With spring right around the corner, I'm seeing more and more fitness traps being set for the gullible consumer. Buzzwords like "tone" and "slim" and "trim" and "sculpt", are being splashed onto magazines, commercials, and even thrown around by people who ought to know better--like certified trainers trying to sell you their latest ebook bundle. Why you would take fitness advice from a late night commercial or Vogue magazine is beyond me, but what really bothers me is when these fitness "professionals" promote the spot reduction myth in order to boost their own product sales.
For those who may not be familiar, spot reduction is the idea that subcutaneous body fat can be reduced in specific "trouble spots" by targeting those areas with specialized exercises. This has been scientifically proven impossible. It is this idea that if an individual tends to store their fat around their hips, resulting in "love handles", that this can be corrected by doing an inordinate amount of side bends or abdominal twisting exercises. Or that if an individual stores fat in their legs, all they have to do is buy some Instagram star's 30 minute "thigh thinning" workout ebook and see that cellulite disappear! This myth that you can actually choose which areas of the body burn fat is absurd to anyone even halfway educated in human biology. The pattern in which fat is burned is determined by each individual's genetic makeup and hormone fluctuations.
Performing those exercises may strengthen the muscles responsible for those movements, but they have negligible impact on reducing the amount of fat stored there, all other factors being equal.
I'm not saying that it wouldn't be nice if we could choose where our fat went. Think about it. If we could determine which areas lost fat and which areas kept fat, we would all have Kardashian asses, paired with the waistline of Giselle, and the rack of a playboy bunny. Not to mention, we would have cured cellulite with a fanfare equal to eliminating cancer! Sounds pretty ridiculous right? That doesn't stop the recesses of our minds from holding out some small glimmer of hope that it may someday become reality. Therein lies the marketing ploy. These fitness gurus know that this is what everyone secretly wants, and they're peddling the ultimate weight loss dream. They're capitalizing on the deep dark hopes of consumers everywhere that "maybe...just maybe, this program is the one with all the answers".
The truth is that all exercise helps to burn fat. The more muscle you carry, the higher your metabolism. However, building the muscle of one particular body part does not burn fat any more efficiently in that area than it does in any other muscle group. So yes, working your abs will help you lose stomach fat — but no more than it will help you lose weight from the rest of your body. When the body burns fat stores, it doesn't burn the fat closest to the area being flexed. Fat from the entire body is utilized. Working a specific muscle group will help build those muscles, which is valuable exercise--just don't expect it to target the fat in that region.
If you want to lose fat in your trouble areas, you have to lose fat in ALL areas. This is done with regular exercise, which would ideally include a good mix of weight training and cardio, along with a healthy diet. In order to see muscular definition, you must build the muscle underneath the subcutaneous fat. Simply doing hours of cardio will leave the number on the scale smaller, but you will still appear flabby and lacking that "fit" look. Not to mention, lean body mass maintains a higher resting metabolism. This is why weight training is a crucial component of any fat loss regimen.
One of the most important things to remember is that each person's body is different, and therefore will utilize and store fat in a different manner. Some people will lose fat from their stomachs first, while others get slimmer hips. This is just the natural pattern, unique to each individual body type. It doesn't mean that they flexed one muscle group exclusively until it gave up its fat stores before all the rest.
Don't become a victim of the marketing gimmicks. If it sounds too good to be true, I guarantee you it is!
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