In fitness circles these days, it is not uncommon to hear the term, “spot-reduction.” For those of you who haven’t, spot-reduction is a term pertaining to fat loss. It is an alleged method of reducing the amount of fatty tissue in a specific, isolated area of the body, such as the abdomen, hips, thighs and up- per arms, through training the muscles of that particular area exclusively; hence the foreshortening name, “spot-reduction.” Attempts at this are seen everywhere today: in the weight room, where men spend hours doing sit-ups and crunches to trim their waistline; in the aerobic studio, where women perform countless sets of lunges and leg- raises to get into those size 4 leggings; at home, where hundreds of thousands of men and women fidget with the latest gadget they bought from the Home Shopping Network-the one that’s supposed to “shock,” “blast,” “twist,” and “burn” this or that. “If you want to slim down X, train the muscles of X,” is the motto for spot-reduction.
Sounds logical, right? Wrong. Millions of frustrated men and women spend countless hours and dollars at the gym, at home and at
the dance studio to no avail. They quit in frustration as their long- loathed bellies remain as big and flabby as they’ve always been, de- spite the undivided attention they give to them with specialized work. Why is this so? Because the truth about fat-loss is not as obvious as it may seem. To the naked eye, it may make perfect sense to spot-reduce, but in actuality it is physiologically impossible.
Let’s remember what body-fat is. Body-fat, or adipose tissue, is simply the body’s back-up source of energy in the form of excess calories. When we eat more food than our daily activities require, we build up our reserves-that is, we “put on fat”; when we don’t eat enough, we tap into our reserves to fuel our daily activities. Vice versa: When we do not expend the fuel our food provides for us, we store it in the form of body-fat; when we are more active than the amount of food we just ate allows for, we begin to run on our reserve-source of calories. The amount of body-fat on a healthy person’s body boils down to a simple equation: caloric output versus caloric input-the amount of fuel your body burns relative to
the amount of fuel your body takes in. You can do all the crunches and leg raises you want, but if this ratio is not in the right balance, you will not get any leaner.
The proper alternative to spot- reduction is one that takes this fact into consideration. Given that the body works in this way, the way to go about slimming down one’s stomach, hips or thighs is to focus on the leanness of the body as a whole-i.e., it’s caloric input-output ratio. One could achieve the optimum balance in three ways: a low- calorie diet, an exercise regimen or both. The first will lower the amount of ingested calories; the second will raise the level of caloric-expenditure; and the third will do both simultaneously, thus accomplishing its task most efficiently. What food you eat and what exercises you perform do not matter nearly as much as how much you eat and how active you are. Crunches and leg-raises are not means to slimmer hips and waistlines; they are one of the many means of being active, activity being the broader means to fat-loss.
Remember this the next time you’re tempted to waste precious weeks, months, or years in the gym beholden to the myth of spot- reduction. Know now that you can see problem of fat-loss from the big-picture, within the context of basic anatomy and physiology.
“Who am I to claim all this,” you ask? I am not a bio-chemistry, physics, or even a physical education major. I’m not even a personal trainer! I am just a kid who loves to lift weights and read philosophy. If I have any qualifications to speak on the matter, they would only be my own experience in the gym, my general knowledge and my respect for logic. I’ve been a gym-rat for five years now, “bulking and cut- ting” since the age of seventeen. I’ve read countless books on the subject of exercise, and experimented with countless diets and routines. Now, I wish to expound the knowledge I’ve gained as The Independent’s fitness expert. I hope you find my views well-reasoned and look forward to being read by you in the next issue.