The Myth of Spot Reduction

Everyone has a body part that they think is the best. On the flip side, they also have the body part that they would probably sell their first born for in order to change (not really, but I have to throw some humor in here somewhere). The truth of the matter is, there is no such thing as spot reduction. You can’t focus on burning the fat from one body part. It just doesn’t work that way. To burn fat, you must burn it over the entire body through a combination of weight training (yes ladies, lifting weights!), cardio, and a healthy diet.

Doing just one of those three you will not produce changes. You must do a combination of them to see results. Fat cells are released by the body to be burned for energy, and unfortunately, you cannot choose which part of your body the fat comes from.

You also can’t focus on lifting for one body part in hopes that the fat will come off of it. Take your abs for example. You can do 1,000 crunches a day and still not have a visible “6 pack.” That comes from…you guessed it! Cardio, diet, and weight training. Many times the muscle you focus on when you try to spot train is so small that you aren’t doing your body a bit of good. When you try to target the larger muscles then you inevitably hit the smaller ones.

So the next time you hit the gym with every intention of focusing on one small muscle, work the whole body part instead. You’ll not only hit the area you’re trying to improve but you’ll increase your overall level of fitness!

What's in a Calorie?

They’re so small, but they add up so quickly. I would go over the technical definition of calories, the chemistry of a calorie, and calories versus kilocalories (which is what we actually use to quantify our food) but for the sake of brevity, I’ll just say that a calorie is measured as the amount of food energy per unit of mass. Calories equal energy.

Grams of fat, protein, and carbohydrates have caloric values. Fat has nine calories per gram, while protein and carbohydrates have four each. This means that something with five grams of fat, 20 grams of carbs, and 10 grams of protein would have 165 total calories (45+80+40).

If you want to lose weight, your calories consumed must be less than the calories burned. Three thousand five hundred calories equal a pound. So if you want to lose a pound a week then you need to cut an average of five hundred calories a day from what you consume, or burn an extra 500 in the gym (or some combination of the two like consuming 250 less and burn 250 more at the gym).

To figure out how many calories that you need to consume, you must first determine how many calories a day you burn. To get a rough estimate of how many calories you burn a day, you need to figure out how many you burn in the gym (several heart rate monitors can do that) and what your BMR is.

Basal metabolic rate, also known as BMR, is the minimum number of calories that your body burns to function. Basically it is the number of calories burned in a 24 hour period if you stayed in bed the entire time. Many websites can help you get a rough estimate. Obviously you don’t always know how many calories you burn outside of the gym doing regular every day activities so that’ll be a little extra.

You can see now that you can use calories to your advantage. They no longer have to be a hindrance, but a tool that you can use and manipulate in order to reach your goals.

Protein Pudding

2/3 cup part skim ricotta cheese
1/3 cup low fat cottage cheese (small curd)
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream (liquid)
1 scoop 1st Step Pro-Wellness French Vanilla Protein Powder
2-3 tbsp honey 
As many blueberries as you like!

Mix the ricotta cheese, cottage cheese, and whipping cream and mix until smoothly combined. Next, mix in the protein powder. Once mixed add in the honey and blueberries.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Cookie

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

1/2 cup raw brown sugar

2 scoops 1st step chocolate whey protein

preheat your oven 350*

Mix all the ingredients together. It helps to soften the peanut butter a little. Take about 1 tablespoon of the dough and roll into a ball, then flatten on the greased cookie sheet. I used a fork to add the crisscross design of traditional peanut butter cookies. Bake for about 10 minutes and let cool! This batch made 19 cookies and each cookie is 113 calories and 5grams of protein. 

Enjoy!