The Truth About Belly Fat

Ladies, I am sorry, but the answer to your question, “Can we do crunches, I have a trip coming up this weekend and I need to burn my belly fat?” is “Nah yo.” In some rare cases, I’ll say “No,” but for the most part, its “Nah yo,” or “Nah bruh.” I refuse to explain the answer to this question again, so listen with open ears and an open mind. Trust me, I know you have big ears, I saw that Snapchat with the bunny filter your sent me yesterday.

Ok, I digressed, sorry. Anyway, I refuse to spend an entire session of a client’s hard-earned money simply doing crunches in order to burn belly fat because that does not work and I want to do my job with absolute integrity. I assume that the logic or intuition behind this request is centered around the fact that by targeting and isolating a specific muscle group, one will eliminate the visceral body fat that conceals it. This is simply not true. The truth is that your body decides where to store fat first, and where it will remove it first; NOT YOU. Hehe, suckz 2 b u. Jk.
​
Where your body decides to store and lose body fat is very much based on genetics and biomechanics. We all seem to notice (or experience) a common trend; that body fat stores around the abdominal region in many people. Why is this?

Remember, the body’s number one job is simply to SURVIVE. So why does the body store all those nachos and Corona's in that beer belly or that pouch and how is that contingent to survival? Unfortunately for you, it makes more sense for the body to store it in the abdominal region because it is located in the middle of your body and thus requires the least amount of energy to carry around; this conservation of energy allows your body to allocate it for other survival processes. The further away you go from the center point of your body, the more distance the limb moves when the body is in motion.

Your fingers and toes then would be the least efficient place for your body to store body fat, while the abdominal region would be the most.

Another point I want to make that may seem glaringly apparent at first, but carries great significance, is that your body stores fat wherever there are fat cells. For survival reasons as discussed before, fat cells are by far the most prevalent in the abdominal region for most people, particularly males. For females, fat cells are very prevalent in both the abdominal region along with the glutes and breasts due to the fact that this will help females attract a male mate.

The body will cling on tightly to this stubborn belly fat, and so for all you weekend warriors, non-dieters, and shortcut seekers, stop being those things. Sorry, tough love from your homie. The harsh and tough reality of the matter is you need to take a whole body approach to this weight loss thing, stay consistent with your diet, weight train consistently, and adhere vehemently to a cardiorespiratory training regimen. No diet pill, cream, drug, or procedure will get you to your goal of targeting abdominal fat specifically, and crunches certainly won’t do it. Topical creams are highly (I’ll say it again, HIGHLY) toxic.

Liposuction is a more polemical and complex topic that I get asked about frequently. I will preface by saying that if one consistently over-consumes and lives a sedentary lifestyle, as a result, it slows his or her metabolism where a liposuction procedure is just a recipe for disaster. Habit change and behavior change from my observation is not an acute and simple process, especially when it comes to fitness, but instead a conscious and deliberate commitment that requires integrity and patience. This individual will most likely return to their old gluttonous ways and although will not be able to store body fat in the abdominal region, will store it in other regions with fat cells at a much more rapid rate. 6 months later, this individual will wake up and realize that an extra couple of chins and sagging triceps with a flat stomach is not really the greatest look. I am not totally opposed to surgical solutions as there are many instances where I think they are necessary for survival, or could provide necessary momentum or confidence in dire cases of obesity, but for my readers who have considered it, ask yourself if it’s the lazy self that wants to go this route, or it is the actual best thing for you.

So what then is the best progression to reduce body fat in the abdominal region? Guess what…. It’s the same way you would reduce fat in any other region:

1. Consult with an expert. (Like our chatbot, or our core content)
2. Have the expert put you on a strict and monitored diet - a lot of filtered formulas content can also help with this. 
3. Start a cardio-respiratory training program
4. Resistance train with the main focus of utilizing glycogen as your energy source (blog post about this later)