Scientific Evidence About Spot Reduction of Belly Fat: A Myth or A Reality?
The topic of belly fat spot reduction has been a source of much contention and speculation in the fitness and health communities.
When many people gain weight, they typically do this in certain parts of their body.
For most people, the most common culprit is their belly.
This means a lot of people trying to lose weight are mostly trying to get rid of stubborn belly fat.
The pursuit of a toned midsection is not outlandish, especially if you subscribe to modern beauty standards that advertise a snatched waist and flat tummy as the ultimate body goal.
This has led many people to try various methods of shedding belly fat.
The big question is can we really target fat in specific areas of our body? Or is it simply a matter of overall weight loss?
With so much conflicting information out there, it can be hard to separate fact from fiction.
In this article, we delve into the scientific evidence behind spot reducing belly fat and determine once and for all if it is a myth or a reality.
What is spot reduction?
Spot reduction refers to a type of targeted exercise regimen intended to help burn fat in specific parts of the body.
Although people also try to get rid of excess fats in other parts of their body such as the triceps and thigh area, the idea of spot reducing belly fat is one of the most popular.
Despite being controversial, the theory of spot reduction is quite popular in the health and fitness world.
Many people trying to achieve specific fat loss this way often focus on the troublesome areas of their body alone with specific exercise routines.
So, instead of exercising the whole body, a person trying to reduce belly fat will only focus on routines that target the abs.
Does spot reduction work?
The idea of targeted fat loss is not only appealing, but it also sounds reasonable.
One would expect that exercising a particular muscle would lead to more fat burn from that area of the body.
However, the scientific evidence points to the contrary.
In 1971, scientists at the University of California carried out a study on tennis players to examine the possible impact of spot training on fat loss.
Since Tennis players are known to exercise their right or left arms consistently (depending on which one was most dominant), one would expect a thinner layer of fat in their dominant arm compared to their non-dominant arm.
However, the result of that study showed no significant difference in the thickness of subcutaneous fat in their two arms despite both arms receiving different amounts of exercise over the course of the athlete’s career.
Similarly, in 2007 the University of Connecticut conducted another study with 104 participants in a 12-week supervised resistance-training program that focused on their non-dominant arm.
The results showed that fat loss in their body appeared to be generalized instead of focusing on the trained arm alone.
More specific studies have been carried out that focus on the impact of spot training on abdominal fat.
In one study of 24 people who were made to complete a routine that targeted their abdominal muscles for a six weeks period, the researchers reported a significant reduction of belly fat in the participants.
A similar study that involved 40 overweight women undergoing resistance training for 12 weeks, researchers found no significant change in abdominal fat in subjects undergoing the training compared to a controlled group that was undergoing dietary intervention alone.
Although there are indeed a few controversial studies, and a number with conflicting results, most studies seem to agree on the ineffectiveness of spot reduction.
In most of the research carried out so far on the subject, fat loss has been found to be generalized over the entire body instead of focusing on the part of the body being exercised alone.
Why spot reduction never works
The findings from many of the studies disproving spot reduction is consistent with basic biological knowledge of how fat loss works.
A person is unlikely to attain a flat tummy by simply performing abdominal workouts, and there are a number of reasons for this.
Here are a few of them as highlighted below:
1. A muscle does not own the fat around it.
When a person gains weight, the fat is stored in fat cells around organs and muscles in the body in a form known as triglycerides.
While these triglycerides are used up as fuel when you exercise your body, they’re not used up directly.
Instead, the body converts the cell into usable forms known as free fatty acids and glycerol.
Fat enters the bloodstream this way and is used up as fuel during prolonged exercise.
Because fat is not used directly in its crude form, it means the fat you burn during exercise can come from any part of your body, not just the area your workout targets.
Therefore, when you do sit-ups to strengthen your abdominal muscle, the fat burned up may not be coming from that part of your body.
The routine will definitely strengthen your muscles, but it is not sufficient to get rid of the layer of fat on that part of your body.
You’ll have better results by following a high-impact routine that involves both weight training and cardiovascular workouts.
This will target fat stores throughout the entire body, including the abdomen.
2. Spot reduction routines are not efficient.
Another reason why spot reduction hardly ever works is that the exercises themselves are not efficient enough to burn enough calories.
The consequence of these routines is that many people end up not losing much fat anywhere in their bodies because they’re not burning enough calories.
A pound of fat is equivalent to about 3500 calories.
Since you’re likely to burn more calories from running than you would from doing situps or crunches, it means you’ll achieve more weight loss by simply working out your entire body.
Generally, high-intensity interval training (a type of exercise that alternates between high-intensity and low-intensity workouts) is likely to be more effective for weight loss than spot-reduction exercises.
3. Weight loss follows a specific pattern.
In most people, weight loss tends to follow a specific pattern, and that’s another reason why spot reduction is unlikely to work.
An overweight person trying to workout, they’ll most likely start losing the visceral fat around their organs before losing any subcutaneous fat.
For women, weight loss follows an even more specific pattern. Due to their genetics, women tend to have a pear-shaped distribution of body fat.
This means they’ll start losing fat in their upper body much faster than they would in their lower body.
Conclusion
So what’s the truth about spot reduction of belly fat?
Scientific evidences do not seem to be in support of the principle of spot training a specific muscle to get rid of fat in that area.
At the end of the day, it makes more sense to focus on losing more calories than you take in as your weight loss strategy.
This loss in overall body fat will eventually reflect on the part of your body you’re trying to target.
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