I was wondering if your body gets whatever is considers the “low hanging fruit” first and would remove visceral fat last.
If so are there targeted diets for that specific fat?
No. You cannot target areas to lean out. This also holds for exercise: doing sit-ups will not burn the fat off your abs. The fat will also not necessarily come off evenly. Sometimes it does, sometimes the saddlebags stay until the bitter end even when your ribs are clearly visible. Genetics does play a role, but it can be dealt with.
(I’m a trainer and physiologist and helping people to lose fat is something I do.)
It’s true that doing sit-ups won’t help you target your belly fat, but it does make your abdominal muscles stronger and more able to keep your belly from protruding, so in effect it can make your belly look much flatter even without losing the fat.
Agree: for most people, the beer gut is more pronounced because of the laxity of the front abs (also causing a hyper extended spine which causes back pain), it’s not all just fat. So, proper training and strengthening of the abs will help pull those things back in line, but won’t do much for burning off fat.
also causing a hyper extended spine which causes back pain
I’m a massage therapist for context. If I had a dollar for every client I’ve had that I wish I could tell “Your back would feel better if you had any strength in your abs and something more than a Hank Hill ass” I’d be able to afford a very long vacation
It’s so confusing when the OP puts opposite questions in their title and their post.
I just read the title, then saw your comment, and was confused why you said “No” then explained how the answer is “yes”. Then I read the post to see OP mixed things up, lol
so they do whatever?
The only way to target belly fat is with estrogen pills
What does that mean?
Estrogen causes distribution of fat to move from visceral to subcutaneous. That’s the reason “beer bellies” are usually seen on men, and why women usually have a “softer” or curvier physique. For overweight trans people, fat distribution can be a source of dysphoria. A lot of trans women are upset to have big bellies, and a lot of trans men are upset to be curvy. Hormones will change a person’s fat distribution in a couple of years. The matter of where under the skin subcutaneous fat settles, though, isn’t changeable by hormones.
Interesting. Is there a specific estrogen that causes that? I know that I used to get Arimidex (an aromatase inhibitor) from my doctor along with my weekly testosterone cypionate shot to block the aromatization into estradiol.
I know that excess estradiol levels can do other weird things in men too, like gynecomastia.
I don’t know which estrogen does that
Not sure why people down voted you for not knowing… :/
Plenty of women put on belly fat too though. Most of us aren’t the hourglass type. I do understand what you are saying though, thanks.
Belly fat is a combination of visceral and subcutaneous. Even if you mostly have subcutaneous fat, a lot of that can still be on the belly. The difference is that visceral fat is among the organs and contributes to organ failure risk. It’s also below the tummy muscles. Subcutaneous belly fat is above the tummy muscles. This is why a man’s belly is more likely to be hard, while a woman’s belly is more likely to be soft.
It’s different for everyone. There’s no real way to control it, and anyone telling you otherwise is full of it.
Not by diet or by exercise.
By liposuction!
Well, the can also harden and mold said fat now.
Looks weird as hell, though.
BS Biology, former ISSA trainer: The simple answer is - fat mobilizes globally, prioritized by access to circulation. The last 3.5% of body fat is brown adipose, which you can’t lose, but if you could, you’d die from hypothermia.
Cool, I’ve got a related question. Do people have varying amounts of brown adipose and can they develop more of it through training? I’ve heard that exposure to cold for long periods of time causes your body to produce more brown adipose fat.
Good question. It’s very likely safe to assume that we have an adaptive variance for these kinds of things, but it would still be a very small range. If you’ve heard it, it was probably supported by a study that indicates that correlation. For the most part, it’s something you’ll almost never even see. Iirc, the minimum healthy, functional bmi for men is 5%, 12% for women, as I was taught years ago. Anything below those ranges and things start to get weird, or it would take great effort and water/diet restrictions to maintain. The point being, anyone who says they’re 0%, or even like 3%, has no idea what they’re talking about. Thanks for having this discussion with me!
I think that some bodybuilders get to close to that minimum at competition, but they’re also really close to death. And a few have died due to the side effects of the drugs they take to get down that low (esp. diuretics). This might be different now though; HGH has been doing weird things to pro-level BBers. Used to be that they’d use shit like 2, 4-dinitrophenol (DNP), which does really weird shit to your metabolism and can very, very easily kill you if you dose too high. Especially since it takes about two weeks for that dose to catch up to you.
I was at 7% (measured on a fancy scale, not the bathtub method) as a male high school long distance runner and I was basically a fastish skeleton. I don’t think that would be a healthy BMI for me twenty years later, even if I could maintain it!
I was advised by a doctor to turn the water to cold periodically in the shower to increase the amount of brown fat the body produces. I take it with a grain of salt, but cold tolerance does seem to be a thing and that could be a mechanism for it.
Why hypothermia? I thought fat is needed for hormones to work correctly and going below 4% will deregulate your entire system.
You kind of answered your own question. There are a lot of conditions and feedbacks needed for stasis. As any are pushed to or beyond their limits, a cascade occurs, having catastrophic effects. Body temp regulation is one of the most dire, as we can’t survive for long below a certain temp. Regarding that, burn victims can actually die from hypothermia if not treated immediately following 3rd degree burns, due to the amount of fat and skin cells lost to burns. I hope some of this made sense. I’m digging deep to remember, but it’s been a while. Cheers
Usually on diets where you go from a carb heavy regimen to less carbs:
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first you lose water weight as electrolytes start to balance due to the change in insulin levels
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the body removes fat from organs as first priority (sometimes called visceral fat). The body does not want to store fat in organs, but it does so only if it can’t put fat anywhere else. Once you start to lose weight it comes from here first.
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then we are at generalized weight loss, which is different for everyone.
Source on carb count making a difference?
The body spends “easy” energy first (carbohydrates) and resort to burning fat when it really has to
Thats a myth, here are some videos by a guy with a PhD, any sort of calorie deficit will result in fat being burned, unless you manage to break the laws of physics and create energy from nothing.
https://youtu.be/ot8Q8YceRNo?si=Lu7XR1DFNPnKcCft
calorie deficit
Eating enough carbohydrates to cover your energy need isn’t a deficit. I meant what I said, the body uses what it has available but prefers “easy” sources
i have no idea what are you talking about at this point, the question was if there is a way to target weight/fatloss, there isn’t one.
That wasn’t what I was talking about.
well thanks for your off topic contribution then I guess.
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/keto
Here’s a good summary article, hover over any of the circles in the article to see the scientific sources
If you prefer just the data this is a better article
No source there for lowcarb lowering visceral fat first
Any fat loss should come from your organs first. The only reason fat is stored in your organs is because your body is unable to store it any other place.
fat loss should come your organs first.
I think OP asked for information not guesses
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=visceral+fat+loss+on+keto&btnG=
You’re a very negative person, it’s very difficult to have a conversation with you. You ask implicit questions, and then get angry when people answer the question to the best of their ability but wasn’t what you intended.
Keto has no bearing on the loss on visceral other than it helps people lose fat. In any circumstance where your body has an opportunity to reduce fat, it comes out of the organs first. Because fat in the organs is extremely unhealthy.
Calorie deficit helps people lose fat has nothing to do with Keto, you can gain weight in Keto too
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You can somewhat target certain types of fat if you’re a heavy drinker and stop drinking.
Especially soda. Men literally drop pounds after stopping within weeks.
Does soda really cause the same build up as alcohol? Lol
At 40g of sugar for 12oz/355ml you bet. It’s way worse than people realize.
Yes, but alcohol causes a specific type of fatty build-up around the liver area IIRC.
Just having a lot of sugar wouldn’t do the same thing in the same way
Depends on your DNA AFAIK and you can’t really decide
It is to some extent a last in, first out inventory system. So if you only recently put on weight in the middle then yes likely you will lose that first.
If you only/mostly have excess fat in your belly, yes you will lose more of that, but no, you can’t for example keep the fat on your boobs and ass and lose it only in your belly. No.
In general, what went on first, comes off last.
No, what’s on second.
Who’s on third.
I don’t know.
Third base.
Who’s there.
Last*
There is some research that shows that aerobic exercise can have a positive effect on visceral fat:
But it’s not all too straight forward
There are probably more studies that show both positive and inconclusive evidence for exercise and changes in visceral fat because that kinda how science is…
