When you live, work, and breathe fitness, you take certain things for granted. You forget that people ‘in the wild’ believe in all sorts of things that they shouldn’t, like flying saucers, the Loch Ness Monster, and spot reduction.

Most of you are familiar with aliens and monster mythology, so even if you believe in them, you know you aren’t supposed to.

…but what is spot reduction, anyway?

Spot reduction is the concept that you can target a specific area of the body to lose fat. Unfortunately, this ONLY works with liposuction.

Spot reduction, via exercise, wraps, suits, and sweat, is a myth. [PMID: 23222084]

 

But that crazy wrap thing…

What do ‘that crazy wrap thing,’ situps, tricep kickbacks, crunches, and sauna suits have in common?

None of them reduces fat in a specific area of the body.

Most of them don’t reduce fat in ANY area of the body.

Yes, exercise does burn calories, and if you aren’t replacing too many of those burned calories with food, you can lose fat. Good job!

Again, exercise does burn calories, but situps, crunches, and kickbacks burn very few compared to bigger exercises that use more muscle and more muscle groups.

Instead of situps, crunches, and kickbacks, do squats, lunges, presses, rows, getups, deadlifts, and calisthenics – these use bigger and more muscles, and take quite a bit of energy to perform. Energy, just in case you don’t know it, is calories!

 

I’m so sorry for your loss

Again, spot reduction, whether it’s attempted by sweating out the fat along with the water, via glorified plastic wrap, or by doing extra exercises to target your ‘stubborn areas,’ it just doesn’t work.

I’m so sorry for you loss. If there’s anything I can do…

 

Roland