Wednesday 22 January 2014

Reality Check - part 3


I noticed a lot of people who want to lose weight or fat from a specific part only. I have also been there. Hoping for all the fat from my hips to disappear but from my experience weight loss doesn’t work like that. For a long time I focused only my lower body, I did a lot of other lower body exercises and cardio. The result was I lost weight but not only from my lower body. I lost weight overall and as my pant size went down so did my t-shirt size. That’s when I realized I had fat to lose weight from everywhere.

  1. Everybody loses weight differently. I always lose first on my waist and then on my hips no matter what exercise routine I chose where as T loses first on his legs and then his stomach. The irony is I focus more on my lower body and he focuses more on his upper body. 
  2. If you do 1000 rep of crunches everyday you will definitely have strong stomach muscles but I doubt you will actually lose fat 
  3. To lose fat you need to burn calories. Focusing on an overall fitness regime will help you burn more calories. 
  4. When you exercise the fat cells in your body release energy that’s how fat is used up from your body. But just because you are doing 500 squats doesn’t mean the fat cells from your thighs are releasing that energy.

What's bad about focusing only on one body part:

  1. You might be putting in the time but because the effort is not in the right direction it can get very frustrating because the results will not be as expected.
  2. When I was fat I was always worried about my hips as I began to lose weight I noticed my arms were jiggly that’s when I realised for the first time that arms need workout too. Now a days I have to pull back on my lower body weight training because of my weaker upper body If only I would have started with focusing on my overall fitness
  3. If you think you really need to lose weight...don’t fool yourself by thinking only one body part of yours stores all the fat because it does not.  As a kid and even in my late teens I always thought it was only my hips the rest of me was just a little over weight, still manageable. Now when I look back at my photos I realise how wrong I was. Yes my upper body was smaller as compared to my lower body but it still had loads of fat that needed to go.
What do you think? If anyone of you is trying to spot reduce please stop wasting your time, I have done that...regretted it and moved on. 
If you have not read reality check - part 1 & Reality Check - part 2 please do :)

Keep Reading I will Keep Writing 
Tanvee


9 comments:

  1. My Jazzercise instructor said once that we gain from the bottom up and lose from the top down. Don't know where she got that information but that's what she said. We do tend to focus on the lower body at the expense of the upper body. I think many of us have started doing more aerobic activities but the weight lifting is as important if not more important than the aerobics. I am in a step aerobics class but we also do floor work and lift weights. It is a good total body workout.

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    1. yes I definitely focused more on my lower body at the expense of my upper-body, now I have started lifting weights it is a good for my overall fitness for sure..thank you for your comment :)

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  2. Hi Tanvee, Great advice, as usual. Our most unfavorite fat deposits are the last to go. I've always been sort of big waisted and big thighed--and I still am!!! My shoulders were always fairly boney, even when I was fat, and they are even bonier now!!!

    As you explain, you can't exercise away fat in the ways people think. A person can change body composition but it's nothing like how the fitspiration photos would suggest. It's always going to end up your own body type, only slimmer. And nobody can out-exercise a terrible diet. I tried to do that for years, but it never worked! Super great information. Very well said. :D

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    1. Yes I was always a pear and I am still a pear..I doubt I can change it only thing I can do is be a fit pear, thank you for your wonderful comment :)

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  3. I was just going through the slide show and I am even more impressed;)
    You make perfect sense. I just miss being on track. It was so easy once! LOL

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    1. I was reading your blog...looks like you are on your way back..good luck with that..thank you for your all your wonderful compliments :)

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  4. The right foods and the right type of exercise, to suit each individual, all helps towards our successful goals.

    All the best Jan

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    1. so true Jan, right food and right exercise both very important for becoming fit overall.

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  5. Even now, it's so tempting to just kill myself doing crunches to help me somehow discover a set of abs ... but I know it's useless. Overall fitness improvement and general healthy habits are definitely the way to go :)

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