Living (and loving) Life
Many people believe they can trim down fat layers in certain areas of their bodies and sculpt them into the shape they desire by doing exercises that target those specific areas of the body.
This is why so many are tricked into buying abdominal exercise devices that claim you’ll be able to create six-pack abs in a matter of weeks, only to end up being greatly disappointed with the results.
Simply put, targeted weight loss (aka spot reduction) is the process of choosing which parts of the body we want to remove fat from. Unfortunately, this concept goes against the actual science of weight loss.
Debunking the myth of targeted weight loss
If we examine our bodies, most of us will naturally find certain parts of it that we would like to sculpt due to the excessive layers of fats deposited in them. These problem areas usually include the arms, waist, buttocks and thighs.
In an effort to remove fats in these areas, we do numerous sets of crunches, sit-ups, and leg lifts every single day. Sadly, more often than not, we never see any improvements at all, which indicates there is something wrong with our targeted exercise routines.
We want to tone our bodies and sculpt them perfectly, but we ignore a hard truth about how the layers of fat on our bodies relate to overall fitness and weight loss.
As you probably know, layers of fat lie underneath our skin, covering our muscles. No matter how much effort we exert in toning them, we will not reveal the underlying muscles until we remove the fatty layers that are covering them.
Crunches, sit-ups and leg lifts are excellent toning exercises but they alone can’t do very much about our fat deposits. Moreover, we cannot force our bodies to lose weight in just certain areas. Losing weight happens over the entire body at once, not just on specific parts of it.
Effective weight loss typically requires cardio exercises and a proper diet
Toning exercises are essential parts of any effective exercise routine, but in order to shed off the fat layers and show off the muscles, it’s important to also incorporate cardio workouts.
Cardio exercises increase both the heart rate and metabolism, thereby increasing the rate at which our bodies burn fat. And the faster our bodies burn fat, the faster we’ll lose weight and the quicker we’ll reveal our fat-covered muscles (such as the much desired six-pack abs).
Supplementing our all-important cardio routines with a good strength training routine can help us lose weight even faster by burning more calories and increasing the amount of muscle tissue in our bodies – which itself burns a lot of calories.
A good starting point is to perform at least 30 minutes of cardio exercise three times a week, but if you want to maximize the amount of fatty tissue you’ll burn away you can extend your routines to 60 minutes a day and do them on alternating days within the week.
And finally, it’s important to understand that exercise alone cannot give one a healthy body. In addition to exercise, it’s also essential to limit the amount of fatty foods we consume while also making sure we eat enough foods that are high in protein.