Fat Spot Reduction ... Can You?
Spot Reduction … Can I have it, please?
First off let’s clear something up regarding this article … Yep, I am a man!
So why me? What do I know? A man giving advice to women …
Well as an Exercise and Nutrition Consultant and NLP Master Practitioner I have worked with hundreds of ladies from all aspects of life from helping with eating issues to Elite athletes … there is not much I have not seen or heard when it comes to ‘female issues’ … and trust me when I say many men have the very same insecurities, they just don’t like to share them (I hear it is supposed to be some machismo thing … bloody daft thing if you ask me!).
You may well know a few of my past clients … include Diane Youdale (Jet), whom I worked with and in fact she was a student on several of my qualification courses, and Joey Bull, whom I worked with through the mid 90’s during her competitive Ms Fitness career. In fact Joey has sent me a few people over the years including a client who needed that ‘GB Fitness Magic’ and went on to win her first attempt at a natural body building British title … as did Joey, in fact she won 4! (she always did like BLING!). A young lady called Andi Black ('Ms. Everything' … Britain, World and Universe) is also in the group of ladies I have heave helped recently.
So that is a little of what I do and why I was asked to write this, so let us get on to the matter in hand … or on the hips, buttocks, triceps etc.
Localised fat loss… Fact or Fiction?
Every personal trainer has had the same challenge I would imagine.
And don't you love it when even your most intelligent and logical client prefaces the same type of question with "I know there's no such thing as spot reduction, BUT how can I ...”
You and I know that the whole concept of selectively burning fat from any particular part of the body has absolutely no basis in physiology, but the challenge is convincing clients of this. They want what they want … and why not!?
Well first off there is a bit of proof that you just cannot expect to achieve this, such as these three studies:
a) Katch, F.I., P.M. Clarkson, W. Kroll, et al, 1984, Effect of sit-up exercise training on adipose cell size and adiposity. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 55: 242-247.
In this 1984, thirteen male subjects did a total of 5000 sit-ups over the course of 27 days. At the end of the study, biopsies examining the rate of change in fat cell diameters showed that the subjects lost fat equally in all three sites measured abdomen, glutes and upper back although they only worked their abs.
In other words, they lost fat all over despite working only their abs.
b) Nindl, B.C., Harman, E.A., Marx, J.O., Gotshalk, L.A., Frykman, P.N., Lammi, E., Palmer, C., & Kraemer, W.J. , 2000, Regional body composition changes in women after 6 months of periodised physical training. Journal of Applied Physiology, 88, 2251-2259
In this study, a group of women doing mostly leg exercises for almost 9 hours each week lost an average of 5.7lb of fat (measured by DEXA – an advanced form of body composition assessment) 2.9lb from the trunk, 2.8 lbs from the arms, and 0 from their thighs.
You read correctly, their leg-intensive workout resulted in zero fat loss from their thighs. Just as remarkable is that they lost fat from their arms even though they didn't do any specific arm exercises. The implication of the study is that fat loss in women may be greater in the arms, followed by the trunk, then by the legs. You lose fat faster from different parts of your body regardless of the type of exercise you do.
c) Gwinup, G., R. Chelvam and T. Steinberg, 1971, Thickness of subcutaneous fat and activity of underlying muscles. Annals of Internal Medicine, 74: 408-411
World-class tennis players were tested in this study with the premise that if spot reduction worked, the subjects would have one arm that's leaner than the other. Obviously, tennis players use their dominant arms forcefully everyday while doing relatively little with their non-dominant arms. Though the researchers did find the dominant arm to be bigger due to muscle hypertrophy, there was no difference at all between arms in subcutaneous fat thickness. This study showed that working a certain muscle does not necessarily affect the fat deposits that may be lying above that muscle. Or in other words, thigh exercises don't necessarily burn "thigh fat".
And you have spent 3 lifetimes working out on those over-used adduction/abduction contraptions!
Consider your own hand dominance, that is the one you use for tasks such as writing etc. Now do you feel there is a difference in how much fat there is on your ‘working’ arm versus the other? Why not get your trainer to pull out the callipers to further test this hypothesis? Now why would you ever notice any change whatsoever in your thighs if you do nothing but the “inner” and "outer" thigh machines every day.
Case closed.
On the lighter side people who eat a lot have to chew a lot, so they should have skinny faces. And people who don't eat much don't chew much so they should have fat faces, mmm …
What we need to do here is to amp up our metabolisms and burn off some excess fuel (read fat). Time To Get Serious!
Get squatting and work 100’s of pairs of muscles to give a metabolic super-boost instead of 4 pairs as used in leg extensions and other ‘user friendly’ trendy health club machines. Get back to basics with moves that involve the whole body and all the supporting muscles that would go into lifting a heavier weight. And YES! … technique and form is everything when it comes to the more challenging exercises so correct instruction and supervision in the beginning is a must but it also an investment. Why waste more precious time on ineffective exercises and protocols when you can have the results that you desire … even if it does mean the odd extra bead of perspiration?
“Definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result” – Albert Einstein
How we look to ourselves is very often distorted by how we ‘perceive’ what we actually see in the mirror. We distort the true image and are led by beliefs and values, which are all too influenced by generalisations imposed by the media etc. Many of my clients confidently state that they have cellulite issues with no real understanding of what this actually is and upon checking I often sit them down and explain to them that they do not, and what constitutes this specific condition. It is almost as if some ‘want’ to label themselves as having problem areas in order to identify with others. Be yourself, be proud of that and if there are a few specific areas then ‘Let’s Get To Work!’ I say.
Very often we focus on a given area all too much rather than looking at the complete picture of our whole body and the symmetry and proportion that we really have, or could have. For instance to create the appearance of a smaller waist you could build a little V taper by working the shoulders (deltoids) and back (lats) and a rounder bum (glutes). Very often an area that is seen as ‘fat’ or loose is due to poor muscle tone under the subcutaneous tissue. We need to give emphasis to prioritising firming up the musculature, sculpting individual areas to create a ‘total package’. This will in turn speed the body’s fat burning process by the effect of increased resting metabolic rate as well as utilising fat stores as part of the fuel mix for those ‘real’ workouts.
It’s all an illusion (pic of Andi at a mere 7 stone 13 lbs!)
One principle that I want to cover in this article is exercise order. Many people start their programs with cardio-vascular (aerobic) work and move on to resistance (weights) work afterwards. This is not taking advantage of the body’s natural order of utilising energy substrates (fuels).
A simple, yet amazingly effective, rule is simply to reverse this order. After doing 5-10 minutes warm-up and stretching you should carry out your weight-training program and this requires sugars for energy (in the form of blood sugar and stored glycogen from muscle and liver stores). Then you should move on to your low to moderate intensity cardio-vascular work (we want to fat calorie burn here not carb claorie burn so slow in down a little). Because your sugar stores have been depleted the body is forced to utilise more fat-stores as an energy source – this results in more fat loss. Sounds pretty good so far, huh?
The stimulation of muscle from the resistance work will increase your resting metabolism, providing you have adequate rest and nutrients (e.g. protein). So this program will result in an increased metabolism, increased fat breakdown and better proportion and symmetry, posture, tone, strength and so much more.
Beginners may do well on a whole body routine to start. Only 1-2 exercise should be carried out per body part... NOT just the ones that bother you. I would suggest starting with larger muscle groups, such as the chest, legs and back and descending in size and complexity of movement. I would maybe suggest that you complete the exercises for the chest and back followed by the legs and bottom and then return to shoulders and arms. This gives an upper-lower-upper body sequence to instil some rest periods for those areas during the workout. Always finish your workout with abdominals as starting with them will weaken your support structure and can easily lead to lower back injuries, especially if undertaking overhead work or heavy work such as squats. This is not a blueprint for all workouts and as you progress you should move into split routines etc to intensify your workouts without over training.
Getting Fancy and Scientific … Maybe YOU CAN Spot Reduce???
There is a system of assessing specific areas of fat deposition known as ‘Biosignature Modulation’ by Charles Poliquin which looks at hormonal influence on where you store fat. This is done by measuring very specific areas of skin fold with those intrusive callipers I am sure you all love … NOT! A few basics of the system are:
Hips and Triceps: A classic area of higher levels of body fat in women who may have some estrogen dominance. Now this may be natural endogenous (natural) output by the body or influenced by exogenous sources for instance from the contraceptive you may use or hormone replacement therapy. There are also issues around certain foods which may raise estrogen levels in the body such as wheat produce. Most of our conventional/convenience food today is estrogenic. Our meat and dairy are loaded with hormones, our vegetables and fruits are treated with pesticides, herbicides and fungicides … all of which virtually mimic estrogen activity in our bodies. Our animal food is mostly female. The male animal that we eat is either castrated (capon) or treated with estrogen to tenderise the meat. Our water supply is loaded with xeno-estrogens as are the plastics our foods come in… I didn’t say it would all be good news! If you want to minimise this estrogen cascade then consider buying certified organic foods and limit the nastiness that you consume. Men, women and children today are getting notably fatter and heavier due to the fat promoting effect of excess estrogen. Another kick up the estrogen-built-butt is that fat cells actually produce more estrogen so it is an escalating issue once it starts…
Suprailliac (above the hips) and Subscapular (inside and below the shoulder blade on the back): The insulin sites. These sites are related to poor blood sugar management. High readings here vs. the triceps may reflect poor insulin sensitivity and carbohydrate intolerance. Poor insulin sensitivity means more gets stored as adipose tissue (fat!).
Mid-axillary (under the armpit): This site is correlated to thyroid hormone levels. The thyroid regulates metabolism and therefore is very important in the role of promoting fat storage and mobilising and utilising stored body fat.
Umbilical: The infamous cortisol site. It can be high despite low overall body fat. Cortisol is an adrenal hormone that will increase as you get stressed … maybe about your fat levels and where it is stored … so STOP STRESSING! Erm, sorry to tell you this but the adrenals also produce estrogen so more of the above issue is on its way too!
Quadriceps and Hamstring (front and rear of the leg): High levels here along with the triceps are correlated to high estrogen levels.
Now in order to back up, properly evaluate and therefore get on and deal with these issues you may need to get a variety of, often expensive, blood tests. This is something I do offer to my clients but it all starts getting rather involved and scientific, not that there is anything wrong with that but from experience I like to get in there and start making a difference!
In addition to exercise and diet there are a variety of supplements to target each trouble spot, by influencing and normalising the relevant hormones but I am hesitant to suggest programs as this really should follow some form of qualified assessment and be regulated to ensure correct usage. There are a family of herbal preparations, known as adaptogens, which help the body to handle stress better and thus reduce cortisol levels. There are others, such as Dong Quai and Black Cohosh, which have a balancing effect on the female hormones estrogen and progesterone. There is much that can be done!
If you cut the amount of saturated fat in your diet, the amount of estrogen will be noticeably reduced within the very first month. Lowering the level of estrogen in your blood helps reduce the risk of issues like breast cancer as well as just that little extra fat on the back of your arms. Less estrogen means less stimulation for cancer cell growth.
If a woman eating a Western diet cuts her fat intake in half, her estrogen level will be about 20 percent lower1. If you cut the fat even more, your estrogen level will drop further. That is a great place to start.
Second, good quality organic plant foods increase the amount of soluble fibre in your diet, which helps your body to get rid of excess estrogens. Estrogens are normally pulled from the bloodstream by the liver, which sends them through a small tube, called the bile duct, into the intestinal tract. There, this fibre soaks them up like a sponge and carries them out with the waste. The more fibre there is in your diet, the better your natural "estrogen disposal system" works. Again supplemental fibre such as phyllium husks or green foods are fantastic and convenient. If you do not get the excess estrogen carried out of the system then the waste estrogens end up passing back into the bloodstream. This hormone "recycling" increases the amount of estrogen in the blood.
So, by avoiding processed foods, saturated fats and artificial chemicals as well as cooking oils, you reduce estrogen production. And by increasing foods with soluble fibre you will increase estrogen elimination. By the way the good old bowl of porridge in the morning is great for this!
So a few quick tips:
Think about the complete you and work that because THAT will trim those areas you want to focus on!
Lift weights like you mean it!
Start to look at what you are eating … and what else might be in there too!
Find yourself a professional that can take you onto to that ‘total package’.
1. Prentice R, Thompson D, Clifford C, Gorbach S, Goldin B, Byar D. , 1990, Dietary fat reduction and plasma estradiol concentration in healthy postmenopausal women. J Natl Cancer Inst, 82:129-34.