Is Belly Fat Spot Reduction Really A Myth?

How many times you have heard people say that they do 100 crunches every day but they’re somehow not able to lose fat in the mid-section area? I’m definitely sure that you’ve heard people asked: “What’s that best ab exercise that I can do to lose fat and to get that flat and toned stomach?”

Well… they’re asking the wrong question because belly fat spot reduction is a myth. What they should be asking is: “How do I lose fat overall?”

Why Spot Reduction Is Impossible

You can not spot reduce fat! All the commercials and ads that you see, where they promise that if you do that one magical ab exercise you’ll get a flat and toned stomach, they’re just meant to make you buy something. Sorry to break it to you, but spot reduction is not going to happen.

You can do 100 crunches every day, but you’re not gonna lose fat in your abdominal region any sooner than if you would do the same amount of squats instead. What you need to focus on is losing fat overall.

Our body is really efficient in storing fat and if we can get a better look of what’s really happening under our skin, we will understand that spot reduction is not possible.

Below our skin we have 2 tissues: the fat tissue and the muscle tissue. You can be working on your muscles all day long, but until the fat between your skin and your muscles goes away, you are not going to see any of those hard muscles.

You might say that the other day you did 100 crunches and your tummy felt really tight and firm, so you might be losing fat in that area. Sorry again, but when you did do those crunches, your ab muscles hypertrophied. That means that the muscles only grown a little bigger and the fat in the area was not targeted and did not disappeared.

So don’t confuse the forming of the muscle with fat spot reduction. If you want to lose fat in your tummy area or any other area of your body, all you need to focus on is overall fat loss.

I hope this info helped you and I hope that you can use it to make your workouts more effective and train smarter. Stay fit!