Targeting Belly Fat Is POSSIBLE?! (New Study)

Everyone wants to lose that stubborn belly fat. Problem is, you can't choose where your body burns fat from every time you work out. Or at least I didn't think you could. According to a new study, targeting belly fat may not only be possible, but also much easier than we all thought. In this video, I'll share exactly what researchers have found and how you can apply it to your own training. Now, my belly has always been the hardest area to lose fat from. Even when I lose weight, it seemed like the fat there just wouldn't budge. But this got me wondering. Why is belly fat so stubborn? First place? Well, I looked into it, and I'm glad that I did, because once you understand this, all the new research makes a lot more sense. You see, to burn fat, your body first needs to release it from the fat cell, a process known as mobilization. Once you've mobilized the fat, it can then be burned off for energy. But how exactly do you go about mobilizing it? Well, when you strength train, you don't just strengthen your muscles, you also increase blood flow to the fat that surrounds the muscle you're working. And this is one theory why belly fat can be so hard to get rid. Compared to the fat in other areas of your body, it tends to receive very little blood flow. Not to mention, we also tend to train our abs less frequently than other muscles. Think about it. Your quads and hamstrings are used all the time. Running, squatting, walking, you name it. They're some of the largest muscles in your body, and so they receive a large increase in blood flow when you're working out. But your belly? Well, not so much. So this good researchers think it if you can boost blood flow to your abs, could you then specifically target belly fat during exercise? And if you could target your belly, why stop there? Theoretically, by increasing blood flow to the right spots, you could reduce fat in any area that you chose. Theoretically. To find out, I reached out to my good friend Dr. Bill Campbell, who runs a lab dedicated to fat loss out of the University of South Florida.

I've been asked a lot, can you spot reduce? And my answer has always been no. The research that exists is not very strong, and most of the research that's been done on this has suggested or reported that it's not possible.

After digging through endless research papers, I've come across all sorts of funny and in some cases, just plain out weird experiments. Researchers have tried to get to the bottom of this question. One study had participants do over 5,000 sit ups in 27 days, which honestly Might be more than the rest of us have done in our entire lives. Another one had participants do 12 weeks of high intensity leg pressing on one leg, all to answer the question, can you choose where you burn fat? But neither study found a notable difference in fat loss. And because of this, most researchers, including Bill, were skeptical about the idea of spot reduction.

People would, let's say, do, you know, hundreds and hundreds of crunches? And they would say, well, now I'm going to have a defined midsection. And my response would be, well, that's not really how it works.

However, as it turns out, there was one thing that pretty much all of these studies overlooked. Remember how I said you need to mobilize fat before it can be burned off? Well, there's two parts to this process. First, mobilizing it and then burning it off. The issue with the past studies, such as the 5000 sit ups one, is that while they may have mobilized belly fat, this doesn't necessarily lead to burning at all. But this is where a 2023 study comes into the picture. They wanted to test a routine that could do both.

Yeah, so the results did surprise me. Just relying on my past knowledge, my thoughts were, I don't expect any type of spot reduction outcome to be reported, but that's exactly what was reported. And the design was good.

Basically, researchers divided 16 overweight men into two groups. One focused on spot reduction and the other, the control group. Both followed a four day workout plan for 10 weeks. The control group did 45 minutes on the treadmill each session. Meanwhile, the spot reduction group had a shorter 27 minute treadmill workout followed by two ab exercises, torso rotations and machine crunches. Now, this study was unique because it was also the first of its kind to make sure that the same amount of calories were burned in both workout groups.

And this is a big problem with a lot of prior research. If you don't equate the calories being burned, you don't have much faith in whatever body fat outcomes are being reported, because it could be that they just burn more calories and of course they're going to lose more fat.

So what happened? Well, after the 10 weeks, both groups lost a relatively similar amount of total body fat. But what was surprising was that the spot reduction group lost two and a half times more fat from around their belly than compared to the control group. What's also interesting is that the treadmill only group also lost more fat from their legs than the spot reduction group. And if the spot reduction theory holds true, well, then this result makes Sense, since they did more in it. But of course, this study doesn't come without its limitations.

One of the criticisms of the study was, well, they had more fat to start with, which they did, but they still lost like 3% more total fat in the trunk area. It was like 7% versus 4%. So even when you account for the fact that this spot reduction group had more fat to start with, they still lost significantly more fat, even accounting for baseline levels.

And although the workouts were tightly controlled, the nutrition wasn't. Personally, I don't think this is too big of a concern, given that both groups lost a relatively similar amount of overall fat. But it is something that would have made the study a lot stronger. But hey, it's not just a study. Other recent studies on spot reduction have also shown promising results. In 2017, there was a similar experiment. Researchers had one group perform an upper body workout, then followed up with 30 minutes of cardio. And another group did a lower body workout followed by the same 30 minutes of cardio. Both groups performed the same number of exercises, sets and reps, and they did this three times per week. After 12 weeks, both groups lost a near identical amount of total body fat. But again, what was interesting was that the upper body group lost more fat in their upper body and the lower body workout group lost more fat in their lower body. And More recently, in 2021, another study found something similar. Just like the 2023 study. Their idea was to use abs exercises to mobilize belly fat and then combine it with cardio to burn that fat as fuel. And they too found promising results, mainly in the upper belly area. Again, the studies do have their limitations, all studies do. But this research is still exciting to see, and I'm sure a lot more will be done in this area. And what's nice is that the results of these studies still offer some practical takeaways, which you can immediately start using in your workouts. Before I get to them, though, let me say this. If losing belly fat is your goal, then you need to be in a calorie deficit to get the best results. It's highly unlikely you're going to be able to gain weight while simultaneously spot reducing fat in your belly. What the studies do suggest, though, is that if you're doing AB work, you should probably combine it with some form of cardio either shortly before or after to get the most bang for your buck.

Yeah, yeah, there's there. It has to be of such an intensity and or duration that it actually causes an increase in what we call oxidation where you're actually burning the fat as an example. You couldn't perform these studies and go for a three minute walk and come back and think, oh, I should have spot reduction.

Other thing is that if spot reduction does work, then it seems like some abs exercises are better than others.

I don't see planks as targeting the abdominal region, the abdominal muscles, as much as crunches and abdominal torso rotation. I would suggest, and again, being a scientist, rely on the data that we have, both use crunches and one use crunches and abdominal torso rotation. So I would think yes, the, the abdominal exercise does matter.

So if I was designing a routine to better target belly fat, I'd use direct weighted abs exercises combined with low to moderate intensity cardio, which could look something like this. I'll be honest though, I'm still not 100% convinced and neither was Bill when I spoke to him. These latest studies have definitely opened my mind to spot reduction being possible and, and it seems like future research could be promising, but it's definitely not enough for me to go about planning spot reduction into most people's routines. That said, on my recovery days, I have been using those two abs exercises and slapping on some cardio either before or after. Who knows, maybe this is giving me the spot reduction effect, maybe it's not. But even if it's not, I still highly recommend that you regularly train your abs and with weight. Once I started training them consistently, they seem to appear more visible even during bulks where my body fat was increasing. And after all, they're just like any other muscle group and growing them can help with definition. But guys, just remember that most of your results will still come from the basics. And losing belly fat heavily depends on your diet. In fact, most people completely underestimate just how many calories are in their usual food choices. And this is why even people who eat clean and work hard still struggle to shed their belly fat. To help with this, I worked with our lead dietitian Kelly to show you how you can eat twice as much food while keeping the calories the same. And you can check out that video here. And for those who want more step by step guidance with both their training and nutrition, just head on over to builtwithscience.com to take our quiz to discover what approach is best for you and your body. Thanks so much for watching and see you next time.