EDITOR'S NOTE: THE FOLLOWING IS A GUEST POST FROM LIVESTRONG.COM FITNESS ADVISOR JOHN ROMANIELLO, AUTHOR OF FINAL PHASE FAT LOSS. FOR MORE ABOUT JOHN, VISIT HIM AT ROMANFITNESSSYSTEMS.COM.
You’ve probably experienced the frustrating fat loss phenomenon before. You exercise, eat healthier and lose weight...and then suddenly your success stops. Your solution? You exercise more, diet harder, or combine the two and expect to bust out of your plateau. Only nothing happens.
The reason: At some point, just thinking about “calories in versus calories out” isn’t enough.
Your better-body goals are dependent on the type of deficit you create. You see, once you’ve hit a fat loss plateau or when you’re trying to lose the last few pounds, fat loss becomes a game of hormonal balance. And if you're not taking the right approach, your metabolism slows and it becomes harder for you to transform your body.
That’s why I created Final Phase Fat Loss. It’s an inside look at what really plagues “real” people's bodies, while making sure you’re never on a diet that’s so severe that you halt your progress. (this is what typically happens)
Your hormones can cripple your physique. They don’t just determine IF you gain fat—they determine where you gain it and whether you’re able to lose if from those areas.
This is why “problem” areas exist. They are a result of your hormonal environment, and they can force your body into particular fat storage patterns.
Consider this your guide to understanding why you store fat in certain areas, and the hormones that are to blame.
THE PROBLEM: BELLY FAT
Without question, the most common type of regional fat storage is belly fat. Abdominal fat storage obviously has a lot to do with your diet and overall body fat level; but outside of that, it’s all hormones.
The villain: Cortisol—oftentimes referred to as the stress hormone. When your body is under any type of stress—whether emotional or physical—your body produces cortisol, which encourages the storage of belly fat. That means while drinking less or sleeping more can help, it’s not the end-all solution that crushes your belly fat.
What you really need is resistance training; but any type of exercise won’t do.
Remember: cortisol is produced by physical stress, and exercise is actually one of the primary means through which your body will produce this sneaky little hormone. More specifically, long-duration cardio and extended lifting sessions are what produces the most cortisol. It’s the reason why so many runners end up looking “skinny fat.” Sure they lose weight—but their cortisol remains elevated and they still look fat.
Instead, short, intense training sessions using a particular type of training modality will help to counteract the effects of cortisol; both the muscle-wasting effect and the cortisol related belly fat storage. The result: You’ll not only lose weight, but also melt body fat in record time.
THE PROBLEM: FAT IN YOUR LOWER BODY
One of the most common types of fat storage that we see in women is the "pear shape" - fairly thin on top but heavy on the bottom (and IN the bottom, if you know what I mean).This type of fat storage is also heavily dependent on the female sex hormone estrogen.
High levels of estrogen are awesome for enjoying Grey’s Anatomy and makin’ babies, but terrible for fat loss, which is why women usually have more trouble losing fat than men. However, anyone—male or female—with high estrogen levels will have trouble losing fat, especially from the lower body. In essence, the higher your estrogen levels, the greater the likelihood you’ll store fat in your lower body; mainly in your hips and thighs.
And yes, it IS possible for men to have high estrogen levels. Unfortunately, outside of having to deal with a declined rate of fat loss and lower body fat, these guys ALSO have to deal with the ignominy of man-boobs.
Fortunately, you can offset the negative impact of estrogen with certain types of training. In addition to helping you lose fat stored in the lower body, these specifically designed workouts will also be great for fat loss in general. Essentially, they’re great for burning calories and for shedding lower body fat through estrogen management. Combine the two and the result is rapid fat loss, with a heavy concentration on lower body fat stores.
THE PROBLEM: LOVE HANDLES
Probably my least favorite incarnation of regional fat storage is love handles and lower back fat. Even when I am in lean condition - I’m talking shredded pretty much everywhere else - I store some fat in my love handles and lower back. It used to take me an extra 3 weeks to get rid of it!
The reason I tend to store fat this way is because of how my body reacts to certain hormones, and because of the effect those hormones have on fat storage. The degree to which you are able to process and respond to glucose (sugar) in your body is called insulin sensitivity. The higher this is, the easier and more efficiently your body utilizes carbohydrates for energy, and the less likely you are to store carbs as fat.
On the other hand, insulin resistance is the opposite; you don’t deal well with carbs. And anything other than a low carb diet pretty much means you’re going to store more fat.
The good news is that insulin resistance (and the resulting regional fatness) can be mitigated with certain types of training. For example, with careful planning and workout progressions, you can start to whittle away at your love handles and lower back fat while you increase insulin sensitivity.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
While this knowledge alone can arm you for combat and allow you to get incredible fat loss results, there are specific training techniques that you can use to take your results to the next level.
The fastest way to release more testosterone and lose estrogen-related fat is with density training.
Training density can be defined as the amount of work you do in a given amount of time during a training session. So, if you want to increase density, you can...
(1) Do more work (sets, reps, or both) in the same amount of time
OR
(2) Do the same amount of work and decrease the time in which you do it
However, I’ve come up with a method of density training that is specific to radical fat loss. This means that not only will you produce the testosterone necessary to mitigate your regional fat issue, but you’ll also lose more fat on the whole.
Here’s how to make it work for YOUR body:
As an example, let’s pick 3 exercises: the overhead press, the dumbbell row, and the squat.
Setting these up in a circuit fashion, you perform them one after another with little rest in between. Sounds like just about any circuit training protocol, right? WRONG!
Instead of having a set number of reps, we’re going to be performing each of these exercises for TIME - you simply have to do as many as you can in a given time period. To make it easy, let’s say you did each of the above exercises for 30 seconds. In performing such a circuit, your results might look like this:
Overhead Press - 25 pound dumbbells for 20 reps
DB Row - 40 pound dumbbells for 18 reps
Squat - 100 pound barbell for 22 reps
Now, HERE is where my approach is a little different.
We’re going to take advantage of some cool things that happen in your body; triggers that will make you more efficient and more capable. To do that, we’re going to INCREASE the weight by 10-20% and try to do MORE reps.
Your second attempt at that circuit might look like this:
Overhead Press - 30 pound dumbbells for 23 reps
DB Row - 50 pound dumbbells for 20 reps
Squat - 120 pound barbell for 25 reps
Now, I know you’re having trouble believing that outcome is even possible (much less common), but I implore you, try it for yourself. You can pair any three (or four or five) exercises in a way that works your entire body, and utilize that type of training. Create two or three circuits and you'll have a fat-burning, hormone-altering workout. In fact, that's just one of three training approaches I applied in Final Phase Fat Loss, and and one of the staples of my fat loss approach.
Density Training is fun, challenge-based, burns a heck of a lot of fat, and most importantly, is one of the best training modalities around for increasing testosterone production and release. Combine all of those elements, and you have a hormonal environment that will finally burn that stubborn fat.
- Adam Bornstein
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