Spot Reducing

I’ve received a couple of e-mails asking for advice on exercises to lose a few extra pounds in the belly area.  Since more than one person has asked about the same thing, I figured it would be a good topic for my next blog.  As far as certain exercises to zap the fat from a specific area, whether it be any of those troublesome areas such as the belly, thighs, or butt, there really is no way to only lose weight in a specific spot.  Although I can provide some great exercises for specific areas of the body for strengthening and toning the muscles in those areas, that’s not going to burn off the extra layer of fat on top of the muscles that you’re looking to lose there.  From everything I’ve read and tons of research out there, spot reduction is not possible.  Whenever your calorie intake is more than the calories you use, that extra is stored as fatty deposits.  Over time, where ever those fatty deposits prefer to store themselves can become our troublesome spots.  You can’t rely on specific exercises alone that target a specific area to lose weight or reduce fat in that area only. 

If you feel like you’re working out and working out but not seeing any results, you need to First take a look at your diet.  It takes a combination of proper diet and exercise.  Keep it healthy and watch your calorie intake.  If you’re going to the gym regularly but eating horribly on the side, it’s going to be extremely hard to maintain weight, much less lose any.

Then take a look at your exercise routine.  You can’t just do sit-ups for your belly or lunges for your butt and expect the extra pounds there to go away.  You need to include high energy cardio or aerobic type exercise into your routine to burn fat.  When doing this type of high energy, high effort exercising, once the body uses the available free energy, it then turns to the fat deposits for more and the result will be fat reduction/weight loss.  Although you can’t choose which part of the body you burn the fat or lose weight from, if that area is where most of the extra fat is stored, eventually you should see results.  In order to maintain muscle mass (which is very important) and to tone up and show definition, you need to also include strength training into your exercise routine.  Keep doing the sit-ups, lunges, squats, etc!  Although doing these exercises alone won’t make the fat disappear, you will still benefit from the high effort movement required as well as strengthening and toning the muscles so that you will see more definition once the layer of fat has been burned off from the OVERALL result of your diet and exercise routine!  

Lastly, don’t give up!  If you’re sticking to a safe and healthy routine, the process may seem slow, BUT if you stick to it and have patience, YOU WILL SEE RESULTS!