Despite what you might have seen on TV, you cannot lounge your belly fat into oblivion, squeeze your way to thinner thighs, or massage yourself a perkier fanny (aka steel buns) any more than you can wish your way to Wonderland. In the vast and mysterious realm of physique sculpting, there is no such thing as fairy dust: Spot reduction is a fallacy, a farce, a big FAT lie.

Fat accumulates on your body in a pattern determined by a combination of hormonal factors, genetics, gender, and age. You will ordinarily lose body fat in the reverse order that you put it on. No matter how many sit-ups, crunches, slides, squeezes, squashes, and rolls you do, you cannot target a problem area for fat loss. Stimulating the muscle beneath the flab will not dissipate the flab, it will simply tone the underlying muscle. Of course, toning the muscle causes the muscle to grow, which ultimately stimulates fat burning, but not that specific spot fat burning.

But doesn’t “tone” mean that you’re adding muscle? And if your main objective is to reduce your size, isn’t adding more muscle counterproductive to your physique goals?

Not At All!

The muscle you add will increase your metabolic rate, which, in turn, will devour the fat from every part of your body. Plus, muscle is three times as dense as fat. In other words, one pound of fat occupies three times as much volume as one pound of muscle.

What does this mean in the context of building your dream physique? Think of it this way: If you were to exchange every pound of flab surrounding your hips, thighs, and buttocks for a pound of muscle, even though you wouldn’t lose any weight per se, your hips, thighs, and buttocks would lose about half their volume. Without losing any weight at all, you could transform jiggly hips, cottage cheese thighs, and a saggy fanny into firm hips, defined thighs, and a perky posterior.

Moreover, every extra ounce of muscle you carry stokes your metabolic rate, which, in turn, burns your fat. Current estimates indicate that every pound of muscle an individual possesses devours between 35 and 75 calories per day simply to exist – and that doesn’t even include the calories your muscles burn during physical activity. For every three pounds of muscle gained by the average individual, resting metabolic rate increases by 7 percent, and daily caloric requirements increase by 15 percent.

Muscle toning equals fat burning!

Obviously, the more muscle you possess, the more fat you will burn. Unfortunately, the billions of dollars spent marketing abdominal devices as the key to fat loss have many late-night television viewers convinced that you can crunch, lounge, roll, and slide your way to a glorious physique. In actuality, because your abs represent such a small fraction of your total muscle mass, exclusively targeting your abdominal muscles to induce fat loss is like trying to extinguish a forest fire with a garden hose.

Doesn’t it make more sense to implement a full-body routine that works all your muscles? Especially the larger muscle groups comprising your thighs, butt, shoulders, and back? By virtue of their large size, your quads, hamstrings, glutes, delts, pecs, and lats are veritable fat-burning factories. Contracting these muscles requires substantial energy expenditure and burns loads of calories.

More significantly, every ounce of toned muscle you possess incrementally raises your metabolic rate for around-the-clock fat burning. Put simply, by toning your muscles, you are implementing a vigorous fat-burning program for your entire body! And rest assured, the exercise routines described in other articles on my site will melt fat faster and more efficiently than any other workout you have ever tried.

When it comes to building toned muscles, exercise is only part of the equation. For best results, you will also need to adopt a meal plan that simultaneously supports muscle development and diverts fat storage. In this respect, adequate dietary protein is absolutely crucial. Indeed, protein tops the list as the most important macronutrient in your muscle-toning arsenal.

Lean Essentials

• Spot reduction is a big FAT lie; you can’t target specific fat deposits for shrinkage.
• Muscle is three times as dense as fat. Hence, one pound of fat occupies three times as much space as one pound of muscle.
• Every pound of muscle an individual possesses devours between 35 and 75 calories per day.
• Muscle toning equals fat burning! Every ounce of toned muscle you possess increases around-the-clock fat burning.
• Protein is the most important macronutrient in your muscle-toning arsenal.