I get this question a lot; Someone points to their belly fat, or their dangling underarm and says “is there an exercise for this?” There is, but it’s not what you think, and there’s a reason. (Spoiler: the answer is MOVE YOUR BODY.)
Let’s think about the body containing different communicating compartments. There’s the blood compartment, the muscle compartment, the adipose tissue (fat) compartment, the organ compartment, and so on. Each compartment has a function and some are spread over many locations.
For example, let’s take muscles: their function is to contract, providing force to achieve movement. There are over 650 of them and they are located all over the body. But all muscles react the same way to hormone signals, need the same nutrients and generate the same waste products. Muscles primarily get their energy needs from glucose, tri-glycerides and oxygen which arrive to them by the blood.
The adipose (body fat) compartment is also spread around the body; mostly under the skin but also packed around internal organs for cushioning. The biggest concern I hear tends to focus on the fat layers located directly under the skin. Your adipose tissues store excess food/beverage energy once you consumed it via carbohydrates, fats or proteins. Yep, all these components of food will end up being stored in your adipose tissue if you don’t use it for energy needs. If you consume more energy than you expend, you will store it.
Sorry.
The adipose tissue compartment and the muscular compartments communicate only by the blood. Muscles call for more energy from the fat stored in the adipose tissue via hormones, which flow through the blood. No, belly fat does not conveniently leak into the abdominal muscles below to fuel them when you do sit ups.
Sorry.
In order to tap into the adipose tissue storage, and liberate the tri-glycerides to the blood stream for use elsewhere, the following steps have to occur: 1) the body needs to realize it needs more energy than it currently has floating around in the blood, 2) a hormonal response must occur to create and release the hormones into the blood stream and 3) the adipose cells must recognize the hormonal signal and respond to liberate tri-glyerices into the bloodstream; a process called Lipolysis (lipo = fat, lysis = break apart). This all takes about 20 minutes, and some effort on your part.
After 20 minutes of an increased call for energy by your muscles, (I like to call this exercise) your body will respond by tapping into your adipose tissue stores, which grudgingly yield long-term-energy molecules (aka fat). When our species was more nomadic, this energy storage process was helpful for survival. Now with most of sitting at desk jobs and burning much less energy on a daily basis, it does not serve us so well.
The solution? It’s simple: Get Moving! Move for more than 20 minutes at a time.Get your blood moving and all your compartments working together! The adipose layer will thin, your muscular layer will strengthen, and the you will be a stronger happier more balanced human. Let’s move!
You’re Welcome!
