Trying to shift stubborn body fat…?

This is probably one of the most common questions I get asked as a personal trainer, and unfortunately there’s no simple solution. For now I’ll try and keep everything short, sweet and simple.

The first thing to know about stubborn fat is that it is physiologically different than other fat.  Subcutaneous (under the skin) fat is more stubborn than visceral fat (the fat around your organs) or intramuscular fat (the fat within your muscles). Some individuals tend to store body fat relatively evenly around their body, whereas others have noticeable areas of particularly stubborn fat deposits. For females the most stubborn areas of fat tend to be the hips, bum, thighs, and for males the areas tend to be the lower back and lower ab region.

When you ‘burn’ fat, you burn it from all over your body, including your stubborn fat.  Under normal circumstances stubborn fat is burnt at a much slower rate  for a number of reasons:

– It’s more insulin sensitive or less insulin resistant than regular fat. A fat cell that’s more insulin sensitive stores more fat and releases less of it.

– High estrogen levels during certain stages of the female cycle are times during the month when female stubborn body fat is more stubborn.

– Stubborn fat gets less blood flow, which means even if the fat is released it doesn’t get moved out of the area to be burned elsewhere very easily. Stubborn fat is in areas that are harder for the body to heat up, so areas further away from the centre of your body tend to be “colder”.

There are studies which have shown that you can in fact target fat loss by exercising an area directly. This technique is called spot reduction. For example you could do ab crunches all day, every day, in the hope that you will burn more fat in your abdominal region. This method of fat reduction technically does occur, but at such a marginal level that it’s essentially insignificant. You’re much better off performing an exercise which has a greater overall calorie burn such as a squat or a deadlift.

Most common dieting techniques are centred around either eating less and exercising more, or just eating less whilst continuing to undergo whatever activity you were doing beforehand. This is by far one of the major blocks to permanent change and is especially true of stubborn fat. When you follow this method the body engages in severe metabolic compensation. By eating less and exercising more your body will make you more hungry, give you less energy, induce insatiable cravings and decrease your resting metabolic rate. In other words, your body has primed itself to resist further losses in body fat.

Stress upon the human body can come in the form of lack of sleep, poor quality sleep, lack of food and exercise. The body can only take so much stress, therefore combining increased activity with fewer calories is a recipe for disaster, and that’s before we’ve even considered whether or not you’re getting enough recovery time (sleep).

To stop dieting you simply do one of two things. You either eat less and exercise less (ELEL) or you eat more and exercise more (EMEM). What you don’t do is continue eating less and exercising more.

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