The Win On Purpose Podcast
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The Win On Purpose Podcast
Debunking Fitness & Nutrition Myths (Part 2)- Can You Really Target Belly Fat?
The promise of spot reduction has been luring fitness enthusiasts for decades. Who wouldn't want to simply target those stubborn areas with specific exercises and watch the fat melt away? Unfortunately, as we reveal in this myth-busting episode, the human body doesn't work that way.
Spot reduction – the idea that you can eliminate fat from specific areas by exercising those body parts – sounds logical but lacks scientific support. We dive deep into why those endless crunches aren't flattening your stomach and what science actually says about fat loss. Drawing from multiple research studies, we explain how your body systematically pulls from fat stores across your entire physique, with genetics largely determining which areas slim down first and which remain stubbornly resistant.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn as we explore the different types of body fat (visceral versus subcutaneous) and why belly fat can be particularly challenging to lose. We examine how hormones like cortisol and insulin influence fat storage patterns, and why stress management and quality sleep are just as crucial to your body composition goals as diet and exercise. Perhaps most interestingly, we reveal how abdominal training without addressing overall body fat can actually make your midsection appear larger – the exact opposite of what most people want!
Ready for solutions? We outline the proven strategies that actually work: sustainable caloric deficits, full-body strength training, high-protein nutrition, stress management, and quality sleep. Our approach focuses on sustainable lifestyle changes rather than quick fixes or miracle solutions. Whether you're just beginning your fitness journey or you've been frustrated by lack of progress despite countless ab workouts, this episode provides the clarity and direction you need to transform your approach and finally see results.
Studies Cited:
- Ramírez-Campillo R, et al. (2013).
Spot reduction is a myth: localized fat loss is not influenced by resistance training.
Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 27(12), 3116–3121.
https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0b013e31828f1e2f - Katch FI, et al. (1984).
Effects of sit-up exercise training on adipose cell size and adiposity.
Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 55(3), 242–247.
https://doi.org/10.1080/02701367.1984.10608404 - Vispute SS, et al. (2011).
The effect of abdominal exercise on abdominal fat.
Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 25(9), 2559–2564.
https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181fb4a46
https://www.facebook.com/coachadamkelley/
Instagram: @coachadamkelley
www.transformedhealthcoach.com
Welcome to the Win On Purpose podcast with coach Adam Kelly. Spot reduction is one of the most prevalent myths in the fitness world. Right, we've all heard about it, especially when it comes to stubborn belly fat. So in this episode, we're going to explore why targeting fat loss in specific areas doesn't work. Spoiler alert what actually does work and how to reframe your expectations and your strategies for long-term body composition change. So you don't want to miss this episode. It's going to be great. It's part of our five-part series of debunking fitness and nutrition myths, and this is Can you Really Target Belly Fat? So, as always, we will see you on the other side.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Win On Purpose podcast From health and fitness, business, personal development, relationships and more. We promise you will find inspiration to help you win on purpose in all areas of your life journey. Now for your host, adam Kelly.
Speaker 1:Welcome, welcome back or, for the first time maybe, welcome to the Win On Purpose podcast with Coach Adam Kelly, coach AK. For those who know, and if you don't know, I am the owner of the Transformed Health Initiative coaching company, slash gym, and we're out of Moore, oklahoma, so we have a private training facility where we train our clients that are doing in-person training, but we also have a fantastic online coaching service. So, no matter if you're local, if you're far away, if you're close by, wherever you may be, we have something to offer you. So we'd love to work with you transformhealthcoachcom for a free consultation. So I appreciate you guys for tuning back in to another episode. I hope you guys are enjoying all the content that's been coming out. I hope you've taken some time to go back and listen to some of the previous episodes.
Speaker 1:This is episode number 34, and we are on part two of a five-part series that we are doing called Debunking Fitness and Nutrition Myths. All right, so we started with part one, which was talking about artificial sweeteners. You know we were going through the data, going through the you know the literature, trying to figure out if artificial sweeteners are actually bad for us or if they're good for us or if they're just a neutral and doesn't really matter. So you know, this is a century old. Well, really, just like the last 15, 20 years old debate lots of back and forth. So I feel like we did a really good job at answering that question and then giving practical advice. You know all that good stuff. So if you missed that episode, make sure you go back and listen to it. It doesn't tie into this episode, but definitely good content there. I was super excited to do that one because that's one of the most controversial topics that I have conversations with on a regular basis and I used to be on one side of the camp. Now I just kind of, like most things, play the middle ground, you know, because, again, it doesn't matter about my feelings, it doesn't matter about your feelings, it matters about what works and what appears to be true, and that's what we're after here. So that's what we do at, you know, transform Health Initiative. That's what we do on the Win, on Purpose podcast. We try to weed through the noise, get through the misinformation, figure out what's true, figure out what works, so we can be efficient at everything we do, aka win life on purpose. All right, so today's episode part two is drumroll.
Speaker 1:Please can you really target belly fat? All right. So a common myth that people believe. For years and years and years, since exercise was deemed exercise, people have believed the myth if I just do more ab exercises I'll lose belly fat, ab exercises, I'll lose belly fat. So I have lots of conversations with people who ask me hey, coach, I need to lose some belly fat. I've got this lingering belly fat or I've just grown this belly fat and it's not really much elsewhere. You know, fat isn't really an issue anywhere else. I'm cool with how everything else looks, but this belly fat needs to go. Tell me what exercises I need to do. Okay, and usually I try to be very nice and you know not to break any hearts or anything. But I'm also a realist and I don't like to waste people's time. So I tell them what I'm going to tell you guys in this episode.
Speaker 1:So we're going to cover this myth. Obviously, I said it's a myth, so that kind of answers the question for you. But you want to know why and what to do about it. Because we can get rid of the belly fat, but we want to make sure we're doing it right. So one, we don't waste a lot of time, energy, effort and money on programs and systems and things that aren't going to actually help and that we devote all of that into the proven strategies that actually work. All right, because that's the goal.
Speaker 1:So why is this myth so appealing? Why are people so quick to believe that you can just do exercises to lose belly fat? Well, one, it sounds pretty practical. Okay, it doesn't sound that far-fetched like. If you want, we know that, if you want to look better, if you want to lose weight, you need to exercise. I think a lot of people don't know why exercise actually influences weight loss, because just because you exercise doesn't mean you're going to lose weight. I think a lot of us know that. A lot of us who have been in the gym for a long time but haven't looked the way we want to look, understand that, hey, exercise is not the only ticket. Okay, that's not the way to get there by itself.
Speaker 1:So why is it so believable? Well, one frustration with stubborn belly fat to begin with, and just stubborn fat in general. So people are tired of having this fat trying to, you know, feeling like they're doing everything that they can to try to get rid of it. Uh, you know, just tired of looking at it, tired of it being there, tired of people saying things which, in our society these days, most people don't say anything anymore because it's very, very normal. But you know, we have that internal dialogue every time we see ourselves and just really fed up with it. So, again, logically, if I exercise my abs, then they're going to look more how I want them to look. Or if I exercise my abs, it's going to take care of my belly fat. Because, again, we connect exercise with weight loss, but exercise is not responsible for weight loss. It can be an agency that helps with the process of weight loss, but it does not cause weight loss. So we have to understand that.
Speaker 1:So what else causes people to believe this? You have a lot of fitness influencers out there that push their flat belly workouts or their get a six pack in 30 days or you know all these different core tightening exercises and programs and all this stuff and all of it's garbage. They're wasting your time and your money and if you're one of those people that sell that, I don't feel bad for you saying this because it's real, um, and I'm not trying to be cold-hearted or anything because if you spent money and time and effort with these programs and you didn't get the, you know the result that you were looking for. Because it's not possible, I really feel bad for you. So I'm going to be straight up about it, because it irritates me to see people lose based on being misled. Okay, if you're going to lose, lose because you chose to lose, because you just didn't do what it took to win, not because you thought you were doing what it took to win and that wasn't the actual way. That's what I don't like.
Speaker 1:Also, you know, there's a deep emotional connection to body image. So in our society, you know and like I said, this isn't as big of a deal anymore than like maybe the 90s, 80s, because, you know, obesity has become very regulated or maybe regulated is not the right word More just normal. It's more of the norm. You have way more overweight people than you do fit people. You have way more. You're starting to get to where you have even more obese people than you have just overweight people than you do fit people. You have way more. You're starting to get to where you have even more obese people than you have just overweight people. We have way more overweight people than we have at any point in time.
Speaker 1:For the most part, you know, morbidly obese is out of control, all that. So, although there's not as much societal pressure to look a certain way, we still have a societal pressure of we want to look a certain way. We still have a societal pressure of we want to look a certain way, and we know, most likely, what people are thinking when they see us, how we look. Okay, so society still pushes. You know the flat stomach, the small waist, you know the tone body, all that, which is all great, but that doesn't mean you're healthy just because you look that way. So let's not act like just getting there is going to solve all your problems, cause I promise you it's not. But you know that's what society really has pushed on us for decades.
Speaker 1:And so a lot of people get desperate. Like man, I really want to look good for, you know, swimsuit season. So what exercises do I need to do to take care of this beer belly? Well, I'm going to tell you it's probably the beer more than it is the lack of exercise, however, moving on, so what is the goal of this episode? What is the goal of part two? It's as it is with part one, as it is with this whole series. It is strictly to educate and inform, not to shame. Okay, I'm not picking on anybody. If you've been doing exercises to improve your abdominals or the way your abs or your midsection looks, I'm not dogging you or making fun of you, anything like that. Like this is strictly just to try to help and try to give you the actual information that's going to get you there, rather than you believing lies and misinformation. So you know, I want to be able to help you focus on what does actually create visible change, not just what sounds good or, you know, whoever sells pitch is the most appealing to you.
Speaker 1:So In the intro you heard me mention the phrase or the word. Well, it's two words phrase, spot reduction. Ok, you may have heard that term before, previous to this episode, you may have not. So what is spot reduction? What is the idea of spot reduction? I should say so. Spot reduction is attempting to lose fat in a specific area by training that area. So doing resistance exercise, some sort of exercise like crunches for belly fat, or using the thigh machines like the adductorctor abductor where you push your legs out or squeeze your legs together for leg fat. So thinking that you can do these certain exercises to change where the fat is, burning the fat off, anything like that. That's what spot reduction means.
Speaker 1:So this belief typically comes from info commercials. You know, especially back in the day, when we really watched info commercials Now it's like ads and reels and stuff, but back in the day, you know, you always had those workout videos that would come on selling you this product, a supplement, whatever it is. This is going to help you drop 10 pounds of body fat. This can help you lose six inches off your waist. Well, you guys bought it and there's a reason why those people aren't billionaires because their product doesn't work. So, uh, you know, in front commercials were an issue. Fitness magazines also promote a lot of the same things. Also, just having those images of those washboard abs and our face all the time, you know, and targeted product marketing. Like I said, hey, if you've got 10 pounds of belly fat you want to lose by summer, so you know you can see the strings of your bikini. Then buy my program, take my supplement, eat my, you know, use my diet plan. So it makes sense why people think that that's real, because we're constantly bombarded with this idea that doesn't even exist.
Speaker 1:So what does the science say? Let's look at a few studies here. So what I'm doing with this series and this is what I'm going to do from now on whenever I use, um, any type of studies because I want to be very transparent, guys Like I'm not like a science nerd, I'm not, like you know, a researcher, a scientist or anything like that I just try to find information that's relevant to the things I care about and then finding conflicting information and seeing which one actually weighs out in the balance so I can make informed choices, but also so I can make those same informed choices with my clients who are trusting me to help them reach their goals. So I'm not here to argue science, anything like that. There's tons and tons and tons of different studies out there. I'm just going to give you guys a few that align with the topic and then you do what you want from there. So if you want to look into these studies, read them yourself, see if I'm actually concluding them properly, see how they were conducted, to see if they're legitimate, all that good stuff. I'm going to leave references in the show notes. Sorry, I'm going to leave references in the show notes so you can go look up the studies yourself. If you want to find similar studies, do what you want with it, all right. So, with that being said, whenever I quote studies, I'm only just going to quote basically what was the overall findings? What was the overall findings? You know the overall conclusion of the scientists and leave it at that. All right, do what you want with it.
Speaker 1:So study number one is from ramirez campilo et al, from 2013. So they showed that, or concluded that resistance training in one leg didn't lead to localized fat loss in that leg. So they compare, you know, training one leg to the other to see, you know or not, training one leg train the other leg to see if there's a change in body fat within that leg. And they didn't see that, okay, the muscle grew, but we didn't see fat loss in that leg, strictly just from adding resistance training on that leg. Study number two from catch, at all, from 1983. So this this is a little bit dated or very dated. I mean that was a long time ago. However, again, there's lots of studies that also, you know, connect with this one that back it. In other words, so they concluded that sit-ups did not reduce abdominal fat in test subjects. Okay, did not reduce abdominal fat in test subjects from doing sit-ups. So, no, sorry to tell you, all your ab training you're doing killing it, just feeling like you're going to vomit every time that you're training abs. You're training so hard because you think it's going to give you washboard abs and a flat tummy does not work that way.
Speaker 1:Study number three is from this pute at all, from 2011, and they reported that ab training alone had no effect on body fat percentages or abdominal circumference. So, training abs, it didn't cause, let you know, it didn't get rid of body fat. It didn't change the shape of their midsection, of their abdominals, anything like that. Like they were, you know, body fat was basically the same. Their shape was the same, even with the ab training. So, as you see, here we have three different studies that are all saying virtually the same thing that they tested people with training, with resistance training, doing exercises to try to target body fat in these specific areas, and we did not see an effect on the body fat from these exercises.
Speaker 1:So where does this leave us? Okay, and actually you know, talking about ab training and and I'm going to speak on this here a little bit later on one of my points, but training abs can actually have the opposite effect of making your tummy look flatter and having those protruding abs given certain circumstances. So we're going to cover that in here in a minute. So just know that. No, sometimes it's even a negative effect in the short term from training abs when trying to get rid of body fat.
Speaker 1:So the thing to understand, guys, the way the body works, is your body pulls from overall fat stores and your genetics influence where you lose fat first and last. Okay, so we all have areas on our body and a lot of this is based on our genetics that our body is prone to holding body fat. So you'll see people where you know maybe their, their limbs, their arms and legs are really lean and thin, but then they kind of have like that pear shaped body where their body's like big and round, but then they have the skinny arms and legs. That's genetics. Or sometimes it's the opposite. Or you know males who hold fat in the chest. Or you know people who have abnormally large, or probably not abnormally isn't the best word to use, but large. You know love handles, but everything else is pretty lean, but they just have those love handles hanging off.
Speaker 1:A lot of those things are based on genetics, so we can't really influence where our body stores fat or where it burns fat. Okay, because it's going to pull all over your body. So, regardless of what you're training, what you're doing for exercise, your body is going to burn body fat and pull body fat from all over. So you can't just pinpoint one specific area, like your stomach or your legs or your lower back. It doesn't work that way. And then, like I said, it influences where we lose fat first and last.
Speaker 1:So you'll see people, when they start their journey, they start losing weight, they start losing fat. Like some people, their face thins out really fast and that's the first thing that's noticeable. So someone's like man, your face looks different, you've been losing weight, huh, but you can't see it anywhere else. Because their their body tends to pull weight from their face and neck first. Or maybe it's their arms. You know they're starting to get more vascular, or you know their arms are getting more definition, or they're getting more definition in their legs but not their upper body. There's so many variants there between individuals that have to do strictly with genetics. And then also you know where it pulls from last.
Speaker 1:So you really see this a great example of this with our physique competitors. You know, like bodybuilders, bikini competitors, things like that, where they have to get, you know, exotically lean for their sport to compete, and so they go through their fat loss phase. You know their contest prep and they're losing weight, all that's going good and they start getting. They start looking really good, like they're looking really lean. You know they're posting pictures and you're like man, they look amazing, they look, they look jacked, they look shredded, she looks so toned and tight and just man, and all that sounds good.
Speaker 1:But then you know, you see him in person. You're like, golly, you look amazing. You don't have an ounce of fat on you, do you? But then they pull up their shirt and you know, you know that little bit of back fat that's still there. He pinches off for a little bit of love handle fat. Or she grabs a little bit of lower abdominal fat that she can pinch. Well, that's still fat that's going to have to come off. So what they have to do is just, continually, we have to keep pushing the diet, keep staying in that deficit, keep losing weight, keep losing body fat until the body finally pulls those last fat stores and we can't influence that. So even if, like I said, their whole body outside of one or two areas looks phenomenal, but yet they're holding body fat in these two areas, they're just going to have to keep dieting. Okay, and this it sounds weird because you would think, man, like you know, you barely have anything to lose, but just to get to that last bit you got to keep going. So, like I said, that's genetic based. We can't influence where that is pulled off first or how we get that last bit off. You just got to keep going. So you know, a real world analogy for the situation is you can't drain a pool by bailing water from one corner, okay, so just let that, let that murnate a little bit, all right.
Speaker 1:So, moving on from the studies and the science, why is belly fat so stubborn? Okay, there's got to be a reason why specifically belly fat seems to be an issue for a lot of us. Or that whole tire area again, you know from, you know the love handles lower back, midsection, middle, lower stomach. Why is this such an issue, problem place for so many people? So there's about four points that you know we want to keep in mind that you may not have thought of of why belly fat can be so stubborn? Because it can go beyond just our eating and our exercise habits. Obviously, because a lot of fit people still struggle in these areas.
Speaker 1:So we need to understand, briefly, the role of hormones. Okay, and again, this is not biology class, this is not physiology class, this is just, you know, a coach, a trainer, someone who this is what they do for a living is just helping provide some information, a little backdrop on this situation. So I said, all these topics definitely want to look into more. Don't just take my word for it. Do your research, figure out if this is something that is an area of you know that you need to be paying attention to specifically. So I'm just going to kind of briefly touch on each one of these points, not going into big detail. So, the role of hormones so you have hormones like cortisol, insulin and like your estrogen testosterone balance that we want to consider how it affects belly fat. So, uh, you know hormones play a big role in where we store body fat, what type of fat we store, which I'm going to touch on that in the next point.
Speaker 1:To do the two different types of body fat, because it's not all the same. Some of it's not very risky for our health. Some of it is very risky for our health. So that's important to note as well. But you know, hormones, they all have an effect on which type of fat we store, the rate at which we store it and how easier or more difficult it is to pull this fat off. So you know, we want to just understand, at least on a base level, that our hormones do influence what our body looks like and our fat stores.
Speaker 1:All right, and, like I said, those two, you have those two different types of body fat. So you have visceral fat and subcutaneous fat. Okay. So visceral fat this is the fat that you have stored around your organs. Okay, so if you have like a screen done and that's the denser, darker fat that you see like around the organs, okay, this is a very dangerous fat to have. This is a fat that we want to have very, very minimal of, if at all possible, none.
Speaker 1:Okay, visceral fat there's some interesting things about it. One, it's basically its own organ. Okay, so it secretes hormones, it creates signals, it sends out signals throughout the body. It basically acts like its own brain system, and so one thing it does is secretes a ton of insulin, systemic or not insulin. Goodness, uh, inflammation. Okay, it secretes inflammation. So we're talking about systemic inflammation that you, that affects many, many different parts of your body and that's being released from that visceral fat.
Speaker 1:So big problem there this is a body fat that we do not want to have or we want to try to get rid of as much as possible, and what even makes this fat even more dangerous is you can't always tell it's there. So you can have someone who's very lean on the outside, they look like they're healthy and all that, but they have a lot of visceral fat and that fat is pushing in on the organs, causing them to have to work harder. Putting pressure on them can potentially damage them and all those other negative effects that I mentioned. And you wouldn't even know because they look like they're fit and healthy. So it can, in other words, be ignored for a long time until it actually becomes a problem. And now you're dealing with bigger problems that stem from this fat that you didn't even realize that you had.
Speaker 1:So subcutaneous fat, this is the fat that you see. This is the fat that's under the skin. So if you grab your arm right now if you can pinch anything outside of just that really thin skin layer. When you grab your belly, when you grab your love handles, your lower back, the flab, you know that's around your bra strap, those are subcutaneous fat stores. Okay, so this fat isn't as dangerous now. It's not healthy to have, but it's not near as dangerous as the visceral fat. It does still affect signaling and things and inflammation in the body, but a much smaller level than that visceral fat does. As a matter of fact, someone who has a lot of subcutaneous fat and very little visceral fat so they're obese on the outside but they just don't have a lot of visceral fat they actually have less risk of chronic disease than the thin, skinny person who has a lot of visceral fat. That's just how much visceral fat can really harm your health.
Speaker 1:Another thing to keep in mind is men versus women. All right, so hormonal fat storage patterns. There's a difference there, you know, with men it's typically, you know, around that tire area. Tire If you I don't know if you guys are sounds like I'm not saying tire, but like a vehicle tire wheel around. Sorry guys, been a long week around the midsection area. So, like you know, the lower abdominals, the love handles, the low back, and obviously that varies. And then, you know, women, typically around the hips, the thighs, the bra strap area, you know, and then the lower abdominal, especially if they've had children before, that tends to be a very much more problematic area for women versus for men. So there is a difference there that you want to consider.
Speaker 1:And the last point of why it's so stubborn is how much belly fat and just body fat in general is influenced by our stress, our sleep and aging. So stress, we know that stress directly impacts where we store body fat, the type of body fat we store and how easy or hard it is to remove. We also know that if our sleep is off, if we don't have very good quality sleep or duration of sleep and someone, let's say they're in a calorie deficit, they're in a fat loss phase, then sometimes up to 80 percent of the weight that's lost during that time of lack of sleep comes from muscle tissue, not fat. Okay, so big problem there that we want to try to avoid. And stress and sleep obviously both of those are tied into that situation. So making sure we're managing our stress, that we're monitoring our sleep Excuse me guys, we're monitoring our sleep. You know that we're getting. You know that seven to eight hours, that we're trying to increase the quality of our sleep and also, like I said, understand that aging contributes to this. So it our sleep. And also, like I said, understand that aging contributes to this.
Speaker 1:So it's not that like because you're getting older, you have to get fat, you have to develop a bunch of belly fat. Not the case. Obviously, they're still very fit people much later into life. But life tends to slow down. We tend to be less active. We tend to eat more. One we can afford more to. We just, you know, just kind of comes with getting older. You just go out to eat with your friends, you go out to eat with your girls, with the guys, whatever, um, and then we tend to be less active. We tend to be in the gym, a lot less things like that. So we're at a higher risk of gaining more body fat as we age, all right, so we want to keep those things in mind.
Speaker 1:So we've covered what belly fat is. We've covered why it's so stubborn, why it's so hard to get rid of. So what does that leave us with? That sounds kind of hopeless, right? Well, obviously that's not how we roll around here at the Win On Purpose podcast. We give practical things that you can do to help whatever situation we're talking about. So what actually works for reducing belly fat? All right, so we have some foundational strategies that you can try, that you can implement, that will work.
Speaker 1:Now, mind you, these are not sexy, they're not super appealing. It may sound boring, it may sound old school, it may sound outdated, but we know the things that work work. Okay, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And if it's broke, then fix it. But this is one of those situations that these things aren't broke. We just have to get better at doing them, being more consistent and doing them for longer periods of time. That's what's going to bring us the results that we want. So, like I said, it's not sexy, it's not popular, but what is sexy is results. Right, like that's winning. So that's what we're about here. We don't need all the glitz and glamor and all the popular stuff. We need efficiency and effectiveness and we need to do what works and not waste our time, because we don't have it to waste.
Speaker 1:So what are these foundational strategies? Number one caloric deficit through diet and or exercise. So we're not talking about starvation. We're talking about sustainable changes. So a reasonable calorie deficit. At Transform Health Initiative, that's what we help people do. We're nutrition coaches as well, so we help people give recommendations for nutrition, for calories, macros, all that good stuff. So you can ensure that you're in a calorie deficit and we adjust that as you go along, because the body adapts, it changes. We want to make sure that you're keeping that deficit as your body mass diminishes, from you losing body fat.
Speaker 1:Real quick, guys, if you're enjoying this episode and you like what you're hearing and this is helpful to you, if you don't mind, just real quick hitting the like button. Give us a share, send it to someone that you know, give us five stars, leave some comments. All of this engagement lets us know what type of content helps our listeners the most and how we can be the most beneficial. So, guys, help us out there. Help us get this good, sound, practical information out there to the masses to help transform more lives and create people who become who they want to become. Thanks, guys. Back to the episode.
Speaker 1:So this is so important, guys, at the end of the day, this comes down to you have a body fat issue, not a muscle issue. Your abs are not showing because they're being covered up. All right, it doesn't matter how big you are. If you put a coat on you're, you're not going to see any of that definition. Obviously, it's all covered up. It just looks like one, just you know. You can't tell what's under it, obviously. So that's the same way with our belly fat and our abdominals. If there's belly fat on top of them, it doesn't matter how much you train them, that body fat is still going to be there and it's going to be seen much more than any type of definition is going to be seen. So we need to remove body fat if we want to have a better looking midsection and have better abdominals, or better visible abdominals. And Let me put it that way.
Speaker 1:So calorie deficit at the end of the day, the good old calories in calories out, eating less than you consume that works, it's effective and it just straight up works, guys. I've seen it hundreds of times. I've done it with myself. You know, in my fat loss phases like ain't a question anymore Do calories matter? Calories in calories out work, yes and yes.
Speaker 1:Next strategy full body strength training. This helps us preserve lean tissue and boost our metabolism. So this is not, again, just train the abs because we want a flat tummy. We're just training the legs because we want more toned legs, aka less body fat on our legs. That's in case you didn't know, spoiler alert toned is not a real thing. That's not like a true definition.
Speaker 1:All toned means which, when you say I want to be more toned, I want my legs, my abs to be more toned, what you're envisioning is actually just less body fat and more muscle tissue. That's what toned actually is. You're not going to tone your belly or tone your legs by just doing exercises. You have to lose the body fat and build the muscle. We want full body because this boosts our metabolism, because we know that muscle is calorically expensive. It requires a lot of calories to upkeep the muscle, to build more muscle tissue, to preserve it.
Speaker 1:All of that, the more muscle we have in theory and in truth, the more muscle we have all over our body means the more calories we're going to be burning, even at rest, just to heal that muscle after we train, recover that muscle, heal that muscle after we train, recover that muscle and to maintain that muscle in between training and to build more muscle if we can recomp during that time. So having more muscle all over your body is going to boost your immune your I keep wanting to say immune system. It does abuse boost your immune system too, but it was going to boost your metabolism, which therefore is going to be easier to lose body fat and you're going to be able to lose it faster, with less effort, and look a whole lot better at the end of the day. Because if you're only training your legs because you want better glutes and better thighs and you're not doing anything with your upper body as you lose weight, if you do lose fat as you lose that fat, you're going to look worse and worse because your upper body is going to be flabby and weak looking and just frail and all that, and nobody wants that.
Speaker 1:We want a strong, fit, active, capable body and that's going to come through full body strength training. And then we also have high protein nutrition for satiety and muscle retention. So we need to be coupling that strength training with protein. Protein is the building block for muscles. You're not going to build muscle or maintain muscle tissue without protein. We know that when people get inadequate amounts of protein, their body is not going to be able to build back the muscle properly, it's not going to be able to build more muscle and it's not going to be able to sustain that muscle. Because, again, when we're in a fat loss phase, we're always going to be losing muscle and body fat. We just want the body fat to be at a much higher rate of loss than the muscle tissue and keep as much muscle tissue as possible.
Speaker 1:But having a high protein diet is going to help with that. Also, it's going to help you with your satiety levels, so it's going to help you feel full longer. It's going to help you be able to go longer in between meals so you're not snacking as much, getting in all those extra calories that aren't actually benefiting you. It's just going to make you feel a lot better in general. So we want to make sure that we are focusing on a high protein diet. That's going to have best outcomes for you, unless you have kidney disease or something like that. Outside of that, if you're a healthy individual, high protein, perfectly fine.
Speaker 1:Then also, another strategy is stress management. So, yes, stress management is a belly fat factor, like we talked about before with cortisol, with these hormones that are being released and just how it affects our sleep, how it affects where we burn body fat, from where we store body fat. So stress management is a very important strategy to think about. And then you have sleep quality, all right, which helps with hormone balance and with recovery. So we know that while we're sleeping, that's when all the magic is happening. That's when we're burning body fat, that's when we're rebuilding muscle tissue, rehe-healing tissue. We're, you know, getting rid of dead and defected cells in the body. There's all the magic is happening when we're sleeping.
Speaker 1:So we want to make sure that that sleep quality is good and that it's long enough Because, like I said, you know, with people that are dieting and in a calorie deficit and their sleep is off, they're getting less than that seven hour, you know, sub six hours of sleep. Then up to 80% of the weight that is lost is coming from their muscle tissue, not from their body fat, which makes them much more unhealthy in the short and long term and just look worse, even though they're getting smaller. So you know, we want to make sure those are intact and that's one thing we emphasize at THI, transform Health Initiative. Our coaching system is the four pillars of health, which you have physical activity, nutrition, you have stress management and you have sleep quality. And if we're nailing those four things, or at least we're doing our absolute best that we can at those four things, it's going to look different each day but we're doing our best to really zone in on those four areas, those four pillars, you're going to achieve your goals and you're going to keep those results for the rest of your life because you're focusing on the four things that actually matter right life? Because you're focusing on the four things that actually matter right. So those are some foundational strategies that actually work for reducing belly fat.
Speaker 1:All right, I'm going to recap those. You have calorie deficit, so losing body fat so you can reveal the abdominals that are underneath. You have full body strength training, building as much muscle all over your body as possible. You have high protein nutrition, so improving your satiety levels, staying full longer and helping with muscle retention, keeping the muscle you've been working for keeping that metabolism up and revving. You have stress management, because it does matter for belly fat. It helps regulate hormones, it helps you feel better, helps you have more energy, more focus to be able to train harder and, to you know it, it also helps with increasing willpower, because the more stressed we are. It has an impact on our willpower and our consistency and all that so very important. And then sleep quality for better hormone balance and recovery. All right, so we're getting deep into the weeds here, guys. Very good stuff so far.
Speaker 1:Next up, we're going to rethink the role of core exercises. As I've said, going and training your abdominals, going and doing core work, is not going to give you a flat tummy and make your stomach look better if you've got fat on top. We've got to address the fat. You may be thinking, well, I don't need to train my abs at all, ever, I don't. Your core strength doesn't matter, you know, because it's not going to help me lose weight, it's not going to help me have a flatter tummy. But that's not. That's that's missing the mark, guys.
Speaker 1:So let me preface what I'm about to say with the fact of I don't personally feel and I feel like the evidence backs this that we don't really have to have direct abdominal training to have great abs, to have great strong abdominals, a great strong core, if we are training with compound movements. So free weights, things like barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, those type of things. True, true resistance, not a machine. All the machines are great, but for this example, that we're doing compound movements, that we're training hard and pushing our bodies, because compound movements squats, deadlifts, you know, um, bench press, uh, rows bent over rows, all these type of movements they all force you to engage your core, they all fetch, they all force you to brace your abs and that's actually training your abdominals and training your core musculature.
Speaker 1:So the idea that, like, you have to train core and do this whole core workout to improve your posture, if you just train well, with good form and technique, you're going to naturally improve your posture because you're strengthening the muscles that are responsible for your posture okay, okay. So let's just start there. You don't have to waste all your time in the gym doing a bunch of core exercises to have a strong core. You don't need to be able to do a five minute plank to have strong abdominals. Okay, you're just going to be really good at doing longer planks, but that's not going to correlate to anything else in life.
Speaker 1:So, with that being said, core training still is important, okay, even, rather, if it's direct or indirect, through our compound movements and stuff like that. Here we tend to focus more on indirect abdominal training and core training through our compound movements and our lifts and bracing and things like that. But for certain people we have actual targeted abdominal training, depending on what we're working towards. But that's again, everything's customized here for the individual. So core training, rather directly or indirectly, is still very important. You know, it helps for with posture, it helps with injury prevention and it helps with strength, but it does not help with fat loss. Okay.
Speaker 1:So we need to re rethink our understanding of core training and why we're doing it to begin with, why it matters. So, thinking along the lines of you're training your abs for function rather than fat loss, you're training them so you can perform better. You're doing these compound movements because they make you stronger overall, because your abdominals, they're responsible for tilting your hips, they're also responsible for stabilizing your spine. You know, bring basically also bringing your body together, so bringing your legs towards your torso or vice versa. So there's lots of different exercises that mimic both of those that we utilize from um oops, sorry, guys, thought I turned my ringer off Um, so there's lots of different exercises we utilize for both of those functions, or all the functions of the core musculature and I said they're very big in our posture and maintaining, you know, spine alignment and all that. So that's why we want to make sure that we're using our core in our training, again indirectly, or we're actually training our core musculature so that they're able to do their job, which is stabilizing, keeping us strong, helping us perform movements better and preventing injury from, you know, our spine injuries, hip injuries and so on, so forth, all the way down from top to bottom. Okay, so some exercises you can do for core training, for function, things like planks, dead bugs, anti-rotation exercises, load carries like farmer carries, or just carrying anything heavy for as long as you can. Those are all great core exercises, you know. And then you have like actual abdominal training, like sit ups, crunches, ab roll outs and leg raises, knee raises and yada, yada, lots of different examples. So yes, we do encourage you keep your core strong, rather directly or indirectly.
Speaker 1:So some practical takeaways for you guys. What can you actually do with all this information? What are we summing up for you on this episode? So no, unfortunately you cannot spot reduce belly fat. Okay, sorry to burst your bubble, but I would rather you know now than waste any more time on this idea. But what can you do is you can reduce body fat over time with the right approach, all right.
Speaker 1:So what I alluded to earlier, this is something to keep in mind that whenever we train our abs without reducing body fat okay, if we're just trying to skip that step of getting leaner and we just want to build our abs and it's easier to go in and train abs for 15 minutes a day the ab, the your abdominals they experience hypertrophy like any other muscle group. Hypertrophy just means muscle growth. So the your abdominals, they experience hypertrophy like any other muscle group. Hypertrophy just means muscle growth. So the in other words, they grow like any other muscle does, like your biceps, like your quads, like your shoulders, anything else. So that causes the abdominals to protrude out further, okay.
Speaker 1:So when you see someone that has like those just washboard abs where like they're placard and like you can just see the separation and separation and all that, you know a lot of that comes from training your abs, also genetics, but you know you can train your abs. You're going to have thicker abs, so you know it's going to make them protrude out even more deeper cuts in the abs, all that. So those are all good things. However, if you have body fat on top of that, because your subcutaneous body fat is on top of the muscle, not under the muscle. So where that body fat is on top of your abdominals, under the skin, the abdominals push the body fat outward even more, making your tummy appear even larger or rounder.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you can train your abs hard, thinking it's going to give you six pack abs, but if you still got the belly on top, it's just going to make you look more and more like Santa Claus, which we don't want for any reason. So that's you know. We want to address the body fat and understand how important, how much that influences, you know, our look and our feel and all of that. And if we understand that, then we're going to be in a much better place and we're going to save ourselves a lot of heartache whenever we see that I'm training my abs like crazy, trying to get a six pack, and I just got a bigger beer belly. What's happening here? Well, that's probably what's happening. So, like I said, understand why you're training your abs, your abdominals, and also understand that you have to reduce the body fat in order to have better abdominals and because just training them alone can actually make your midsection look worse rather than looking better.
Speaker 1:All right, so we want to focus on our daily actions, not quick fixes. Okay, this is not about buying a program. This is not about buying a program. This is not about taking a supplement. This is not about a fast or a cleanse or a detox or any of that other crap out there that's not going to help you. This is about your daily actions, our lifestyle. Okay, the things that actually matter, the holistic approach.
Speaker 1:If you will eating well, you know, not overeating, being in a calorie, if not a calorie deficit, then at least having control of our calories, we're not making our situation worse. But again, this is about getting the body fat off the belly. So, being in a calorie deficit, eating nutritious foods, you know the right way, lifting consistently throughout the week, managing stress and, most of all, being patient. Okay, guys, this is not going to happen overnight. This is going to take time. You've got to be patient and allow things to work. Okay, as they say, it's cliche, but you know the saying you didn't gain it overnight, you're not going to lose it overnight. Very true, it may take, even it's going to take almost always longer to lose it than it actually did to gain it, because I can gain 10 15 pounds in about six hours of just going all in on some food, but to lose that same 10 to 15 pounds is going to take a couple months. So something to keep in mind there Be patient, take your time, understand this is a process, this is a journey, all right.
Speaker 1:And also that genetics play a role in fat storage patterns. So don't compare your journey to someone else's highlight reel. It's because Sherry lost 20 pounds and her abdominals look amazing, and you lost 25 pounds, but your belly is still big and flabby, but yet there's much improvements everywhere else. You can't compare the two because she's a different person. She has different genetics, she has different lifestyle habits and all these different things influence what's happening. Okay, even if you have the same parents, like me and my brother, we have the same genetics, same mom, same dad, we look like twins, but our bodies still respond differently. Okay, we still lose from different places. First, we're not the same on all those aspects because there's an individual component that matters, okay.
Speaker 1:So just recapping this. All right, no, you cannot crunch your way to a flat stomach, all right, but you can train and eat and live in a way that transforms your body and your health. Okay, this is about transformation and understanding that you can't just change your belly fat. You got to address all the aspects of health so you're not only just have a better looking tummy, but a better body that moves better, feels better and wards off disease as long as possible. So just know that this should be giving you encouragement, not discouragement, shouldn't make you feel hopeless. This should be encouraging you that you're not broken. Okay, you're just being misled by the myth. So you're not broken because that program or that supplement didn't take all your body fat away and just lipo your belly tongue, your tummy fat, overnight. Okay, it's not you, somebody just hustled you out of some money. But you're not broken. Okay, you just got to figure out how to create a system that's practical, that actually is proven to work, but also fits within your lifestyle.
Speaker 1:Okay, and you know shameless plug here at THI, transform Health Initiative, that's exactly what we do for people. We help you every step of the way. We set up your program for you, your nutrition, your lifestyle habits, all of that. You just check in, check the boxes each day and your results come guaranteed. So that's what we do. If you want that, hit us up. So what is the next episode? Is fasting better than regular eating. So we're going to tackle fasting. Is this the miracle way to improve our health and to get the body we want, or is it just a lot of hype and misinformation? We will find that out on the next episode. But with all that being said, guys, whatever you do with this information, make sure you do something good for yourself, something good for your health, something good for those you care about and, whatever you do, make sure you win on purpose. Talk at you next time.