Can You Spot Reduce Fat when you’re over 40?
Is the fitness fantasy of fat loss where you want it, about to make the leap from fiction, to fact?
Spot targetting of fat is becoming a reality.
THE BRIEF
Time to read: 4 minutes 40 seconds
Time to action: 20 minutes (gym session)
Mantra: Believe to achieve
Main message: It’s a small step towards a big big goal
Stat: 63.8% of the UK is at least ‘overweight’. Ouch
Seeking perfection isn't dull, but paradoxically, achieving it can be. Perfection exists around us, undeniably. However, in humans, it’s the journey of seeking perfection that makes us interesting. Even with great works of art or nature’s genuine wonders, the backstory gives it substance. The struggle gives it empathy. Your fitness journey is exactly the same.
Archaeology of 40+ fat loss
Good-shape-to-great-shape is terrific, but average-to-good, now that's both a story and a journey. The Nirvana of this personal narrative is often found in seeking the holy grail of health - spot reduction. It’s that mythic idea that you can target the one area of fat that bothers you most and reduce it disproportionately from the rest of your body. Like Indiana’s quest for the Holy Grail, the long-held belief has been that it isn’t possible. But, here’s the plot twist: there are new studies to suggest that, just maybe, this fantasy might be true. We put some top men on scientific research to see if the fitness Ark of the Covenant might be possible.
40-year-old spot reduce fat
In your 40s, your metabolism hasn’t slowed yet. That comes after 65 years old. That said, fat cells have various receptors (alpha or beta) that will tell your cells to burn fat and others to store fat. The betas encourage fat to be burnt. Alphas ask it to be stored. The most significant player in creating a more favourable alpha-beta ratio is insulin, as stubborn fat is more insulin sensitive, setting your fat cells into storage mode when you eat a high-carb diet, hence the fascination with a low-carb diet and exercising while in a fasted state. That explains why research discovered we burn up to 20% more body fat by exercising in the morning on an empty stomach. You’re exercising in a fasted state. Your body has no other option but to draw energy from your stored fat reserves.
New science old spot reduction
The late strength coach Charles Poliquin created a system called the ‘Biosignature Modulation Method (BMM)’ that keys into the dream of spot reduction. This system takes your hormonal profile from 12 specific spots on your body to figure out which hormones are out of balance so that through supplementation, diet, and strength training equilibrium is achieved. This might sound like the recipe for all body fat reduction, but here’s a breakdown of how his system works.
HORMONE ABNORMAL SKIN FOLD MEASUREMENT
Cortisol Umbilical (stomach)
Insulin Supra (love handle), subscapular (upper back)
Estrogen Quads, hamstrings
Testosterone Pectoral (chest), tricep
Growth hormone Knee, calf
Thyroid Mid axillary (upper abs below end of ribs)
40-Year-old spot reduction tactic
It’s a pretty out-there concept and not without its critics who attempt to cite a lack of scientific evidence. There is mounting research that found hormones have a role in deciding where you store fat. Even stress and its accompanying hormone, cortisol, can cause excess abdominal fat storage. These papers lend credibility to Poliquin’s work. If you’re having problems shifting fat in a particular area, get your body fat measured by a professional. Next, get your hormones and blood tested to see if there is a correlation between your body fat and where you’re storing it in large quantities.
Spot-reduced leg fat
Fat storage is, in theory, simple: eat more than you burn, and you’ll create a surplus that gets stored in the places you want it least. A 2007 study measured changes in fat mass during high-rep knee extensions. After 30 minutes of doing knee extensions with one leg, subjects switched legs and did knee extensions for 120 minutes using more weight. Blood flow and fat breakdown were most significant around the working muscles. The take-home message: specific exercises can cause ‘spot reduction’ as blood flow and fat use are higher in the adipose (fat) tissue closest to working muscles.
Spot reduction myths
Spot reduction works, just not by enough of an amount for your abs to pop after a few sit-ups. It’s like taking a few grains of sand off a beach. It highlights that there is another mechanism at play: blood flow. This is best when the most significant flow is around the working muscles and has proven essential for fat extraction. Poor blood flow to areas such as your abs and obliques creates poor fat loss from those areas. Adipose (fat) blood flow doesn't increase enough to allow the delivery of all the fatty acids released into your blood supply. If you increase the blood flow to a particular body part, then you improve the ability to burn fat in the surrounding area. So for you to spot reduce fat in a specific area, you will need to do excessively high reps.
Do sit-ups don’t hope for too much
A more innovative way to workout is to use high-intensity cardio, famously for burning calories. High-rep abs work and cardio create the blood flow that drives a localised fat-burning effect. Over time, this will make the right conditions to lose fat from your target area. You won’t exclusively lose fat from, say, your stomach. Instead, you’ll lose it everywhere, but you will use more triglycerides (fat) around your target area.
The trick with this, or any ‘spot reduction’, workout is to intersperse a fat-burning activity, such as interval training, with high repetitions of an exercise that targets the area you want to lose fat from. Alternate between 5-10 minutes of the cardio exercise and 1-2 minutes of the strength training exercise that targets the area in which you want to lose fat. Be aware: this strategy is unlikely to be a good fit for someone substantially overweight but will yield results for someone in reasonable shape. If that sounds like the 40-year-old you, you’re in a good place to spot reduce, in correlation with overall weight loss. Possibly not the win you were looking for, but still - a win.
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