As spring turns into summer and the weather warms, women all over the country will try on their bathing suits for the first time this season … and then they’ll spend the next month kicking themselves for every treat they’ve indulged in over the past six months.
Belly fat is one of the most frustrating things imaginable. Why do we have to store fat in our midsection, right where it’s most unsightly? Picking up a fitness magazine or browsing the diet section of the bookstore isn’t helpful, because every title makes it seem that belly fat wouldn’t even be a problem if you followed their twenty-seven simple steps. “Flat Abs by Friday!” “Eat Your Way Thin!” they admonish. Well, I already do crunches until the cows come home, but it still doesn’t result in the toned stomach I want. Every fitness and health expert seems to have some miracle cure for belly fat, and in a nation where obesity is on the rise, it seems like every week there’s a new fad diet that’s promising instant results. Unfortunately, getting rid of belly fat is not as simple as magazines and those naturally skinny people would have you believe.
The Fat Zone
Hormones direct our body to store fat as a reserve energy source, and it accumulates in our midsection for a very simple reason: ease of transport. Fat stored around our ankles or in our forearms would be cumbersome and would make moving around difficult, and since the fat is for extra energy, expending extra energy in order to move wouldn’t make much sense. Storing fat in the midsection isn’t just a human problem; cats, dogs, and most mammals get pudgy tummies, too. We store fat near our stomachs because excess weight there is easy to accommodate.
For women, subcutaneous fat also builds up around our hips, buttocks, and breasts because these curves help us attract a mate. Anthropological studies have found that a woman’s waist-to-hip ratio of about .8 is extremely attractive to males, and pear-shaped women’s bodies with fat in the proper places are considered comely and desirable, as well as indicators of fertility and health. How much fat we store is largely genetic. If our parents were trim and lithe, there’s a good chance that we are too. Parents who are prone to protruding paunches can pass on those genes to their children, as well.
Another big reason we store fat in our midsection is because that’s where the fat cells live. For the most part, people have a set number of fat cells in their body, comprising those that they were born with and those that developed during childhood. The fat cells, called adipocytes, don’t grow in number, but they do grow in size. If we take in more calories than we expend, then the cells get larger as they store more energy. Losing weight only causes the cells to give up their energy reserves; it doesn’t cause them to disappear. Even extreme diet and exercise don’t reduce the number of fat cells, they only reduce the cells’ size. Physically removing the cells is the only way to eliminate them from the body, although it can have surprising results. Those who undergo abdominal liposuction not only find that the fat returns, but that it returns in unexpected places. Since the surgery removed the original fat cells, the body is forced to find new places to store its extra energy, whether that’s in the upper arms or with the addition of a chin or two.
Bidding Belly Fat Bye-Bye
For those trying to lose weight from their midsection, there are few things more frustrating than watching every part of the body slim down except for the stomach. Unfortunately, because evolution and biology have directed our bodies to store fat in our abdominal area, it’s often the last place that we can lose weight. It’s hard to beat belly fat because our bodies fight so valiantly to keep it. Men usually lose weight in their faces, chests, thighs, and buttocks before losing the gut. Apple-shaped women with more fat on their midsections than their lower bodies usually lose weight in the same progression. Women who are pear-shaped usually find that the hardest areas to trim are hips and buttocks, and they see their faces, breasts, and arms slim down first.
