Recent studies suggest spot reduction for fat loss might be possible through targeted workouts, but a 30-day experiment comparing this "spot reduction" approach with a diet and strength training-focused phase revealed that the latter is significantly more effective for overall fat loss and body composition changes.
Mind Map
Clicca per espandere
Clicca per esplorare la mappa mentale interattiva completa
While everyone says you can't pick and
choose where you lose fat from, [music]
some new studies are proving the
opposite. They found not only can you
target specific areas like your stubborn
belly fat, but all it takes is a simple
workout they can even do at home. But
while these new studies are actually
very well designed, I don't fully trust
the results quite yet. So, I'm testing
it myself. For 30 days we're following
the exact spot reduction plan that was
scientifically proven to work, followed
by another 30 days of regular fat loss,
measuring everything using the most
accurate device in the world, MRI. And
let me just say even as a coach and
published researcher myself, I was
genuinely shocked by the results. Oh,
oh, wow, it's really hard. It's almost
eight. But before diving into the plan,
meet my guinea pigs. This is Dennis, a
creative director, who has been
struggling with his belly fat ever since
he was a kid. And abs is something he's
always admired.
>> When I look at someone, I look at their
face first, and then I look at their
abs. I don't look at anything else. I
don't care about this, I don't care
about that. The first time Dennis came
to work,
he's he's he just said, "Jeremy, the
only thing I want is abs." Although he
works out 4 days a week and doesn't eat
much junk food, he's never been able to
get rid of the fat [music] around his
belly. And based on his MRI scan, he's
got some serious potential. So, you
actually do have nice-looking abs. Yours
are pretty thick.
>> Yeah, now that bird person say I'm
pretty thick.
>> Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is Vicky,
who's pretty active as well, but is also
struggling with losing that last layer
of belly fat covering her ab definition.
Your total body fat is 31.8%.
31.8%. >> Oh.
>> Oh.
>> Now, keep in mind keep in mind for for
girls, compared to guys,
you usually want to add like 10% to get
the equivalent, just cuz you have more
essential fat. So, when you look at your
belly specifically,
that's at 24.7%.
You actually store the least fat in your
belly compared to anywhere else.
>> Oh, interesting.
>> And for Dennis, his total body fat came
in at 17.5%
with his belly clocking in at 16%. Now,
if this new research holds up, the plan
they'll be doing should be the perfect
way to destroy the belly fat they've
been struggling with. We're going off a
a study where they found this actually
works super well.
And the idea is that if you train your
abs really hard, Mhm.
you're kind of mobilizing the fat in
that area. So, it's very interesting.
The study I'm talking about was
published in 2023, where the researchers
came up with a pretty smart plan. They
knew that before your body can actually
burn fat, it first has to release it
from the fat cell, a process called
mobilization. If that doesn't happen,
the fat just stays stored. And now,
here's where it gets really interesting,
because when you train a specific
muscle, blood flow increases to that
area, and so does fat mobilization. So,
in theory, training your abs should
increase blood flow to your belly,
helping release more fat from that area.
And that's exactly why so many people
try to target belly fat with crunches
and sit-ups. In fact, one study had
participants do over 5,000 sit-ups in
just 27 days to test this, but it didn't
make a difference. Because unlocking fat
is actually just one half of the
equation. If you release fat from
storage, but don't actually burn it,
your body just stores it again. And so,
now you're probably wondering, so how do
you burn it? And it's actually quite
simple, cardio, but at a low to moderate
intensity to maximize fat burn. And that
is exactly what this new group of
researchers tested. They had one group
simply jog for 45 minutes, whereas the
spot reduction group, the researchers
designed it so that their workout burned
the exact same amount of calories, but
their workout consisted of jogging for
only 27 minutes, and then immediately
followed it with ab training. And this
time, it worked. After 10 [music] weeks,
even though they didn't make any changes
to the participants' diets, both groups
lost a similar amount of total body fat,
but the spot reduction group, they lost
around 2.5 times more fat around their
belly. And this isn't the only study to
find this. A 2017 study tested a similar
protocol, but on arm and leg fat, and
they too found clear proof of spot
reduction. Now, as a published
researcher myself, I can tell you that
these studies are actually quite well
designed. But I did notice one big
problem. They measured everything using
DEXA scans, which is great for measuring
total body fat over time, but it's just
not precise enough to measure small
changes in specific [music] areas. That
is why we're using MRI. It is by far the
most precise way to measure fat and
muscle changes. And it's rarely used in
studies because it's extremely expensive
and hard to get access to. But in
experiments like this, it really is the
only way to be confident with the
results. We scanned Dennis and Vicki's
bodies and identified three points along
their spine to track the fat thickness
across their upper, middle, and lower
belly, as well as the thickness of their
abs just to see how they respond to
their training. And we're coming back in
30 days to see if the plan actually
works. You're going to start here. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
And all I want you to do is lift your
tailbone off the bench. Slow, slow,
slow, slow, slow, slow, slow. Now, the
plan Dennis and Vicki are following is
almost identical to the study I
mentioned earlier, just with a small
upgrade to the ab training. They're
doing four sets of weighted crunches for
their upper abs and four sets of reverse
crunches for the lower abs, trying to
increase the weight or reps every single workout.
workout.
>> The key here is you're not using your
legs to get it up. All right, good job.
>> burning. I've got a cramp. There
you go. >> [laughter]
>> [laughter]
>> And then we got to do this.
Now, if you see my previous abs video,
you'll probably recognize both of these
exercises. They're two of the most
effective movements that you can use.
And as you'll see later on, worked
incredibly well. But immediately before
their ab training, they'll do 25 minutes
of moderate intensity cardio, just like
the study did. And they're going to do
this workout every other day. But there
is one key difference between Dennis and
Vicki's plan. Vicki does not lift
weights. So, for her, it's just the
cardio and ab work. Dennis, on the other
hand, is sticking with his usual 3-day
lifting routine alongside it. And as
you'll see, that difference actually
ends up having a huge impact on the
results. But as someone who doesn't do
cardio and abs at all, Dennis was off to
a rough start.
>> I changed my cardio to a Stairmaster. I
think it's a little bit more fun. I
climbed 123 floors, and you can't say I
broke Alex Honnold's record. Whereas
Vicky went with incline walking for her
cardio. But trying to juggle it with
work has been hectic. So, it is
1:00 a.m. right now, and I'm driving to
the gym on a Monday morning, and it's
all my fault. I had a presentation due
tomorrow for work, and I I honestly procrastinated.
procrastinated.
>> But so far, both of them haven't missed
a single workout, which is great,
because belly fat can honestly feel like
a nightmare you can't escape, no matter
how hard you try, especially for men.
And there's a reason for that. After my
team and I analyzed over eight years of
DEXA scans from nearly 18,000 people, we
noticed a clear pattern. Women tend to
store most of their fat around their
hips, their legs, and their arms.
Whereas men always tend to store more of
their fat in their belly. And this
actually just becomes much worse once
your body fat gets above 25 to 30%. But
it's not just where fat is stored. It's
also how it comes off. Cuz when we
looked at fat loss across different body
parts, the belly was consistently one of
the slowest areas to change, while areas
like the arms and legs tended to lean
out first. So, it makes sense why so
many people try to target it directly.
Dennis actually saw this growing up. At
his parents' house in Taiwan, there's a
horse riding machine and even a belly
reduction machine his dad has been using
for years. Yet, his belly hasn't
changed. But if our experiment works,
this could finally give a real solution
to his problem. And so far, the early
results look promising. We're just a
week and a half in, and Dennis is
convinced his abs are more visible,
especially under some good lighting.
It's pretty good. But
But
I do still feel like
there's still a lot of fat covering it.
Meanwhile, Vicky was consistently
getting stronger with her weighted
crunches and also sticking to a rigorous
schedule. But in week two, both Dennis
and Vicky noticed something interesting.
>> I will say I do feel like I can kind of
see like upper ab definition. I don't
know if I'm seeing as much improvement
in my lower region, but for sure
in the upper ab region
you can kind of see some abs coming in
here. There's actually a reason the
lower belly is the hardest area to burn
off. There's two receptor types inside
fat cells. Alpha-2 receptors, which slow
fat release, and beta receptors, which
accelerate it. Your lower belly fat is
thought to have a much higher ratio of
alpha-2 receptors, making it slower to
burn off. But that's not the only issue.
Visible abs, they come from two things:
low enough body fat and abs that
actually pop through. Now, the upper abs
tend to be thick and pop through easily,
whereas the lower abs are often thinner
and depending on your ab genetics, you
might not really even have any. And this
is actually why we're tracking Dennis
and Vicky's ab growth with the MRI scans
to see if the ab training grows their
upper abs as well as their lower abs.
And if it does, how much that actually
helps them pop through. Now, we're just
20 days in and Vicky isn't the only one
feeling like the belly fat is coming
off. Dennis has seen some great
improvements on his ab strength and the
appearance. I'm going to do
I'm sore. Which also means he's spending
more time checking himself out in the
gym, admiring the abs he used to only
see on influencers. Back then, he was
sending me photos almost every single
night. But take a look at this. These
are two photos Dennis took on the exact
same day just with different lighting.
Influencers use this lighting trick all
the time to look better and honestly, I
do too. But it can set the wrong
expectations if you're not aware of it.
Because even when you're super lean,
you're not going to have that six-pack
shredded look all the time in every
environment. And you're going to drive
yourself crazy trying to chase that. And
this also matters for our experiment,
too. Because small differences in
lighting could easily make it look like
the protocol is working, even if nothing
has actually changed. Which is again why
we're relying on precise measurements,
so we're not guessing based just on how
things look. After a total of 375
minutes of cardio and 15 ab sessions in
30 [music] days, it's time to see
whether all this work actually made a
difference in belly fat. Well, have you
noticed anything?
>> Okay, maybe a little bit. Like
I can see like the line in the middle. >> [laughter]
>> [laughter]
>> Let's start with Dennis. After 30 days,
Dennis actually gained half a pound. But
he ended up going through a small body
recomposition. As a result, your body
fat percentage went from 17.5%
down to 17%. [music]
But how much of that fat loss came from
his belly? Well, and based on his MRI,
barely any. Most of his fat loss
actually came from his arms and hips.
His belly fat only dropped by about 0.3%.
0.3%.
So, for Dennis, more muscle, but no sign
that spot reduction actually worked. But
maybe it's because he wasn't in a big
enough calorie deficit. This is how you
get abs. And we weren't controlling for
his diet. Same protocol as a previous
spot reduction study. And that is where
Vicky's results come in handy. You
actually lost 5 lb in a month. Yeah.
That was kind of crazy. I feel like I
was eating the same, and then I went on
vacation, and then I think with work
stress and school stress, like if I
don't sleep [music] well, I don't eat a
lot. But Vicky's cardio-only approach
took a toll. Despite losing 5 lb on the
scale, 60% of that weight came from lean
mass, and only 40% was actual fat. As a
result, your body fat percentage
went from 31.8%
down to 31.5%.
Okay. Okay. I would put my money that if
you did weights on top of that, then
probably five out of those 5 lbs would
be fat. Oh.
Now, researchers have actually tested
this. While cardio plus a diet can lead
to more overall weight loss, lifting
weights ensures more of that weight
comes from fat, not muscle. [music] So,
it ends up being the more effective way
to get leaner. But, Vicky still ended up
losing a good amount of fat. Vicky saw
clear belly fat reduction, especially in
her upper belly. But, don't get too
excited just yet. When we zoom out and
look at her entire body, the amount of
fat that she lost from her belly was
proportionate to her arms, shoulder, and
legs. With some of these other areas
actually seeing greater reductions. That
said, the MRI scan of their ab muscles
did reveal something promising. Dennis's
abs showed a crazy amount of growth,
even more than I was personally
expecting. With [music] every single one
of his abs growing on average about 20%
bigger, which might explain why in the
right lighting both of them noticed
their abs bulging out more. As for
Vicky, because she wasn't weight
training, she lost size in every single
muscle of her body except for her abs,
which actually ended up growing about
15% bigger. So, for losing belly fat, it
does seem like your diet, as well as if
you're lifting weights, will determine
how much fat you lose, and factors
beyond your control will dictate where
that fat gets taken from. Which brings
us to phase two. Now, this is where it
gets interesting because the first 30
days we tested this spot reduction
theory. Yeah. Yes. Now, for the next 30
days, [music] we are just going to throw
that in the trash. No more cardio?
No more cardio, yeah. At all?
Cardio, I hate it so much. I kind of
liked it.
>> more cardio, no more ab training. Zero.
At all? No more. Zero. Zero. Oh, really?
I'm I'm going want to lose some muscle
here, though. You might. We'll see. For
the next 30 days, what we're going to do
instead is
we are going to do
diet and we're going to focus on weight
training. We'll compare the results from
this 30-day phase to the previous 30
days of spot reduction. And let's just
say the results blew us away.
>> There you go. Wow, would you look at that?
that?
>> Wow. Yeah. What is this? Now, going into
phase two, I'm expecting Vicky and
Dennis to each lose about 4 to 5 lb of
pure fat in 30 days while maintaining
all of their muscle. And their plan has
two simple rules designed to help them
lose fat as fast as possible. Rule one,
track everything [music] you eat to hit
your daily calorie target. Now, if you
take your body weight in pounds and you
multiply it by 12, that is roughly what
Dennis and Vicky are following at their
respective body weights. But if you want
a more personalized number, you can use
our calorie calculator at
builtwithscience.com, which I'll also
link down below. But how they hit their
calorie target is just as important.
They're building each meal around these
core foods, including [music] a fist
size of lean protein in each meal to
protect their muscle. But the second
part of their plan is where we fix what
went wrong, especially for Vicky, who in
phase one lost muscle everywhere except
>> [laughter]
>> I did That's it. Rebound.
Rebound.
>> It's a little embarrassing. That was
pretty good. That's not bad. That's not bad.
bad.
>> I barely moved. Oh. Vicky will be
following a 3-day full body workout to
hit every major muscle group. While
Dennis is sticking [music] to a 4-day
upper lower split. I honestly don't know
if I can do it. I know going watching
them drink and eat like
I get so hungry around 4:00 and 5:00 p.m.
p.m.
But I have to save it for later because
I don't want to go to bed hungry. Now,
even though Dennis is no longer climbing
Mount Everest every other day, cutting
food is equally as painful for him. He's
a huge foodie, eating out almost [music]
every day. And living downtown means
temptation is everywhere. Just like
Dennis, Vicky didn't exactly start off
strong. I ate 1,000 calories of dim sum.
We only got 1,500 a day. So, I went into
the party being like, "Okay, like I got
500 calories left." So, I was doing
pretty good at first. So, I just got
some spaghetti, some like Chinese
noodles as well, like cucumber rolls,
sushi rolls. Took a picture with Build a
Science app. It was 500 calories. I'm
like, "Okay, perfect." Then I had a beer.
beer.
And, you know, a few slices of pizza.
And so,
that that added up real quick. Oh, and
she forgot to mention that she ate a
cake during her workout on the same day.
But, despite that rough start, both of
them quickly adapted and got on track
with their food prep. I pre-weighed
everything. So, when I cook a meal, I
know exactly how much quota I have left
in the day. We're 10 days into phase
two. Dennis is still eating out, but
he's set on proving that dieting does
not have to be torture. I'll always ask
for the sauce on the side instead of
having it poured on the top. Sauces are
actually one of the most overlooked
sources when dining out. For example,
having hollandaise sauce poured all over
your eggs benedict can easily add 400
extra calories. But, if you keep it on
the side and dip with control, you can
easily bring that down to under 100.
>> Had the itch, and I got a matcha
self-serve. So, I logged it into the
app. It's like 300 calories or
something. Oh my god, like how do I burn
this off? And it's like 10:00 p.m.
>> This is where most people get it wrong
during fat loss. It is incredibly hard
to outrun a bad diet. 300 liquid
calories can be consumed in a matter of
minutes. But, to burn off the
equivalent, Vicky would be looking at an
hour of incline walking or 30 minutes of
running. Plus, in phase two, we
completely got rid of cardio, because
it's actually not the best tool for fat
loss. Because after doing cardio, people
tend to subconsciously eat more or move
less throughout the rest of the day. So,
in general, people often lose less than
half the weight they were supposed to
lose when cardio is a primary fat loss
tool. And again, even if you do lose
weight like Vicky did, if you're not
strength training, then most of that
weight loss will be from muscle rather
than fat. Now, to be clear, I am not
anti-cardio. It has real health benefits
and it can definitely help speed up fat
loss when you use it correctly. >> [music]
>> [music]
>> But, for the sake of this experiment, I
am curious to see the results Dennis and
Vicki can get without it. And already,
we are seeing [music] a much bigger
difference than in phase one. This is
their first 2 weeks in phase one versus
the first 2 weeks in phase two. I mean,
it's pretty clear to me that they are
losing belly fat much faster, but there
is something I'm worried about. In this
phase, they're doing zero direct ab
training. Now, yes, research shows your
abs are actually highly activated during
heavy lifts like squats and deadlifts, [music]
[music]
which both of them are doing. But, it's
still unclear if that's enough to
actually build or even maintain your ab
size. And so, at this point, I am
genuinely curious. If Dennis and Vicki's
abs start shrinking, could that
completely change how they look even
though they seem to be losing more belly
fat than in phase one. We'll find out
what actually happens at the end of the
experiment, but 20 days in, both of
their weight is dropping just like we
predicted. And more importantly, they've
seemed to finally found a diet that
actually fits their lifestyle. This is
my new favorite snack. Tuna
Tuna
and toasted rice cake. I like to scoop
out some oil. You know, every calorie
count. I also noticed Dennis made a
simple but smart change. He swapped a
lot of his fatty meat protein to lean
fish. Lower in calories, yet packs in
more protein. Vicki tried to do
something similar but ran into an issue.
I was going over my calories a little
bit. I've been eating basically salmon,
broccoli, and rice
5 out of 7 days. Now, while salmon is
great for omega-3s, it actually packs a
ton of calories from all the fat. Now,
that's not a bad thing, but for Vicki,
it was causing her to overeat. Whereas,
when you compare what 30 g of protein
looks like from other sources like white
fish or shrimp, you can get a lot more
for less. So, that's only around well,
plus the seasoning and like um olive oil
and stuff, like 500 calories or so, 40 g
of protein. So, this is really good. On
top of that, Dennis made another subtle
change at parties. He secretly swapped
his usual whiskey for tea. So, this is
my little trick. The color is pretty
much the same, and you won't make you
weird at parties. >> [sighs]
>> [sighs]
>> He even came up with a bunch of
creative, tasty, low-calorie meals. And
if you're a member of our Built With
Science Plus app, all you have to do is
scan this QR code, and it's going to
upload that recipe directly to your food
log. And with just a few days left, it
seems like all these tips and tricks
were working incredibly well. This is
kind of crazy.
They're definitely supposed to be like
nice and tight to the waist, but
they're so loose. Now, we get to the
final results in a second, but by this
point, I think it's pretty clear which
30-day approach worked best. So, even
[music] if targeting your belly fat
isn't actually possible, the good news
is you can get rid of it no matter your
genetics, and no matter how big your
belly has gotten over the years. And if
you do it right, you can see results
really quickly. And if you want a
step-by-step plan that will guide you
every step of the way, showing you
exactly how to work out and what to eat
every single week, then try out our
Built With Science Plus app for 2 weeks
free by scanning this QR code, or head
into builtwithscience.com. And now, it's
time to see their [music] final results
in person. You have like four coming in.
Holy crap.
Oh, there you go.
What is this at?
Oh, oh, wow, it's really hard. If you
like jump, look at that. Wow. But like
here, like when you jump. See here. Wow.
But this is a downside having abs. I
found myself like looking down a lot,
just like touching myself. I do want to
feel them every day just to make sure
they are still there. Okay, results.
Let's start with the
abs, okay? So, in the first part of the
experiment, your abs actually grew by
about 15%. Okay.
>> Your upper abs, middle abs, lower abs,
they all grew, okay? And then, the
second part of the experiment, we cut
out all ab exercises, but you did start
strength training. You did the squats,
you did that.
So, what happened to your abs? Well,
they did not grow, Mhm. but they didn't
really shrink. They pretty much
maintained. Okay, good. Good. That's
good to hear. As for Dennis, your abs
actually got about 16% smaller. >> [laughter]
>> [laughter]
>> Oh my god. That's a lot. Wait, how does
that work? So, you you almost pretty
much got back to the point where you
were before So,
>> doing any ab exercises. So, my theory
here is Vicky, a complete beginner who
just started strength training, got
enough indirect ab stimulus to maintain
her new ab size. Which for someone like
Dennis, who's been lifting weights for a
while, he would need to train his abs
directly and so would I. But how much
has his ab shrinkage actually affected
how his midsection now looks? Well,
let's now dive into their phase loss
results. So, in phase one, Vicky lost 5
lb, but only two of those 5 lb were from
fat, taking her body fat from 31.8% to
just 31.5%. This time,
you're down to 27.5%.
>> Yes. What? Whoa. That is a huge drop.
Wow. And that was a that was a
combination of fat loss, which we'll get
to from the MRI of your belly, but what
really brought your body fat percentage
down was the muscle gain. This time, you
gained almost 3 [music] lb of lean mass.
Wow. Not only that, but during our spot
reduction experiment phase one, her
belly fat dropped by just 3%, but this time,
time,
your belly fat dropped, on average, by
30%. 30%?
>> Yes. Dennis's result is just as crazy.
In phase one, Dennis gained half a pound
and his body fat went down by 0.5%.
But this time, after 30 days of only
dieting and strength training, he not
only lost 5 lb on the scale, but
his body fat went down to 14.4%
14.4% Wow.
Wow.
Hey, that's so good.
>> That's 3%? That's a lot in 1 month. >> month.
>> month.
Yeah, I
I was tracking everything including even
just a spoon of like peanut butter.
>> the difference, guys. People say they
track, but they don't. As for his belly
fat, the spider web from protocol in
phase one led to pretty much no change
in his belly. Just a 0.3% drop. But this
time your belly fat dropped on average
by 26.3%
>> Oh my god. Diet is everything. And
Dennis was actually so motivated from
this experiment, he's decided to combine
everything. Diet, strength training,
plus ab exercises to get to 12% body
fat. So make sure to subscribe so you
don't miss that. And give this video a
watch next if you want to learn the two
exercises that both Vinnie and Dennis
Clicca su qualsiasi testo o timestamp per andare direttamente a quel momento del video
Condividi:
La maggior parte delle trascrizioni è pronta in meno di 5 secondi
Copia in un clicOltre 125 lingueCerca nel contenutoVai ai timestamp
Incolla l'URL di YouTube
Inserisci il link di qualsiasi video YouTube per ottenere la trascrizione completa
Modulo di estrazione trascrizione
La maggior parte delle trascrizioni è pronta in meno di 5 secondi
Installa la nostra estensione per Chrome
Ottieni le trascrizioni all'istante senza uscire da YouTube. Installa la nostra estensione per Chrome e accedi con un clic alla trascrizione di qualsiasi video direttamente dalla pagina di riproduzione.
