Written on Saturday, September 6th, 2008 by Miroslav Nikolov

Spot reduction - is it possible during weight loss

Spot reduction - is it possible during weight loss In this article I will offer you a disputable topic – is it possible to achieve spot reduction during weight loss diet – losing fats where you want - or this is just a myth.

Much people still think this is possible – in the other hand most of the scientists contend vice versa.

I will take the risk to involve myself in this topic, because it is very important not only for women, but for men as well.

I want to ask you to read whole article. It is scientific and you may see it too difficult to understanding, but I promise in the end you will know all about point reduction.

During your diet you lose fats in all body parts areas, but most of all you burn fats where they are in smallest amounts. If you want to burn them where you want, you lose them there too little. For example if a woman use low calories diet she will reduce the size of the “milk glands“, but the fats in lower body half do not decrease.

Man diet helps to reduce waist size(this is good), but his abs do not become more visible. This is because he was burn fats inside the muscles (so called “visceral fats”) not subdermal fats (between muscles and skin).

Good news for both men and women is that subdermal fat is not too much – except you are too obese. If all fats you burn were subdermal fats you will be able to make visible your abs after a couple weeks of diet. It is clear that everyone wants spot reduction to be true.

If we say spot reduction we imagine opportunity to train abs or butt for example and burn fats above these muscle groups for energy. Most physiologists consider this impossible. No matter how hard you train your muscles can not “put a hand” to surrounding fats and they do not produce substances which are capable to destroy the fats. You also have to make a difference between visceral and subdermal fats.

How abs training can burn subdermal fats without “put hand” to visceral fats?

Science:
You have two sources of energy for your muscles – glycogen and triglycerides which turn into ATF (adenosine triphosphate) – the only possible form of energy for your muscles.

The second source of energy for muscles is your blood. Used carbohydrates with these formed into liver and blood enter the muscles. Together with blood also enter fatty acids which our body produce.

The fats which are into fatty acid form is stored in so called liposomes. You have to destroy liposomes by provoke dissociation of the fats – this process is called lipolyse.

So, your low calories diet will have too different consequences:

Lipolyse – in result fat will enter the blood;
Stimulate oxidizing of the fats;

The fat into our blood enter the muscle who oxidize it or burn it as a source of energy.

Spot reduction is possible if it can provoke lipolyse in definite body parts. But lipolyse can be provoked by two hormones - noradrenaline and adrenaline. You have heard that other hormones can provoke lipolyse as well as grow hormone, but they bring indirect influence.

Grow hormone for example provoke lipolyse by increasing adrenaline and noradrenaline levels. If our body do not produce these two hormones, fat loss for health organism is impossible no matter how much grow hormone our body produce.

Noradrenaline and adrenaline combine with adrenergic receptors, which exist in two varieties – alpha and beta - adrenergic receptors. Through the blood adrenaline and noradrenaline enter into different body organs combining with them if these two types of receptors exist.

These two hormones combine with liposomes if liposome’s surface contains alpha as well as beta receptors. When one of these hormones (adrenaline and noradrenaline) combines with beta – receptors, it provokes lipolyse. When it happens fatty cells enter into the blood and the capacity of the liposomes decreases – this is exactly what we want.

Unfortunately on the liposome’s surface also are alpha – receptors. When adrenaline and noradrenaline combine with alpha – receptors the lipolyse stops and liposomes preserve their volume. So, same hormones can provoke lipolyse as well as stop it.

If on the liposome’s surface are more beta than alpha receptors then adrenaline and noradrenaline will reduce liposome’s capacity and vice versa. So if you keep diet noradrenaline and adrenaline will have maximum effect.

It is obvious that we will be able to burn fats in areas where we have liposomes with many beta receptors and insignificantly amount of alpha. There fats will be burn easier, because these two hormones stimulate liposomes to burn fats and reduce their volume.
Where we have very much more fats and where is difficult to burn them are more alpha receptors and slightly amount of beta. If we do not change distribution of these receptors there will be no positive result.

This result you can achieve with products and supplements of plant origin. Yohimbine for example blocks partial alpha receptors. It can be some help that why yohimbine is popular food supplement. Another plant is ephedra – it increases noradrenaline levels.

If you take ephedra with yohimbine it will increase activation of beta receptors, without to has any influence of alpha receptors – the result is more lipolyse in areas where is easy to burn fats. In areas where is hard to burn fats lipolyse is also more, but this is not spot reduction yet.

Diet and cardio trainings also help. This combination helps to increase beta and decrease alpha receptors, but most of us already do it and keep diet, so this is not a solution as well.

If spot reduction is possible this means more noradrenaline and adrenaline delivery in definite areas. If their concentration in definite fat area can be increased, blocking alpha receptors this will lead to visible fat loss in that area.

This idea is in the foundation of weight loss creams.
I will give you example with fitness competitors.
When fitness competitors want to burn fats they combine klenbuterol (stimulate beta receptors) and yohimbine (block alpha receptors).

Is it possible to provoke this process naturally? YES, but not too strong to provoke enormous fat loss. Noradrenaline and adrenaline enter the blood from two different ways. First the hormones are produced by adrenal glands. Training of body muscles (no matter which one) helps for more blood flow into them and as you can guess noradrenaline and adrenaline come with blood as well. These hormones are contained in nerves as neurotransmitters. Muscle’s flexion increase neuron’s activity, which leads to decrease of adrenaline and noradrenaline in these area.

Theoretically it is possible to create local noradrenaline and adrenaline concentration by training, but this won’t help you to create much more lipolyse, because the hormones will find more alpha receptors in these training muscle’s areas.

But you can increase lipolyse by taking capsules yohimbine (empty stomach) an hour before training. Even then you shouldn’t expect magical results – this is just help instrument.

Summary:

Spot reduction exists, but you shouldn’t expect magic results using naturally methods;
Use your physical training as one of the tools to achieve spot reduction;
Use yohimbine as another natural tool to achieve spot reduction;
Alpha and beta receptors are the most important aspect of spot reduction;

Next time I will continue this topic with another article and offer you a Spot reduction training.

Footnote:
“Do not forget to learn more about visceral and subdermal fats.”

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