Spend a while scrolling social media and also you’re all-but-guaranteed to see an ad promising to enable you with targeted fat loss. These ads promote an idea referred to as “spot reduction”, claiming you possibly can burn fat in a selected body area, normally the belly, with specially designed exercises or workouts.
It’s also common to see ads touting special diets, pills and supplements that may blast fat in targeted areas. These ads – which regularly feature impressive before and after photos taken weeks apart – can seem believable.
Unfortunately, spot reduction is one other weight-loss myth. It’s simply impossible to focus on the placement of fat loss. Here’s why.
1. Our bodies are hardwired to access and burn all our fat stores for energy
To understand why spot reduction is a myth, it’s vital to grasp how body fat is stored and used.
The fat stored in our bodies takes the shape of triglycerides, that are a variety of lipid or fat molecule we are able to use for energy. Around 95% of the dietary fats we eat are triglyceridesand once we eat, our bodies also convert any unused energy consumed into triglycerides.
Triglycerides are stored in special fat cells called adipocytes, and so they’re released into our bloodstream and transported to adipose tissue – tissue we more commonly seek advice from as body fat.
This body fat is found throughout our bodies, however it’s primarily stored as subcutaneous fat under our skin and as visceral fat around our internal organs.
These fat stores function a significant energy reserve, with our bodies mobilising to access stored triglycerides to supply energy in periods of prolonged exercise. We also draw on these reserves once we’re weight-reduction plan and fasting.
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However, contrary to what many spot-reduction ads would have us think, our muscles can’t directly access and burn specific fat stores once we exercise.
Instead, they use a process called lipolysis to convert triglycerides into free fatty acids and a compound called glycerol, which then travels to our muscles via our bloodstream.
As a result, the fat stores we’re using for energy once we exercise come from in every single place in our bodies – not only the areas we’re targeting for fat loss.
Research reinforces how our bodies burn fat once we exercise, confirming spot reduction is a weight-loss myth. This features a randomised 12-week clinical trial which found no greater improvement in reducing belly fat between individuals who undertook an abdominal resistance program along with changes in food plan in comparison with those within the diet-only group.
Further, a 2021 meta-analysis of 13 studies involving greater than 1,100 participants found that localised muscle training had no effect on localised fat deposits. That is, exercising a selected a part of the body didn’t reduce fat in that a part of the body.
Studies purporting to indicate spot-reduction advantages have small numbers of participants with results that aren’t clinically meaningful.
2. Our bodies resolve where we store fat and where we lose it from first
Factors outside of our control influence the areas and order by which our bodies store and lose fat, namely:
- our genes. Just as DNA prescribes whether we’re short or tall, genetics plays a major role in how our fat stores are managed. Research shows our genes can account for 60% of where fat is distributed. So, in case your mum tends to store and shed some pounds from her face first, there’s a superb probability you’ll, too
- our gender. Our bodies, by nature, have distinct fat storage characteristics driven by our genderincluding females having more fat mass than males. This is primarily because the feminine body is designed to carry fat reserves to support pregnancy and nursing, with women tending to shed some pounds from their face, calves and arms first because they impact childbearing the least, while holding onto fat stored across the hips, thighs and buttocks
- our age. The ageing process triggers changes in muscle mass, metabolism, and hormone levels, which might impact where and the way quickly fat is lost. Post-menopausal women and middle-aged men are likely to store visceral fat across the midsection and find it a stubborn place to shift fat from.
3. Over-the-counter pills and supplements cannot effectively goal fat loss
Most promoting for these pills and dietary supplements – including products claiming to be “one of the best option to lose belly fat” – will even proudly claim their product’s results are backed by “clinical trials” and “scientific evidence”.
But the truth is a bunch of independent studies don’t support these claims.
This includes two recent studies by the University of Sydney that examined data from greater than 120 placebo-controlled trials of herbal and dietary supplements. None of the supplements examined provided a clinically meaningful reduction in body weight amongst obese or obese people.
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The bottom line
Spot reduction is a myth – we are able to’t control where our bodies lose fat. But we are able to achieve the outcomes we’re in search of in specific areas by targeting overall fat loss.
While you might not lose the burden in a selected spot when exercising, all physical activity helps to burn body fat and preserve muscle mass. This will result in a change in your body shape over time and it should also enable you with long-term weight management.
This is because your metabolic rate – how much energy you burn at rest – is set by how much muscle and fat you carry. As muscle is more metabolically energetic than fat (meaning it burns more energy than fat), an individual with the next muscle mass could have a faster metabolic rate than someone of the identical body weight with the next fat mass.
Successfully losing fat long run comes right down to shedding pounds in small, manageable chunks you possibly can sustain – periods of weight reduction, followed by periods of weight maintenance, and so forth, until you achieve your goal weight.
It also requires gradual changes to your lifestyle (food plan, exercise and sleep) to make sure you form habits that last a lifetime.
