Exercise, fat and muscle

Apr 18, 2010

My cousin is a personal trainer in Seattle. I told him a couple years ago about the work out routine I was doing at the time and he said, "Mick, why are you doing crunches?" I said something like to flatten my abs. I sort of forget now. He said,, "You cannot target where you lose fat only where you build or tone muscle." Your body sort of decides where and how it pulls from your fat reserves on it's own. So, doing a bunch of butt exercises will not burn the fat off your butt, it will only tone and may even build the muscles in your butt... if that makes sense.

He told me that depending on what I was doing with my abdominal exercises, I could be making my stomach area BIGGER by building my ab muscles instead of toning them. Many people go to the gym and over work their abs or use weights/medicine balls and end up having huge guts that are muscle. That's great if that's what you want but many are frustrated because that wasn't the result they were looking for.

I've always kept that gem of knowledge in my mind. I do a lot of cardio because it burns calories and makes my body pull from fat stores. It doesn't matter where my body takes the fat from. Eventually, it will even itself out. I do other exercises to tighten, tone and build muscles where I want to minimize the flab. We should focus where we carried the most weight. For me, that was my waist, butt and thighs. That's why I do a lot of exercise bike and ab crucnhes. My big oversight was my upper body. I'm working on that now.

So, remember... we can't target where the fat comes off. We can only target which muscles we tighten, tone or build.

I have a female cousin who is trying to lose weight. Before she works out, she says, "I'm gonna go melt that butter!" I often dread working out. It's not my favorite pass-time. Once I start, I feel like I am doing something good for my body. When I finish, I feel accomplished. My general rule is-- 10 minutes is better than no minutes. Even when I am tired or sore, I will get on my bike and just pump out 10 minutes. If that's it, that's it. Often I will be able to do more. It's just starting that is the hardest!

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