Spot Reducing
One of the most common fitness myths is that you can “spot reduce .” Doing 1,000 sit-ups will indeed give you stronger abdominal muscles, but it will do nothing to whittle your waist . If this information is new to you, we aren’t surprised . There are plenty of people who still mistakenly believe in spot reducing .
We hate to burst your bubble but here are the fat facts:
The common belief is that if you do lots of side-lying leg lifts, the fat deposits on your thighs will melt away, or if you walk endless miles, your legs will lose the excess fat . Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth . When you burn fat your body continuously removes it in small quantities from all of the many fat storage areas in your body . You cannot selectively remove fat from any one area of choice .
The reverse is also true . You can’t select where your body stores excess fat . Your body is a gracious host . When fat comes to stay, there’s always plenty of room all over . While some people store a greater proportion of fat on their thighs, upper arms or abdomen, the fat is still settling in all over the body .others have their fat distributed more evenly . The way in which your fat is distributed is determined by heredity . So you may think chocolate cake goes right to your hips . The truth is, it goes everywhere .
Don’t be fooled by those claims that you can sweat off fat with plastic sauna pants or melt it away with expensive creams . The only way to rid your body of unwanted excess fat is to decrease the calories you consume (never below 1,200 calories daily), burn more calories through increased aerobic activity and lift weights . It is the Body Break approach . So hop on a bike, pump some iron and eat lower-fat foods . over time you should see a loss of fat in the areas that concern you the most . If you don’t, remember that genetics play a strong role in how your fat is deposited and you may have to come to terms with having some extra in particular areas of your body