Surprisingly, the belly fat myth is still debated today and used as a claim in product sales. The general statement is, “We can target and lose belly fat by doing [this and that].”
However, can we really only target belly fat?
I think we’ve all seen titles like 5 Tips for Losing Belly Fat and This One Drink Every Night to Burn Belly Fat. The idea sounds really nice, but it’s not true!
I know we want to find easy ways to lose weight, and there’s some weight that we like more than others. I’ve had plenty of clients tell me, “I want to get rid of my stomach, but I want to keep the thickness of thighs and butt.” I get it, understand it, and we work on it.
But, I’m always honest and say we’re going to lose the fat everywhere in the body. As a trainer, I tell my clients it’s not possible to do spot reduction — this is when we target a specific part of the body to lose fat. The body can’t do that; it doesn’t function that way.
We store fat everywhere in our bodies, but it mostly stored under the skin (i.e., subcutaneous fat) and around our organs (i.e., visceral fat). We can understand from this explanation the belly could have both and the most subcutaneous and visceral fat.
With that being said, losing and targeting only belly fat is a myth. This is because our bodies will utilize fat as energy through a process called ‘lypolysis’, and this process doesn’t simply choose sections of the body — it uses it from everywhere.
However, I want to give two ideas from this myth: one for losing the stomach but still maintaining legs, and one in regard to what we can target. I think we can always find positives in ideas if we redirect them a little to still meet our goals.
1.) Eating healthy and exercise for thick legs
I know this is probably the obvious answer, but it’s the truth!
Now, I say thick legs because this is usually the goal my clients have who want to lose belly fat. They want to keep their legs thick and lose what they’re not happy with.
We’ll define “thick legs” as big quads, hamstrings, and glutes. These group of muscles make up the thigh, which my clients specifically want to work on and keep.
Eating healthy will help us lose weight. This includes eating more fruits and vegetables and reducing processed foods. Yes, there is an important part of eating less (lowering calorie intake), but this first part of changing what/how we eat is a great first step.
We can start with small changes before making big ones, so we’re not overwhelmed with our goals as well.
On that note, I’m not saying to get rid of processed foods. You can eat whatever you want. However, when we have goals like losing weight, we want to moderate (not overly do it), so we can achieve our goals like we want.
Exercise will keep our legs thick and help with weight loss. I think this is one that everyone knows will help but doesn’t want to admit. Personally, I think it’s a great way for someone to lose weight — I’m a little biased, though.
Exercise will build stronger and bigger leg muscles, which keeps the thickness we want. Also, it helps with shaping and toning, which most people are looking for.
Lastly, we want to burn more calories than we intake for weight loss, and exercising is the best way to do that. Not to mention, muscles burn more calories at rest than fat does.
We have more muscle, we’ll burn more calories while relaxing on the couch and reading this blog!
If we can implement both ideas above, we can see some great results for keeping our “thickness” while dismissing the belly fat myth.
2.) Targeting muscles in exercise
We can’t target specific parts for losing fat, but we can target specific parts to build muscle.
Hence, we can’t do ab exercises to lose belly fat, but we can do ab exercises to build the ab muscles. This is probably not what we’d like to target, but the body functions a certain way.
Depending on our goals, we may want to target multiple groups or a single group of muscles in one exercise. An example of an exercise targeting multiple groups is a squat (i.e., quads and glutes), which is why I consider it to be one of the best exercises for health and fitness.
An example of an exercise targeting one group is the leg extension on the machine. This exercise will focus on the front part of the thigh (i.e., quads).
Although we don’t have exercises to target and lose belly fat, we have exercises to target and strengthen the muscles that’ll help with the first idea to keep our legs thick.
Summary
I want to end this by clarifying what I said and one thing I left out.
Losing and targeting only belly fat is a myth. This doesn’t include liposuction, but it is a medical procedure. I was referring to individual effort in the information.
I was arguing against the claims we usually see in some articles or ads on social media.
“Take this once a day to burn belly fat!” Nonsense.
“Try these tips to lose belly fat while you sleep!” If only it were that easy.
When we want to lose fat, we’ll lose it everywhere in the body with proper diet and exercise.
I wanted to address this myth like other sources have because it’s still very common online, which is odd in my opinion. There are resources with articles (e.g., National Institute of Health, and Health and Human Services) that have proven it wrong, but some people still run with this outdated claim.
I’d recommend doing research if something sounds too good to be true. If not, I hope I can address it for you!
Remember to check with a medical provider before starting a new exercise program and/or making life-changing decisions on health and fitness.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me here.
I hope this was helpful!
— Alex, M.S.