight. It’s more useful to think of energy expenditure in proportion to bodyweight.

They tend to concentrate in muscle cells, so fat cells themselves will not help much