Spot Reducing
We all have an area of our body that we can’t stand whether it be your belly, your inner thighs or the back of your arms, we wish the fat would just disappear. We tend to workout those areas in hopes that by working the area we will lose the fat in that area.
Unfortunately, spot reducing just doesn’t work like that. We cannot point and tell our bodies, “Lose the fat here.” If we could I think we would all have nice derreire’s and a nice set of headlights 😉 We must remember the difference of fat versus muscle, muscle will work for you while fat just sits on your body and doesn’t look pretty.
When we do resistance training our goal should not be to lose “body fat” but really to build lean muscle mass. Working out benefits our calorie burning ability. Studies have shown that an extra 35-50 calories is burned for each pound of muscle gained. The other reason to train with weights is for the “after burn”. One study published last year showed that fit people continued to burn calories at least 39 hours after they stopped exercise, and that their bodies chose to use nearly double the fat during that time than in inactive people. Whatever the length of time is, you can assume that the more intense and longer the activity, the longer the afterburn will last.
Now that we see some benefits to building lean mass you’ll start to understand that resistance training is for building mass, not shrinking the fat cells that are in that area or spot reducing. If you were to do 1,000 situps in a day, you are working your abdominal muscles not the fat sitting on top of them. You can have the abs you want but until you shrink the fat cells, you’ll never see them by just doing situps.
At the end of the day, if you want to shrink those fat cells you MUST create a caloric deficit.
Calories In (Food Intake) > Calories Out (Exercise) = Weight Gain
Calories In (Food Intake) = Calories Out (Exercise) = Weight Maintenance
Calories In (Food Intake) < Calories Out (Exercise) = Weight Loss
Remember when you work out, you are TONING those areas, not working out the fat… The fat just sits there while you train. Burn more than you eat and the fat will melt away. And no, fat does not get dropped off in the toilet… When your body needs energy your body releases hormones and enzymes that signal your fat cells to release your fat reserves instead of keeping them in storage. From there your body will be released into the bloodstream where it is used as energy.
If you want to learn how to create this deficit… Read this or just give me a call!