It’s a sad fact but most people would rather be in better shape and enjoy the confidence boost and other health benefits, and I firmly believe a large portion of people are derailed from their goals not by a lack of motivation, but by putting their faith in the wrong methods, and when those methods fail them, they then tell themselves they tried it by the book, and it didn’t work, and it’s just beyond them. In reality, there is a huge amount of misinformation when it comes to everything, health and fitness included. One such persistent myth which people put their faith in only to lose hope when it inevitably fails them is the idea of spot burning fat. I’ll explain to you what this is, what it involves, why it doesn’t work, and how you can go about replacing this time-and-effort-wasting endeavor with something that does work. If you are looking to burn fat in a certain place on your body, this article will be well worth a read, I promise you.
Spot burning is the idea that you can select a place on your body to target for fat loss, and lose fat only (or mostly) in that place of your body. For instance, a person with arms who feels they are too flabby and wants to lose the fat are often advised by know-nothing ‘fitness experts’ to do arm exercises. Likewise, those with a flabby stomach are advised to do sit ups, crunches, and other abdominal workouts.
None of this works, I assure you.
When you eat, you put fat on according to your genetically determined fat storage pattern. Some people have flabby guts, some flabby butts, for some the chest or arms, thighs; whatever. And, when you lose fat, you simply lose the fat according to the same genetically determined pattern. You cannot change this by anything other than liposuction.
At the most basic level, what burns fat is a calorie deficit, which should be achieved by regular exercise and slight (yes – slight) under-eating, less carbohydrates and more protein and fats (yes – fats aren’t the biggest enemy of fat loss; mistimed high carbs are.)
By doing exercise such as weight lifting you have a huge advantage when losing fat because you are preserving your muscle mass, which the body would in a calorie deficit situation burn to replenish fat storage. When this is counteracted by weight training and the diet guidelines I’ve mentioned, the body then simply burns fat.
Basically, then, don’t feel you have to exercise any harder those ‘fattest’ areas than other areas of your body, because it won’t make you lose fat in that spot any quicker. In fact, for those who wish to lose stomach fat, for instance, working the lats and the thighs would be far more beneficial to fat loss simply because the lats and thighs are bigger muscles than the abs and burn more calories when exercised.
If you are serious about strength training then creatine supplements can help you to boost your strength. Most people are misinformed about creatine and cite creatine dangers which simply don’t exist. Visit the latter link to see the truth about so-called ‘creatine dangers’.
Article Source: Spot Burning: The Fat Loss Myth That Will Not Die
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