Author: Joseph Summers / Source: Lifehack
There’s a guy in the fitness center I manage that is struggling with losing belly fat. To battle that issue, he chooses to wear a ‘fat-losing belt’ and he rubs his belly with a special ‘fat-burning ointment’. He tries to lose his belly fat for over a year now, with little to no success.
Most people think that they can spot-reduce their body fat. They want to lose weight on the belly or on the thighs only. This is called spot-reducing fat, but this is mostly a stubborn myth. Although there could still be some truth behind it. I will look into the reason why and how you can actually lose your belly fat in this article.
How fat reduction works
In biochemistry class, you learn that fat is energy dense, but a pain in the rear for your body to metabolize. Fat is stored as triglycerides in fat cells.
Fat is so hard to break down because it’s stored as triglycerides. To use the fatty acids, your body first has to cut the glycerol molecule from the fatty acids. Then put the fatty acids in the blood stream to the muscle cell, where it gets turned into energy inside the mitochondria.
You don’t have to explain every single step of this process. The key takeaway here is that using your fat as energy is what your body doesn’t necessarily want to do.
The truth behind the myth
Scientists established long ago that targeting specific areas of fat was impossible. The myth has persisted largely because of dubious infomercials that play non-stop at 3am in the morning.
But this myth actually has some truth behind it. If you touch your body part with the most fat stored, you will notice that this part is cooler than the other parts of your body. That’s because in this area there’s minimized blood flow.
Most spot-reducing…
The post The Biggest Myth About Losing Belly Fat: Can You Lose Belly Fat Only? appeared first on FeedBox.