Welcome to Nacho Fitness Coach. Two friends discuss all things fitness to
bring knowledge and some opinion to you wherever you may be in your health
journey. My friend Kaylee, the beginner, almost ran a 5k once. Recently had her
first protein shake and is the proud owner of one set of five pound dumbbells.
And my friend Sarah, the expert, runs when she lifts, has racewalked dozens of
races including a full marathon and has 12 open protein tubs in the pantry. So
let's get started. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, so this podcast is for entertainment only.
If you have concerns about your health, consult a physician or other health care
professionals. So Kaylee, what do you know about spot reducing fat? I didn't know
anything about it. I saw you had it on the list of topics to cover and I was
like, I don't know what that is. I mean, I spent approximately two minutes of my
life researching what this is. My dedication. Yeah, I really gave it a lot. My
current understanding is where you attempt to remove or burn fat from a
certain area of the body through exercise, exercising specific muscles in a
desired area. So like if you want to lose belly fat, you exercise the abdominal
muscles. Like I said, I did a Google search. The very first thing that came
up was wikipedia.com saying that quote, the general consensus among fitness
experts and researchers is that spot reduction is a myth. The very next
search result was from menohenselmans.com and said, quote, new science, spot
reduction is not a myth. Unquote. Okay. Oh, one and two. So I learned that if I
wanted to be a thing that I can do, I can go to number two. I can find articles
telling me it's possible and how to do it. If I want it to be a myth, I can find
articles telling me that it's a myth and not to waste my time. Like I said, I
didn't even know this was a thing. After doing this two minutes of research, I'm
under the impression that it may be a controversial topic in the fitness world.
And I have a feeling you, I mean wikipedia was number one though. I have a
feeling you have some enthusiastic things to say on this topic. I have an
opinion. So I will give you the floor and I will be over here if you need me.
Shocker. I have an opinion about this topic. And I added it to the list because I
feel like every new client that I started to work with, they would have an area
that they're like, I just want the fat to be gone from here. And there would
literally be like a physical like grabbing of the belly, right? Or like the
thighs, or like, I just want this, this gone. I've done this to you. I mean, it's
like, how do you get rid of this? You know, when you grab it or like, I will
have women that come up to me and you know, they'll, they'll hold up their arm.
They'll hit the wings. Yeah. Yeah. Like, how do I get rid of this? And they're hitting
their like back of their triceps and it's like the bat wings. How do I get rid
of these? And I'm like, well, is that muscle or fat? You know, there's what,
what exercise should I do to get rid of this? Yeah. And my answer always is, was
that muscle or fat? And that usually gets a pretty blank stare. Yeah. It really does.
I'm like, I'm looking at you right now.
It's the exact same way. I know where you're going with this. What is this?
So that, but that is always like, it's like, I'm like, well, is that, is that a muscle
or fat? And that's like, I'm like, if you can grab it like that, chances are, and
that's probably fat. Okay. Exercises don't work the fat. Oh, they're must, they're
for your muscle. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I mean, that makes sense though. Right. Right.
Okay. So, but it also makes sense for me to think that like, okay, because that's
the thing I want to start working on is my arms. If you want to do that. Right. Right.
So I guess I thought like, I need to start doing arm workouts to get rid of that. What
are you telling me? I'm going to go with Wikipedia on this one. I'm Google search result. Number
one is my stance on this. Okay. I have not found in my personal or professional experience
that it is possible to spot reduce that. And what I actually have noticed the most based
on my own journeys as well as watching clients is it seems like the area that you dislike
the most, your number one, like I want this gone. You grab it, your belly and you're
kind of shaking whatever it's the last part to go. If you're starting like, you're like,
okay, I really want to get over my belly. So you're like, I'm going to do all the right
things. I'm gonna come, you know, I'm going to exercise. I'm going to watch my nutrition.
I'm going to try to reduce my weight. Yeah. Try to change my body composition a little
bit. Start strength training, implement some cardio, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
You're doing all the things. And it just like, it loses from your fingers first. I know.
Well, it's weird. But people are like, what? And I'm like, all of a sudden you'll notice
that your ring is getting looser. Like if you wear rings, that's always the first thing
that somebody will be like, my rings are getting loose. Like, bother me because now it's like
moving. And I'm like, well, you have fat in your fingers. See, I don't generally wear
my wedding ring and I put it on because we had an event. Yeah. Is it loose? It was very
loose. I mean, cause you lost your weight lately. So it's just like, okay, you're,
yeah, there's fat in your fingers. So for me, I always feel like you, you're losing body
fat from like all over. And it just kind of depends on where it's the thickest is where
it's going to feel like it loses the last because that's where it had like that much
to leave for. If that makes sense. So yeah, so let's pretend like I want to like target
my arms. Like that's the next thing I want to do is I want to work on my arms. Yeah.
Like that's not a thing or no, you can. Now what you can do though is if you implement
strength training, right? And you're changing the shape of your muscles under the fat. Okay.
You might start to see like a difference in like the shape. Okay. However, if you're looking
for that like toned look, so I can't. So what you're telling me is I can't burn that extra
fat on my arms by doing extra exercise. No, okay. No, like it's through nutrition. Like
it's through nutrition through moving your body, getting to the point where you're in
a fat burning stage. Okay. But when you start in that stage and you're losing it, it starts
losing from all over. You'll start to feel like your face is maybe a little bit leaner,
your chin, maybe I had six, one of my chin goes away. You know, your rings will start
twisting a little bit more one area than two. I feel like after that, the comments are always
my profits different. Okay. Well, your back is a really big like surface area and but
your note usually looking in the mirror at your back. And so you'll start to see, you
know, changes will start happening in your back. Yeah. That you don't see when you're
looking in the mirror, but then you'll go to start getting dressed and you'll be like,
Oh, that's kind of interesting. But for me, like my spots are my belly and like my like
saddlebags, like the side of your thighs, like right under your and those are the areas that
I hyper focus on when I look in the mirror and I want those to be gone first. Yeah.
For me, that's also where the largest volume of that is sitting and it just takes a lot
longer. So it sucks because you want to see progress in the areas that you're wanting
to. Yeah, this is a real bummer. It is. I know. Well, yes, I don't know. I'm done. Great.
There's no hope. I know because I was like the next thing I was going to do was like
work on my arms and know, well, I mean, you can still work on your arms. We should still
work on your arms and we have the opportunity to like be able to say, okay, you want to
change the shape of the muscle under there. And so you want to change the shape, but then
you also have to make your overall body fat percentage leaner so that you can actually
see the yeah. So I'm right. So it's a combination of what you're saying. I mean, because honestly,
I would say just from, I mean, I've been mostly running and or walking over the last six months.
And it's, I can see the difference in my legs. I mean, that's the primary muscle grouping
uses my legs, but I see it everywhere. I mean, I see the results all over my body. Have you
even picked up your five pound set of five pound doubles you have at your house? So what
have you used those for then? Okay, well, we'll save that for another podcast. No, I
have a like a YouTube video, like a upper body. Okay, I've been kind of slacking on it lately,
but so you had some upper body exercises that you were implementing to kind of work on that
a little bit. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, I mean, at least it was something to get started.
That's so cute. Is that going to make your bat on your tricep go away? I thought it was.
Well, sorry. Yeah, no, the biggest disappointment. Stopping out. I mean, that, but that is what
is so hard about all of this. I haven't, you know, it's like, that's why everything is
so confusing because you were able to find. Yeah, because I thought like, well, now I'm ready to
work on my arms. I'll start working out my arms and apparently it doesn't do anything. So that's
fine. That's fine. It's fine. I'm fine. I'm just, it's fine. I'm fine. The whole world, like,
it's crashing down all around me, but it's okay. We're going to take it one step at a time.
Right. Yeah. What I'd be interested to know what research result number two said about what the study
was. You didn't click into it. I didn't go that down. Got the summary deep into the rabbit hole.
That's true. And we only had 120 seconds of your research. Yeah, I didn't give a lot of, I didn't,
I mean, that is, it bummed me out from the get go. I was like, all right, Sarah wants to talk
about spot reducing fat. Why don't, what the hell is that? I don't know. I mean, look it up.
And one and two, complete opposite. Yeah. And then I figured, and then, yeah,
I got to reading about it and I was like, wait, I can't burn fat from my arms by exercising my arms?
What? So I just moved on. I just, I did what I needed to do, got the information I needed,
and I moved on. So then what information did you take from that? I just give up. Yeah, I'm done.
No, I just, I didn't know, I didn't know any of this. I didn't know that you couldn't just exercise
a part of your body and not like get results, get rid of, get rid of the, the fat by doing crunches.
So, but you, but so you can build muscle. Yeah, you build the muscle through the exercise. So
you want to build the muscle through the exercise. I'm back. I'm back. You're with me now again.
Okay. So there's still benefit to exercising and doing the strength training because what you're
doing then is through the strength training, your training muscle. So you can't burn
specific fat from an area. No, but you can build muscle in a specific area. Correct. Okay. Yeah,
see, so now we're back, we're back. So that's like, okay, you can build more, you can increase the
density. So it changes shape, like, you know, that's how you change your shape. But that's the
trick though, because so many people will be like, Oh, I started doing this, you know, I started
strength training or I started going to this group class and we started like lifting heavier
weights. Now I just feel like I'm getting bulky. I hear that a lot too. Or it's like, now I just
feel like I'm getting bulky. Well, oftentimes what happens in that case is muscles getting
new muscles being built, shape is changing. But there's not also then body fat that's getting
decreased. And so what's happening is your muscles just kind of like building underneath and just
pushing your fat layer out for right. So you feel like you're just like thicker and bigger.
Mm hmm. When you are you're building, you're getting more dense, but just got to lean out a
little bit and all will be good. So if that's your particular goal, I don't know what my goal is.
We're just here. We're just saying, I don't know. So yeah, no, it is definitely not something
that it does. It starts off by going in starts in the extremities. That's always the first thing
I feel like rings. Interesting. So getting looser. You know, you'll see it. You'll feel it and you
know, like your arms, your back shirts will start fitting differently. But it's those areas that
you're hyper focusing on will be like the last to go. Generally speaking, based on my experience,
which can be super frustrating, but you just got to kind of keep with it. Sure. Going
and you'll eventually get there. But yeah, I mean, that's that is the one bummer part about it,
because you just have to keep working on burning all of it and it's going to leave where it's
the thinnest first, right? I mean, it's kind of gone from everyone. And so is this the thing that you,
is this a controversial thing? Like, are there people out there that say otherwise? Okay. Yes. I
mean, I do feel like there's, well, I mean, obviously, like you got it right away. Right.
It's one of those things where it's like people will promise that they're going to science,
but it's new science. Spot reduction is not a myth. And I would love to see the science because
that's the thing by the time you see two, you say they start putting those headlines out there.
They do even like the short little paragraphs in the search results. I would recommend checking
out our show notes in the podcast to find the links to the specific articles because like,
I mean, I haven't seen which one that you were looking up. And so it's like, yeah, anytime you
see information online that's specifically referencing research or study or whatever. I mean,
you really have to do diligence on the details of what they studied, who they studied, what their
sample size was. I mean, taking some of that stuff like surface level and honestly, like, it ends up,
in my opinion, being one of those things where like, if it sounds too good to be true, right,
it's probably too good to be true. Yeah. I mean, right? Cause isn't that what everyone wants? I mean,
I guess I just always thought that's the way it worked though. You work out a certain part of
your body and just the fat just melts away. Yeah. I guess, but yeah, apparently it's different. I
mean, it's different. It's fine. I'm fine. It's fine. Muscle versus. Okay, Kaylee.
Makes sense now that you're putting it like that. It makes perfect sense. That's fine. I'm fine. I said.
You know, that's what's actually interesting too, is I look at like pictures of me from
years ago. Yeah. You know, my weight stays somewhat in a general range, except for like,
through pregnancies and stuff where it like, bounce up and came back down or whatever. But
you know, the weight I am right now, I had phases in like college that I was the same,
like physical weight on the scale. But when I see pictures, even from when I first met Dane,
I was honestly probably about the same weight on the scale as I am now. Yeah. But my face was so
round. Like it was round my body composition. Yeah. It was completely different back then.
And so that is something else too. I mean, it does it's in your face, it's in your chin,
it's everywhere. All six of my chin. Count them. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight, nine, ten, ten. Perfect. And so that is what is crazy too about it is it's,
it's not as it relates to scale weight either. It's truly kind of understanding the difference
between muscle, fat, your organs, bones, everything else. I mean, your water weight,
there's so much that goes into your overall composition of your body and how it will make
a difference. But yeah, it's your overall body fat can make a huge difference. How often do you
weigh yourself out of curiosity? I have more frequently now only because I'm in the middle of
yeah, I am really trying to like pay attention. I have weekly check ins. So right now,
I should only be doing it once a week, but I have gotten really interested in understanding
like we still eat out at restaurants and stuff, right? And oftentimes meals at restaurants will
have higher levels of sodium than if you cook at home. And I have started paying attention more to
how much I will feel water loaded right after I have a restaurant meal. And so I kind of have
been like watching that on the scale mostly because I'm like, Oh, what did I, you know,
and then it's just drink a bunch of water, flush it back out and I'm back to where I should be.
But between like if I'm not in a program with check ins, I don't really ever weigh myself.
I don't like it. But what about you? Every morning, every morning. Yeah.
Yeah. Was that was the purpose of that? I don't know. I don't know. Did it become habit? Yeah,
I think at this point, it's a habit. When did it start?
I was probably when I started to catch the 5k. Oh, so like the since the summer,
how long it had been since before then? Like how much did I weigh myself? Yeah,
not very often. Every once in a while. But I'm also like, yeah, because I'm, I know that like a
lot of it is like, you know, the day to day fluctuations are like water weight. Yeah. And
so I don't get too hung up on, I've been thinking lately, I need to switch to like maybe once a
week. Probably be a good idea. The daily weigh ins don't, you don't garner any new, you know,
the difference between one day to the next day isn't going to tell you anything. Right? It puts
a focus on a number that is maybe not most important number. Right. Right. Right. Does that
make sense? So, you know, focusing on making sure you're doing the right thing seven days a week.
And then that is like a byproduct of that. Like putting your focus on other areas. Yeah. And
then just realizing this outcome, because it is a very slippery slope a lot of times for people
that you can get like hyper focused on that number. And when you can do that, eat a restaurant and
you're water logged three pounds or whatever, or depending on where your cycle's at, like you can
have water retention through different phases of cycles with your hormones. Yeah. Cause you can
literally go from like, I mean, there can be a four, oh yeah, difference in a matter of hours.
Really? Yeah. And so if four to seven is what I would always say, I mean, you get into those
numbers. That's crazy. You're really fixed on your scale weight. Yeah. It can be really hard to kind
of shake that image. And so, you know, trying to find a way to get out of that cycle, focusing on
something else. Um, it's, it's one of those things where it's like, okay, how do you at home
test your body fat percentage? Right. Because if that's now become a marker, that's a good
number to know and understand. How do you make sure that you are building muscle of your strength
training and you're trying to change the shape while you're decreasing body fat, which would
cancel out on the scale, right? I mean, which can also be really challenging. Yeah. And that's what
I'd like. Jeremy would tell me all the time when I first started running, I'm like, I'm not losing
weight. That was my goal. I want to lose weight. And Jeremy's like, you're gaining muscle. You're
not going to, you're not going to see this decline on the scale. Yeah. No, it can be an equal swap
sometimes in it just, but that's, that is hard though. And you're not seeing that number on the
scale because we've been so conditioned, I feel like as a society or how we're marketed to.
Absolutely. That your scale weight defines you, your scale weight defines, you know,
certain goals or whatever else. But the reality of it is, is like, that's not necessarily what's
going to be the indicator of how you look in the mirror. Right. And so it could be really hard.
So body fat percentage at home, I mean, there's the most specific way is to do like in a pool
with water, which we don't have anywhere around here. There are bod pods, which actually we went
through a period of time where we did like a monthly bod pod check in. And it's like this,
it looks like this egg looking thing that the door opens. And what it does is it like,
think if I remember right, somehow it uses gravity and like takes out something with the air pressure.
I think I could totally hear, let's look it up. You Google it. BOD pod. Cause I can't remember
exactly how it works, but it just goes through and it's hooked up to a computer and it does this
measurement and it does this breakdown of your body composition. So that's the second most accurate
way to do it. I would say most people at home maybe have a scale that does bio electrical like
impedance. If you're just standing on a scale that does that, it's really challenging because
it's sending those little whatever wavelengths. What about like my, some like my your watch
watch does like bought like a body composition. It does. Yeah. I just put my two, I put my two fingers
on. What's it say? Have you done it? Yeah. What's your output? Right now. You want me to do it right now?
You can show me the history. No, you don't want to share that information.
We talk about scale weight. We're not tall we are. I don't do it like regularly. I would be interested
in how accurate it is. I think you're supposed to do it like semi-regularly, like the same time.
So it probably calibrates and like figures out like what I mean that is one thing like if you
are gonna my phone that is one way to be as most accurate with it as you possibly can is if you
do it like first thing in the morning. Yeah. And I've never I weigh myself every morning. Yeah.
What I don't do is check this body composition. You can also I don't know but I don't know what
all this means. Oh, I do. Okay. So here we go. I don't know when that date would like when the last
time I did it was also body calipers like body fat like when at the gym that I worked at like
in Kansas City it was we did body composition pinchers on everybody and I mean I just got
really used to it doesn't really matter but you're grabbing at people's fat that and you're using this
like pincher thing that measures hard pass and you have thank you. You have like a little calculator
you know formulation that you run the numbers in and it tells you a lot breakdown but here's what
you do that's really helpful with that information that gives you an idea hopefully like a general
idea of what your muscle mass is for your fat. Read my results. Okay. Here we go. All right. So we
got we got 141 your current weight and looks like you're with a normal range. Yeah. That's what I've
always kind of got. This is BMI though. See like okay. What do you want? Oh your body fat percentage
which this is really oh there we go. Okay. This is BMI. So here's actually an interesting thing.
This would be a whole nother probably episode on BMI versus body fat percentage because there's this
whole thing you know the medical community because it's really super fast and easy uses the BMI
calculation to identify some care but especially if you're something that's really dense musclarly
your BMI is not always super accurate. So okay. But okay. Body fat percentage. Oh no.
What I don't think this is probably super accurate. Why? Because I'm looking at you and I'm saying
you're probably not 35% body fat. Should I go get my I'm gonna get my calipers. I'm gonna pinch you.
I mean it's just like a road you want to go down. I mean it helps us. Do you think I don't like
I'm not that much or I don't much much much I don't think I mean I would be surprised
if but this is what is hard though about technology like this is because it's it's
you're telling me that putting my two fingers on the buttons on my watch might not give me the most
accurate. I thought this was solid. Who would have known. That's why I've never like really
put much into this these numbers because I mean no it's like I mean it's a decent benchmark but
I mean you know the hard part of this is if you would go to Google and you would say is 35 right
exactly Google that. All right. See what it comes back as and you'll realize why I don't agree with
it. So what am I saying is you're saying is a 35.1% body fat. Well that's a question mark not a
percent. Hold on. Body fat. Healthy. Try that. Just see what Google says. Say fat mass. I mean I
feel like the fat. Do you want me to actually click on click on the first result. Sure. What does it
say. Yeah. Let's see what we'll see what Dr. Google says. Okay. Dexafit.com. What is the ideal. So
it's a scan. Oh that's another accurate one. What is the ideal body fat percentage. Water Dexabod pod
that one is in there too. I don't think it's going to give me is that specific number healthy though.
Oh women. Okay. So I'm in the 20 to 40 years. Yeah. Under fat. Okay. So 20 to 40 years. Should
give you like a category under 21% healthy 21 to 33% overweight 33 to 39% obese. See. And that's
not true for you. I can tell by looking at you like if I have my calipers here and I was I got my
measurements through my little pinchers that I don't think that would be the same. So that's
that's where it's hard though. So you're saying you're like like you're attracted to me here.
Hey girl. Oh my goodness. But yeah. So you know it also the same challenge comes with like the
different scales that do the bioelectrical impedance because if you're only standing on it it's going
to run that little electrical feed and it's like going to take the shortest path possible. So usually
it's like measuring like your lower half right because it'll go up one leg and go down the other
okay to measure some of them will have like a handheld one which is a step better because then
you're like sending that little signal through your upper extremities as well as your lower.
But yeah I mean they still and I can be super accurate. So anyways but it is not possible
in my opinion. Okay. Or myself or what I've seen with clients that there is an opportunity to
to necessarily spot reduce body fat. It just kind of goes from everywhere and you just got to
roll with it. Okay. But we'll see. All right. So we don't really need to love it or hate it.
It just is what it is. Right. These are facts. I mean they're my kind of facts. Okay. I don't know.
I don't know. So it's to go off of. So I mean it just kind of is what it is. I'm bummed. This is
I'm bummed. I'm sorry. It's fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. You hate the answer. I hate the I mean I guess.
I don't know. I didn't know this was a thing. You know. I don't know. Learn something new every
day. I know. So all right. That's where we're at. Not likely. But until next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to the episode. Be sure to let us know how you feel about the topic.
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