Why You Store Fat Here, And How To Get Rid Of It

Going from this to this can take as little as 90 days. But that's just one area. Your love handles, face fat, and even the fat hidden around your organs don't all come off the same way. So today I'm ranking the 6 biggest problem areas from least to most stubborn, along with the best training and diet strategy to improve each one. Starting with the easiest to lose, but the most dangerous to keep. It's called visceral fat. And I bet you can't tell which of these 3 guys carries the most of it. Visceral fat sits deep in your belly, wrapping around your organs, pumping out inflammatory molecules linked to heart disease, diabetes, and even early death. And if you compare Eric to Brian over here, you'll see why visceral fat can be so sneaky. Both of these guys actually look pretty similar from the outside, but based on their scans, Eric carries 10 times more visceral fat, over 1,000 grams, which puts him in the high-risk category for disease and health complications. And you don't need a scan to tell if you're carrying too much of it. Andy, my video editor, is a good example. He's actually pretty skinny everywhere, but I did notice ever since moving from Ukraine to North America, mainly just his gut has gotten bigger and feels firm to touch. And it turns out he actually carries more visceral fat than Eric, higher than anyone else I've ever measured. Luckily, in just a few months, we were able to cut that down to about a third. But before we get to the solutions, How do you prevent visceral fat from building up in the first place? Well, in Eric's case, there could be a genetic component. Asians have been found to have higher levels of visceral fat, which might explain the potbelly physique that's common in many of these regions. But what's more likely happening is this. Lunch will be, I mean, whatever, you know, tuna sandwich, pizza, go to the bar, grab a burger. Research suggests that when you overeat, especially sugar and saturated fats like fatty meats, butter, and deep-fried foods, the more likely your body is to store those extra calories as visceral fat. Whereas in Brian's case, even though his weight has also been trending up over the years, he eats a much cleaner diet with less added sugar and more healthy fats from foods like avocados, fish, and nuts, which means any surplus calories Brian's eating are more likely to be put towards building muscle or just stored as regular fat. So for visceral fat, these diet changes can go a long way. But as for training, Brian does one thing both Andy and Eric don't do at all. Cardio. Since your body prioritizes health above aesthetics, visceral fat is actually the fastest to go. You can even start burning it without losing any weight. And luckily for us, back in 2023, researchers measured how effective different exercises were at burning off visceral fat, scoring them each out of 100. Lifting weights alone did help, but it was the least effective, whereas lifting weights plus steady-state cardio made it over twice as effective. But the most effective exercises were intense forms of cardio, like HIIT or fast running and hard cycling. So, even if you currently lift weights, add 15 to 30 minutes of cardio after your workouts, and for the best results, at least once or twice a week, choose a form of cardio that really gets your heart rate up. It can be intervals or just straight hard cardio. But definitely do not push yourself too hard right at the start. Robin unfortunately threw up after just 10 seconds of giving it a shot. But while these exercises can speed up the process, the most reliable way to burn off visceral fat is still a calorie deficit. And you may not even need to count calories yet. Simply cutting back on the sugary and high-fat foods we talked about earlier while adding some cardio can often be enough. That's pretty much what my brother-in-law Dayton and my editor Andy did. And within a matter of months, both of them cut their visceral fat by more than half. So on the stubborn scale, visceral fat gets just a 1 out of 10. But unlike visceral fat, which is invisible and hard to visually see progress, there is an area where losing even a tiny amount can make you look dramatically leaner: your face. Even though only 1 to 2% of your overall fat is stored in your cheeks and chin, it has an outsized effect on how lean you look. And sometimes, it's not even fat that's the problem. Let me show you. This is me at 6 PM. And this is me the very next morning. Puffier and more swollen looking. That's because right after taking the first photo, I had a big salty bowl of soup, a lot more sodium than I normally have. I then asked my editor to do the same test with me. Both our faces are puffier and just a lot less defined, but none of us gained any actual fat. What happened is all the salt we ate caused our face to hold onto more water under our skin to balance out the salt levels, puffing us up. And the biggest culprits of sodium usually come from takeout meals and preprocessed foods. And so if you simply cut back on that, you can quickly flush out the water your face is holding and look leaner within 24 hours. But after that, how do you get real of the actual face fat? Well, the good news is, compared to areas like your belly and love handles, your face is actually one of the first areas you'll notice progress during a diet. And I saw this with Madsen, who felt like his cheeks and chins genetically just stored more fat. Yet in just 30 days, I not only helped him flush out the fluid in his face, but also helped him get rid of a lot of the actual fat. And he didn't even have to start counting calories. He just followed a couple simple rules. First, instead of eating out almost every single day, he started eating most of his meals at home using whole unprocessed foods. And second, instead of drinking calories from things like bubble tea and lattes, he switched over to calorie-free options like herbal teas, diet sodas, and Americanos. And we also had Melody follow a similar diet, which I'll link the full video to down below. And this was her result. Their cheeks are slimmer, their skin looks healthier, and even their jawlines are more defined. So on the stubborn scale, face fat gets a 3 out of 10. But there is another area where, just like the face, losing more fat isn't the only solution. It's the upper body. But the exact problem area here isn't actually the same for men and women. Because after analyzing over 100 DEXA scans from participants I've worked with, I noticed a pattern. For every single female scan, the body fat percentage in the arms was on average about 3.1% higher than their total body fat percentage. Whereas for men, it was the opposite. Arms actually scored on average 4.2% below their total body fat. Visually, it seemed like most of their upper body fat instead seemed to be around their chest, which might explain why so many guys complain about having man boobs. But the fix for these 2 areas is the same, and it doesn't just have to do with losing fat. See, muscle is what gives a body part shape. Without it, fat just sits there and spreads out. And it's actually one of the main causes behind a skinny fat physique. It's not that you're carrying a ton of fat, it's that you don't have much muscle either. So the little fat you do have just looks more loose and undefined. So using exercises that build the right muscles underneath these areas can change how lean or toned they look even without any fat loss. But let's start with the arms. Most women's complaints are the back of the arm, the part that hangs and jiggles when you wave. Well, underneath that fat is the long head of the triceps, which most people's gym routines overlook. As this area seems to respond and grow best to overhead extensions, Either with dumbbells or cables. Ever since my wife started doing these twice a week, she's definitely noticed this area firm up and just feel less loose. Whereas for chest—

I've always like been able to build lower chest but not upper, so it looks like I just kind of have tits, to be honest.

Most guys simply need more upper chest work, as it makes the chest look higher and fuller, creating the illusion of less sag. And your best options here are incline dumbbell presses, plus one of my personal favorites, Machine flies but with a slight lean forward to target the upper chest. A good idea is to put these exercises at the beginning of your workouts from now on while reducing some of the volume you currently do for lower chest exercises like flat bench press and dips. That said, building muscle only solves half the problem here. To reveal the definition and lines that you're probably after, do what we did with Luke and my brother-in-law Dane— combine it with a calorie deficit. And because these areas require more fat loss than the face-to-nose difference, you'll want to build on the strategies we covered earlier. And you might not even need to start counting calories just yet, but I would start with this: add 1 fist-sized serving of lean protein to every meal, as this is going to help support muscle growth while also keeping you fuller so you naturally eat less. And then to increase your daily calorie burn, combine that with walking at least 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day. And so while this area requires a bit more work, it's still very doable, putting upper body fat at a 6 out of 10 on the stubborn scale. But in the next area, The fat cells themselves seem to respond differently, which is why so few people ever get rid of them.

Love handles.

Now, the reason for their stubbornness comes down to receptors. Within your fat cells, there's 2 types of receptors. Think of them as jail guards who decide whether your fat should be released or not. Beta receptors are super chill. If your body needs energy, they'll release the fat without giving you a hard time. Whereas alpha receptors are the opposite. They won't let your fat go unless there's a dire need for it. And part of why we think fat from the face, upper body, and even the deep belly fat come off easier is because they have more of these chill beta receptors. In fact, back in 1987, researchers actually measured the receptor balance in different types of fat. In the deeper visceral fat, there was almost a perfect 50/50 split between the strict receptors and the chill ones. But in the fat right under your skin, like your love handles, 60% were strict, and only 40% were chill. And while you can't spot reduce this fat, there is one way to make your love handles look smaller before they're actually gone. It's called a V-taper. So building your shoulders with lateral raises and your upper back with pull-ups can widen your upper body, creating the illusion of a narrower waist and less obvious love handles, well before the fat there actually goes away. But to actually shrink them, you still need to lose overall body fat. And because they're so stubborn, you typically won't start noticing much progress until you get below 20% body fat for men and below 30% for women. And to get there, just eating healthy usually isn't enough. If you multiply your body weight in pounds by anywhere between 10 to 13, that's gonna give you a very rough idea of how many calories you should eat to lose fat. Which means at this stage, it would be in your best interest to actually start tracking. For example, when I first started working with Luke and his wife Nicole, I had them both start eating 12 calories per pound of their body weight, and they also used the Built with Science app, which adjusted their calories over time based on their progress while giving them workouts to build their V taper. Now, at first, their love handles barely moved, but after about two months, they finally started coming off. And after four months total, this was the result. So even with an app that takes care of all the guesswork for you, which you can try completely free for two weeks by scanning this QR code or heading to builtwithscience.com, getting rid of love handles—it's. It still takes time and consistency, giving them the highest stubborn score so far, 8.5 out of 10. But even after 4 months, there is still one small pocket of fat Luke couldn't get rid of. It's usually the very last place to lean out and the final boss of fat loss, the lower belly. Now, for women, this area can actually be faster to get rid of because they tend to store less fat here compared to men. And you can see that pretty clearly with Nicole and Luke. After dieting for the same amount of time and losing a Similar relative amounts of fat, Nicole's belly fat was almost completely gone. But Luke, even at around 15% body fat, had visible upper and middle abs while the lower belly fat was still hanging on. That's because unless you genetically just store less fat in this area, most guys will need to get down to around 10 to 12% body fat for this area to really lean out. And unlike what you see on social media, that is not very common. Our team analyzed DEXA scans from more than 9,000 American men and only one reached 12% body fat. Now, that doesn't mean it's impossible. I've done it, many of our app members have done it, and with a few more months of dieting, Luke could have as well. It's just so rare because the leaner you get, the fewer calories your body naturally burns every day. And so you often have to eat even fewer calories and/or do more steps or cardio than before just to keep the same calorie deficit going. And obviously these numbers are gonna vary for everyone, but most average weight guys that I've worked with, by the time they get to this stage, they're taking at least 10,000 steps a day and eating fewer than 2,000 calories a day Just to keep fat loss going. And unlike other areas where you can speed up fat loss just by going harder, by this point you've actually already lost a lot of fat from the easier areas. And so if you go too hard, instead of tapping into lower belly fat, your body might actually start pulling from your muscle instead. And so a good rule of thumb here is to multiply your body weight by 0.007. That is the maximum amount of weight you want to lose every week. And so if you weigh 160 pounds, that's around a pound a week. And just keep in mind that even for me, when I'm around 10 to 11% body fat, there is still a little bit of lower belly fat that I could obsess over losing if I wanted to. And so first, just decide whether losing that final little pocket is actually worth it. And if it is, you just have to be more stubborn than the stubborn fat itself, which puts lower belly fat at a 10 out of 10 for stubbornness. But I will say, if you're lean enough, one thing that can help your midsection look better without actually losing more fat is by building and growing your abs. So give this video a watch next for the 2 exercises that'll help you do just that. See you next time.