The abdomen, hips, and thighs are commonly regarded as stubborn areas for fat loss due to higher fat storage and hormonal influences. However, fat loss patterns vary among individuals based on genetics, hormones, and lifestyle factors.
Too much visceral fat can have harmful effects on your health. Fortunately, visceral fat is actually easier to lose than visible subcutaneous fat. By maintaining a healthy diet and keeping up with regular exercise, you should be able to prevent visceral fat from building up in your abdominal cavity.
Men's bodies generally respond to dieting by the loss of more weight at their trunk and women typically shed the excess weight from the hips area. The causes of it are related both to hormonal influence and the application of whole-body composition.
This means your body is actually working against you to lose weight. That's because how much you weigh is controlled by complex interactions between hormones and neurons in your hypothalamus. Your hypothalamus is the part of your brain that controls thirst, hunger, and body temperature.
One reason belly fat is so hard to lose is that it's considered an “active fat.” Unlike some fatty tissue that simply sits “dormant,” belly fat releases hormones that can have an impact on your health — and your ability to lose weight, especially in the waist and abdomen areas.
Mostly, losing weight is an internal process. You will first lose hard fat that surrounds your organs like liver, kidneys and then you will start to lose soft fat like waistline and thigh fat. The fat loss from around the organs makes you leaner and stronger.
The most common stubborn fat areas include the belly, thighs, hips, lower back, upper arms, and neck. These regions tend to store fat more easily and resist weight loss, making them challenging for many people.
Endomorphs have narrow shoulders and fat deposits in the lower abdomen, hips, and thighs. This distribution of body weight and fat makes it challenging to reduce weight and needs precise training methods.
Liposuction can offer a permanent solution to get rid of stubborn fat deposits. If you've tried diet and exercise but have areas of fat that won't budge, talk to your healthcare provider about liposuction. The safe procedure can improve your body contour, helping you look and feel your best.
The abdomen is particularly susceptible to weight gain in large part because it has more fat cells than other regions of the body. Moreover, these abdominal fat cells do not break down as easily as the average fat cells. Hence, you may notice that you still have belly fat even after trimming down in other areas.
Fat is stored in the body in different compartments. The two main compartments are subcutaneous (under the skin) and visceral or abdominal (around the internal organs). You may also hear the term ectopic fat, which is when fat “overflows” into other tissues, such as the liver, pancreas and muscles.
First, it's more difficult for your body to break down and use stubborn fat than other types of fat. This means that you'll have to exercise more to lose it. Second, stubborn areas tend to be located around your hips, thighs, and buttocks–places where there's a lot of muscle (which is very metabolically active).
Fat accumulation is most common either in the midsection or the hips, thighs and buttocks.
Losing thigh fat can be a challenging process for many individuals. Despite efforts to diet and exercise, stubborn fat deposits in the thighs often seem resistant to reduction.
The Science of Fat Loss
Think of it like a balloon losing air—it deflates, but doesn't disappear immediately. Over time, your body adjusts, but the jiggly feeling can be a temporary step along the way.
Finally, lower belly fat is largely visceral fat, which is harder to burn than subcutaneous fat (we'll discuss visceral fat more later). For these reasons and more, lower belly fat can be challenging to shed; but thankfully, we have some solutions!
So if you lose 1lb (0.45kg) a week you could hope to reduce your waistline by an inch after four weeks. Dieticians advise that if you eat 500 calories less than your daily requirement you will lose about 1lb every seven days (expect some variation from person to person).
The Surprising Truth About Fat Loss
When you lose weight, your fat is actually exhaled as carbon dioxide! That's right—you breathe out fat. The rest is expelled as water through urine, sweat, and other bodily fluids.