Fat Loss Products: If it sounds too good to be true, it is!

Remember that old saying our moms used to tell us whenever we felt cheated in life?

I​'m of course referring to the phrase: “If it’s too good to be true, it is”. Scamming people into buying useless products is a multi-billion dollar industry, and the fitness industry is no stranger to scammers trying to get rich off of the public’s ignorance. Whether it’s a new exercise equipment or a new diet pill, these scammers are constantly coming up with new and clever ways to sell their products to people. We are never going to be able to stop scammers from selling their products. However, we can educate ourselves about how the human body works and be able to identify and protect ourselves from them. As the old saying goes: Knowledge is power.

Scam: The claim that this product will burn fat from the belly/buttocks/waist area.

We’ve all see it this claim. The scammers use it to sell you exercise equipment or diet pills that claim "spot fat removal". They hope that you don’t know enough about how the human body works so that they can take your money. The truth is that there is no such thing as spot fat removal. What that means is that no matter what you do, you can’t tell your body where to burn fat from. So let's discuss why it's false when the advertisement says that their product will give you a thinner waist.

Let’s look at how the body really breaks down fat when it is active. You have 4 energy systems that your body uses to convert food into energy. Think of them as 4 gears that your body uses in order to meet your energy requirements. Gear #1 is used when you do a short burst of intense exercise movements. Gear #2 is used when you do a longer burst of exercise movements. Gear #3 is the most dominant gear and is used predominantly throughout your workout. Finally, Gear #4 is the gear that breaks down fat in order to produce energy. This gear is used during rest state and during very high intensity cardiovascular exercises such as HITT workouts like Tabata. When fat starts to break down into energy, it comes from all over the body. For women, the last place it is drawn from is the buttocks/hips/waist. This is due to the fact that women naturally are prone to store more fat in their buttocks and hips to give birth to healthy offspring. Fat is stored all over the human body, and therefore, it breaks down into energy from all over the body. The extend to which one area of the body loses fat more than others is completely hereditary. So there you go. Next time you see an advertisement that promises you thinner waist or firmer hips, just remember that localized fat loss is impossible.

Now let’s examine how you ACTUALLY lose fat around the belly/hip/buttocks area. Let’s again go back to talking about those gears your body uses. I said that your body breaks down fat to produce energy in Gear #4. I also said that your body uses Gear #4 during rest and under very high intensity cardiovascular exercises. So let’s think about how we can use this knowledge to burn fat the right way. If the body tends to use Gear #4 at rest to burn fat, then by increasing your rate of metabolism, you would increase the rate of fat burning at rest. The best way to do that is to build muscle. Building muscle automatically increases the body’s rate of metabolism because of the high energy demand that is required to maintain muscle. As you recall, Gear #4 is also used during high intensity cardiovascular exercises. So in order to burn fat, your workout program must be high in intensity in order to push the body into the 4th gear. Typical boot camp style classes, endurance classes, and HITT classes such as Tabata will definitely do the job provided that you are fully engaged in the exercises that the instructor provides.

So to summarize, there is no such thing as localized or targeted fat burning. The only way to burn fat is to build stronger muscles and also incorporate high intensity exercises in your workouts.

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