Spot Reduction – Truth or Myth

I just need to lose my pot belly, ‘I have perfect body barring my sagging hips’,’ I only need to work on my love handles, and so many more such queries I keep getting such queries from my followers so I thought of penning this article.

Many of us work hard to lose excess weight and lead a healthy, active, and fit lifestyle. However, with an overwhelming amount of information related to weight loss and fitness available online or through friends, it’s very easy to get misguided and believe in certain myths. These false pieces of information at a minimum can take one further away from reaching their fitness goals, even to having a strong negative setback on their fitness journey. Therefore, it’s very important to follow only those fitness and health advice that is backed by experts in the field.

Spot Reduction – It is a desire to remove fat from a particular part of the body through exercise.

So, Can 200 crunches per day make one lose belly fat? This one for sure strengthens/develop the abdominal muscles aka Abs but this will not be sufficient to melt the fat layers above and make those packs visible.

?As explained in my earlier article in a detail calorie deficit is the most important part of fat loss. Only when the burn is more than the intake, stored fat come into play to support the required energy needs of the body. Another key thing is that each body is different and has a pattern of storing and burning fat. You may notice that while gaining/losing starting point may be tummy/face/waist/thighs. It can start from anywhere but will impact the overall body eventually. This is beyond control to direct the body to consume fat from a particular location only.

Spot reduction doesn’t work because it usually targets muscles that are relatively smaller and create a relatively insignificant impact in terms of enhancing overall fitness, strength, and overall energy expenditure—regardless of how much burn one feels while training them.

To make this holistic, reducing the overall fat percentage holds the key to the solution you are looking for. This can be achieved with high energy expenditure, high-intensity comprehensive. Include cardio program, large muscles through bigger movements like lunges, push-ups, pull-ups or integrated combination movements like DB lunges shoulder press. ?This also has to be complemented by creating a state of energy deficit through quantified nutrition.

?Focus on the overall health and fat percentage of the body, not just about a spot focus as a goal in your fitness journey.

?While you do everything right but still may not be able to see the result in case your stress hormones levels are high, This demon can make your path much longer to the goal. Will cover this through a separate article.?