Why Spot Reducing Doesn't Work

I hear it all the time from people who are trying to lose weight. And each time I hear it, my skin literally crawls.

It'll go something like this... "What do I do to get rid of all the fit on my....(hips, stomach, thighs, take your pick)." One of the most prevailing---and inaccurate---notions in the diet and weight loss world is that you can do a particular exercise to get rid of the fit in one specific area.

The concept is called spot reducing, and it DOES NOT WORK. Period. Here are a few examples of common ways that people try to spot reduce:

• Work abdominals to lose fat around the midsection
• Do side leg lifts to get rid of fat around the hips and thighs

As logical as these methods may seem, they and all of the other weight loss legends and fables like them are a complete and total fraud.

To understand why spot-reducing does not work, it takes some basic working knowledge of how effective weight loss is achieved.

For simplicity's sake, think of the body as being made up of 3 "levels" beneath the skin. The innermost level is made up of the skeleton. Secondary to the skeleton are the body's muscles. Then on top of all of that is a layer of fat.

This fat layer is just that. ONE LAYER. It may be in a larger supply in some areas due to genetics or gender (e.g. someone that holds most of their fat in their stomach area as opposed to their hips).

Regardless of how it is distributed, it is impossible to simply "concentrate" on ridding yourself of all the fat in one particular area in an effort to lose weight from a diet plan or any other weight loss program.

When it is burned, it is burned all at once, with those areas carrying less fat to be rid of it first and those areas carrying more of it to be rid of it dead last. So in reality, the exact OPPOSITE is actually much more of a possibility, where the place where you hold the most fat and probably want to lose weight from first will actually be the LAST area to be affected by your weight loss program.