G’day, people. Been a while, hasn’t it? Let’s start things off with something I recently wrote — Spot Reduction, aka Targeted Fat Loss, is Stupid — and you know what? I might be high on the smell of my own fart. In other words, I might be wrong. Let me explain, will ya?
Yeah, so it has been well accepted that if you want to lose fat from, say, the abdominal area, you need to lose weight overall, which means a caloric fecking deficit. Trying to lose abdominal fat by doing crunches and silly planks — spot reduction — is nonsense, we used to believe, largely proclaimed by social media fitness lunatics trying to sell fat-burning creams and shit.
And whadeya know, a recent study suggests that maybe spot reduction is actually possible. Basically, the researchers randomized 16 overweight people into two groups:
The bunch was instructed not to change their dietary habits during this study and 10 weeks later, they got together for a cup of tea to find out the results. And the results showed that total fat mass decreased in both groups but the abdominal exercise group lost significantly more trunk fat:
The researchers said to the subjects, “Thank you very much for doing this science, shmience thing, please come back never.”
The group replied, “Don’t worry, we gotchu, we will come back never because everything was going pretty well until you cunts told us to do treadmill running for 27 minutes along with abdominal exercises for another 57 minutes four times a week.”
Yep, they exercised or, in my view, were gently marinated in their own sweat, for 84 minutes 4x/week. Quite a commitment, right?
Now, just because one study says spot reduction isn’t stupid, that doesn’t mean it’s not still stupid.
That’s because while this study showed spot reduction is possible, the majority of the evidence, like this meta-analysis of 13 controlled studies, states,
“The popular belief concerning spot reduction is probably derived from wishful thinking and convenient marketing strategies, such as influencers seeking increased popularity and procedure sellers interested in increasing advertising.”
Or this study that concluded,
“Some individuals attempt to reduce their waistline by solely performing abdominal exercises possibly because of claims made by various abdominal equipment advertisements. The information obtained from this study can help people to understand that abdominal exercise alone is not sufficient to reduce waistline or subcutaneous abdominal fat.”
So, for 99% of people, my stance when it comes to spot reduction doesn’t change:
Let’s step out from Wonderland and come back to reality — if you want to lose fat from [insert specific body area here], you need to employ the power of the good ol’ calorie deficit and lose body fat systemically. The amount of fat you lose comes down to being in a calorie deficit. Not how many crunches you do.
Spot reduction is kinda like trying to take water from one corner of the tub. There is a 26 in 26 chance of you failing to do so.
I expect you have a question that goes something like…
That 1% is the population that is already very lean. I’m talking extremely low body fat percentage. It’s the people who want to lose that last bit of stubborn fat. For those miserable cunts with little to no social life, spot reduction may be real.
I’ll explain this and then you’re on your own cuz I’m tired, bored, and I want to kick back and relax on the couch watching basketball. Here goes.
As I said in the Stubborn Fat Guide, to get fat out of the fat cell, you need a certain amount of blood flow to the area you want to lose fat from. The amount of blood flow in a given body part determines how well/much fat will come out of the fat cell. Doing direct abs work could make it easier to take fat out of specific fat cells due to better blood flow.
Chances are, you’re not within that 1% of the population and specific ab exercises are not the answer to your love handles. Losing fat from all areas to eventually lose fat from one specific area is. And that’s done by sustaining a calorie deficit for a lot longer than you think.
Now, excuse me, I wanna go kill my brain cells with TV.
K. Bye. Egis.
P.S. If you’ve tried to lose weight and build muscle before but fell off the wagon because the plan was too restrictive or too confusing, or whatever the reason, I’m here to change that. Apply for 1-on-1 Coaching here and let’s start your last “Day 1.”
Originally published by me on Medium on the 5th of October, 2025
