Hands up who has a problem body area that they’d like to slim down and tone up?
Wouldn’t it be great if you could selectively lose weight from your tummy? Or upper arms, inner thighs or back? We all have our special area that we would love to fix. And we’d all love to transform into our fantasy body, such as a huge, ripped and athletic professional rugby player, or slender and graceful like a professional dancer.
But how much of our bodies can we change through diet and exercise?
Biology and destiny
Your genetics dictate your body shape:
- apple-shaped (with most of your weight around your centre)
- pear-shaped (bottom heavy)
- curvy with a well-defined waist
- straight up and down
So, if you’re naturally big-boned you’ll never look like a tiny dancer. And if you do not develop muscle easily you’ll never look chiselled.
Where you deposit excess kilos is influenced by your age, sex and hormones and your unique physiology. Also, we all have our own fat depots where our body prefers to store fat.
Women naturally carry more subcutaneous fat (fat beneath the skin) than men. It provides an effective store for the high energy needs of pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, and is the reason most women deposit fat around the hip, thigh and stomach areas.
Men tend to be leaner and more muscular with a lower percentage of body fat. When they put on weight, their bodies deposit fat in the abdomen. This is visceral fat, which triggers the release of disease-causing inflammatory molecules that can contribute to heart disease and other conditions.
Women become more prone to this dangerous abdominal fat after menopause. Their oestrogen levels decline, which influences where fat is deposited. Correspondingly, their risk of heart disease increases. Professor Clare Collins, from the University of Newcastle in Australia, says, “Watching your calories during menopause is especially important. A gain of 2kg to 3kg is normal, and this is likely to be diverted to your belly.”
More: 7 weight loss habits that are hard to break
Can you choose where you lose?
In short, the answer is no.
When you lose weight, it doesn’t just go from your problem areas, but from all over your body. You lose fat from the areas where you store it, but also from elsewhere, like your face.
Influencing factors: food, drink and stress
Although you can’t choose from where you lose weight, there are a number of factors that influence where you deposit it in the first place. In particular, you can minimise the risk of increasing your percentage of dangerous belly fat.
Professor Collins advises that reducing the saturated fat in your diet can help because this kind of fat (from animal foods like fatty meats and full-fat milk and dairy) impairs the action of insulin (which lowers blood glucose) on muscles.
Professor Collins explains, “As a result, some excess blood sugar gets diverted to fat storage and, as the belly has the biggest storage area, that’s where it will go.”
“Not drinking alcohol can also prevent an increase in belly fat,” she says. “When you drink alcohol, the body works to metabolise it before anything else, and this slows down your ability to burn fat. The body then stores the fat in the first available fat depot, and that’s your gut area.”
Stress is another trigger because it stimulates the release of the stress hormone cortisol, which also encourages the body to store fat.
Argument for exercise
“People generally like their own bodies,” says David Bergwerf. “When they decide to lose weight and improve their appearance, they generally want a better version of themselves, rather than some celebrity ideal.”
David is a personal trainer in Australia who specialises in fat loss and muscle gain. “The most important thing to bring out the best in your body is to work on your weak points. People tend to do the same exercises all the time, so some body parts become underused. For example, you could have a strong lower back but weak hamstrings. You have to work on these imbalances to enhance your full potential. You’re only as strong as your weakest part.”
According to David, his clients frequently discover that if they realign their posture, they like their bodies more. “People are often hunched over from sitting all day,” he says. “When they straighten up – and lose some weight – it improves their shape and they generally like what they see.”
“There is always a positive to various body types,” he says. “If you’re longing for something your body can’t achieve, that’s a bummer. But if you focus on the gifts bestowed on you by your genetic type, you’ll like your body more and more.”
In David’s view, a well-rounded exercise program allows you to develop your natural abilities while strengthening your weaknesses. And that will help you eliminate your problem areas and give your best shape.
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