Localized fat: how to eliminate it!
With these questions, a new challenge begins for me, as promised!
Every path is a journey… and every journey is a discovery!
The Christmas lights have now gone out towards the dawn of the new year. 2017 has finally arrived… The time has also come to start again and start to clash again with the daily frenzy. I'll do it in a new guise! I decided to leave those feelings of “laziness” and “fear of making mistakes” to 2016. I traded them in the new year with a “desire to grow up” mixed with the “desire to take risks”.
It will be a year full of commitments already planned!
I started university again, I live at the beginning of my working career and I decided to devote time to caring for myself!
They are important tests, which will take time and dedication!
Anyone who knows me knows that I face challenges with the logic of a journey in stages. By measuring the variables of my actions I evaluate the results.
Do you have in mind the feeling you get when you decide to embark on a journey?
Definitely! You look forward to the moment of departure, forgetting that your journey has already started before... The research on the net, the choice of places, reservations, comparisons… Everything you do projects you forward, starting slowly to savor all the experiences you will have. I am at this stage at the moment and I am looking forward to starting to get the first results.
Due to professional (de)formation I approach aspects of my life with this logic. To achieve my goal of getting fit, I did a lot of research and asked the opinions of experts in the field.
I want to share this milestone of my journey here because I hope it can be useful to you too.
I started with questions that would help me clarify my doubts, evaluate how to act and outline goals.
But what is localized fat?
This was definitely the first doubt I wanted to clarify. For a long time I tried to combat localized fat only through diet and little training. Nothing more wrong! I was losing weight all over my body, except on the abdomen. I got the opposite effect: by losing weight I made that accumulation of fat even more evident!
How to intervene then? Let's start from the beginning...
In order to evaluate how to eliminate that annoying imperfection caused by fat, I first had to delve deeper into what localized fat is. I peeked for a long time, between research. Here it is in the critical area that I hate so much: but what is it formed from? Why does it exist? Why there? Its function is just to make me feel guilty after a few too many sgarro?! Is my nutrition really that bad? What is localized fat then? The question comes back more and more forcefully.
I take a few more moments to observe it better, trying to penetrate the layer of skin that covers it. I imagine what my abdomen would be like if “my turtle” hadn’t “flipped over in despair”.
Journey to the Center of Fat
In a mix between fantasy and reality, here it is revealed in its true form. It's a tissue, said adipose, although many tend to define it as an “organ”, as it contains different types of cells inside.
I imagine it as if it were a big bank where it is easy to save money and the interest grows steadily.
Its main function is this actually! It's a energy storage to be used in case of need; but it also performs other important functions such as:
- impact protection and mechanical support for various organs;
- thermal insulation;
- the disposal of excess food in the form of heat;
- ...but also a very negative one… shapes our body shape.
The cells that make up this organ are called adipocytes. TOInside the adipose tissue there are modest quantities of: water, collagen and glycogen.
Adipocytes are the “keepers of the fat”. Through the blood they “trade” lipids by converting them into energy or depositing them within them. They have the ability to synthesize triglycerides and release them in the form of cholesterol and fatty acids.
From this basic information, we can begin to answer the question “But What is localized fat??”
Let's try!
Our adipocyte heritage
Each individual has a conformation of adipose tissue within their body that varies in thickness and location. It depends on many factors that have little to do with nutrition.
There are essentially two ways a body stores fat.
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Some individuals, probably the “luckiest” ones, accumulate fat in a generalized way throughout the body, even on the muscles. Usually this type of accumulation is intended for people who are younger or who have a fairly active life. Even having a few extra pounds are not very visible. Being well distributed they sometimes even appear stronger and more robust.
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Others, like me, have preferential areas of fat accumulation; in this case we are talking about localized fat.
What are the storage locations? Why?
There is a genetic predisposition, a variation in accumulation based on sex, age and sedentary lifestyle. They are mostly non-modifiable factors!
We have been carrying around the number of adipocytes in our bodies for many years. Adipocytic heritage is determined by birth, developing in the childhood period-early youth only in numerical terms. For the rest of our lives we will remain at that constant number.
There are areas of the body where the accumulation of fat can prove to be a great fortune.
In the case of women, to help them carry a pregnancy to term even in cases of famine, nature has made the preferential areas for fat accumulation the hips, buttocks, thighs and lower abdomen.
In men, however, the upper abdomen is the critical point of accumulation, as well as areas such as the face, neck and shoulders.
A man's life is measured in centimeters: here's what localized fat is
There are cases in which obesity represents a pathology. The number of adipocytes is even three times higher than the average.
In all other cases, whether we are talking about localized or generalized fat, we have a great opportunity. TOThrough our choices and actions we can fill or empty adipocytes of fat.
No scales can help, it's the centimetres that do the talking.
“But what is the localized fat?” By now, as well as me, you will be able to answer this question. Now let's try to change our point of view, to shape the reflection made to make it more suited to our expectations.
How to eliminate localized fat?
That's the real question we already had in mind from the very beginning, isn't it?
Let's start from my experience. I have already tested on myself that a generalized weight loss does not make the difference, nor a localized training, if taken individually.
After having informed myself thoroughly I understood that what makes the difference is the complementary action of the three variables mentioned above: nutrition, training and use of local products.
Nutrition, training and extra help!
THE'diet to carry out an effective action it must be “healthy”. There is no need for drastic diets or mystical fasts, in fact, they can prove counterproductive if not dangerous.
You need to learn to feed your body what it really needs, in terms of quantity and quality.
The topic of “healthy eating” deserves a separate discussion, compared to what this blog post is. There is a risk of treating the topic in an overly simplistic way that would not add anything new to what everyone should already know.
Very briefly, the points I am paying close attention to in my diet are:
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A healthy and balanced diet must take into account the individual's daily kcal requirement. If you want to start losing fat, you need to subtract about 10% - 15%. This will force your body to use up your deposits gradually and without overdoing it;
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Our daily diet should always take into account not only the kcal of foods, but above all the macronutrients that compose them. To function well, our body needs the right ratio of fats, carbohydrates and proteins;
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The choice of foods and their composition.
On thetraining I still have little to evaluate: today I will start going to the gym, training about three times a week. Not being an expert in the field, I will initially rely on the instructor, obviously!
Through nutrition and training I will increase my daily caloric expenditure and improve my basal metabolism. I will keep in mind, however, that these are activities that act, as already mentioned, mainly at a generalized level.
To act in a targeted way on the abdomen I will use a local adjuvant that helps me to stimulate the blood flow to this area. In this way I will improve local microcirculation, maximizing the performance of targeted training.
In the meantime it will also perform its main function of stimulating abdominal lipolysis. By doing so it will hit the cells in targeted way to reduce the thickness of the adipocytes located in that specific area.
From “what is spot fat” to my strategy for getting fit.
“Traveling far and wide around the world I have met magnificent dreamers, men and women who stubbornly believe in dreams. They keep them, they grow them, they share them, they multiply them. I humbly, in my own way, did the same.” (Luis Sepúlveda)
In 2017 I decided to get fit! To do this I have studied my strategy and from today I will start to get serious!
I have given you some of my plan and would like to continue sharing my progress and diving deeper into the topics covered.
What will you do to take care of yourself?
Image Credits:
Man on the road: Image by jcomp on Freepik
Abdominal fat: Image by freepik
Man Eating: Image by artursafronovvvv on Freepik
