More Myth Busting

You have probably heard of spot toning at some point in your life. You know, women who want to get rid of their saddle bags so they do hundreds of lunges or men wanting to banish the beer belly so they spend 45 minutes a day on their ab rocker. Unfortunately this is a complete waste of time for both of them because spot toning is a myth of grand proportion designed by fitness guru's who care more about your money than your flabby ass.

The sometimes frustrating truth that we have to accept is that genetics decided how our bodies will look and although we can make improvements, we cannot custom design them to look like Gisele or Mathew McConaughey - no matter how hard you work. You can work muscles in one particular area yes, but you cant pick and choose which areas you want to lose fat from. There are ways of reducing overall fat, but if you tend to hold fat in one area (usually the midsection or hips/thighs) that will probably be the last place you lose fat and the first place you will get it back. Sad, but true so you might as well get over it.

The most common case of this I see for both men and women is over weight people doing a lot of ab exercises in hopes of slimming down in that area. You can do 1,000 sit ups a day and you will not see results until you lose the overall body fat you are carrying around with you. Yes you may be strengthening that area but that will NOT result in you losing fat in those areas. You can however do both cardio and weight training to drop overall body fat and then the way your body looks is pretty much what you are stuck with. Some women gain weight in their boobs instead of their hips/thighs/ass stomach. I like to call those women lucky bitches. Thats why you occasionally do see skinny ass super models with big (natural) boobs, they just hit the genetic lottery, good for them (I just hope they have webbed feet or something too to balance that out).

The last place I lose weight is my ass and also the first place I gain weight. I have plenty of muscle in that area but it still has a nice layer of fat over it that wont be going anywhere ever, which is all good to me now. There have been previous years where I loathed my booty but we all go through the "I hate my body for no good reason phase" - unless we are Giselle although I am sure she would say she went through a stage where she was taller than all the boys and they made fun of her yada yada (it is their way of relating to us normal folk). The second to last place I lose weight is on my lower belly. When that area starts feeling gross, I know I have gained a few pounds and if I want to make it go away I need to stop eating a bunch of crap like bar snacks. It is a nice jiggly reminder.

I think it is important to go into any type of weight loss goal realistically. By that I mean you may not have as much control over how you will look as you may want, but that doesnt mean you shouldnt try either. I definitely still struggle with not being as happy with myself as I could be, but when I start looking at myself overly critical I channel it in a different direction. I may not be celulite free, but my legs can run for 26.2 miles and they can leg press over 150 pounds and thats pretty cool. When I am hard on myself it is because I know I can do better and thats motivating to me. (See inspirational ad above)