“I have been in this industry since 2001 now and have lost count of how many preposterous things I have heard since then and reducing visceral fat with specific exercises or with a HIFEM/EMS is one of the most ridiculous things I have heard. Sure, the public does not know how body works but that does not mean that trainers / youtubers / tiktokers / yoga teachers / instagrammers and aesthetic therapists should lie to their clients for 30 pieces of silver. To put it simply, visceral fat reduction with specific exercises (e.g. abdominal exercises, yoga poses etc) dos not exist.”
Visceral fat is too deep to be affected by any specific exercise
Specific exercises for visceral fat? Stop looking, they don’t exist…
Reducing visceral fat with different TYPES of exercise
Stop looking for mystery magical miracle exercises
And lose the magical thinking about miracle treatments that shed your belly fat in four sessions - it ain’t gonna happen
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Specific exercises for visceral fat? Stop looking, they don’t exist…
Before explaining the mechanics of visceral fat reduction, let's start with some definitions:
Visceral adipose tissue, a.k.a. VAT or visceral fat, is the type of fat found deep inside your belly and between your organs
Subcutaneous adipose tissue, a.k.a. SAT or simply ‘fat’, is fat found just under your skin either on your belly or anywhere else on your body
And hypodermal adipose tissue, a.k.a. cellulite, is fat found within the deeper part of your skin itself on the thighs, bum and even stomach and arms
Now let's go back to visceral fat reduction.
This is a common question at the clinic: what are the best exercises to reduce my beer belly - or muffin belly, for the sugar addicted - with the implication that there must be some special types of abdominal exercises or something else magical that will target visceral fat.
However, the answer to this question is that - as opposed to other fat - there exist no specific exercises to target visceral fat.
In fact, there is no such thing as spot fat reduction with exercise. This is a scientific fact known for decades and anyone who claims the opposite are either uninformed or simply lying to sell you a product or a service.
(This is especially true for personal trainers who advertise specific abdominal exercises to reduce visceral fat and who should know and conduct themselves better.)
So, as there is no spot subcutaneous fat reduction with exercise and spot cellulite reduction with exercise, there is no spot visceral fat reduction with exercise either.
In one sentence: targeted fat reduction with exercise simply does not exist.
Reducing visceral fat with different TYPES of exercise
You can indeed reduce fat with exercise but your body will decide where this fat is going to be reduced from (visceral, subcutaneous of cellulite adipose tissue from different body areas), according to the make up of each specific adipose tissue depot, including genetic, hormonal and other factors.
The only thing that can influence increased visceral fat reduction is the type of exercise you do, as in low intensity versus high intensity exercise or cardiovascular versus resistance exercise.
In this respect, high intensity cardiovascular exercise, in general, may help reduce visceral fat faster than other types of fat. But even this is not guaranteed, as different people, and different fat depots in the same person, respond in different ways to the same exercise stimulus.
The only thing that is certain is that high intensity cardiovascular exercise is the best way to lose fat overall, and it may - just may - also help you use visceral fat faster than other types of fat.
Stop looking for mystery magical miracle exercises
So the moral of the story is, stop looking on tiktok and instagram for miracle exercises that promise to ‘get rid of your visceral fat’ in some magical mystery way and start doing lots of cardiovascular exercise, if possible at high intensity.
Obviously, neither low nor high intensity cardiovascular exercise is possible for some groups of people, especially for those with a heart condition.
But still, all is not lost: diet also plays an equally important role, with sugar, excess carbs and alcohol playing a role in increasing and maintaining visceral fat, as well as stress does.
So focus on the things that you have been told a thousand times before to focus on, i.e. consuming more oily fish, lots of vegetables and salads, lots of berry and citrus fruits and enough lean protein - plus less carbs, less fat and no sugar or alcohol - and your fat levels, including visceral adipose tissue levels will start reducing.
So get out of social media and start working out and throw away those cookies and start snacking on blueberries. It is that simple and requires no magical mystery exercise secrets from a tiktoker who claims she has just discovered the wheel.
And lose the magical thinking about miracle treatments that shed your belly fat in four sessions - it ain’t gonna happen
The last few years we have seen electromagnetic stimulation (EMS), aka HIFEM, exercise treatments:
that are supposedly equivalent to 30,000 sit-ups (😂, how naive can one be to believe such nonsense?)
and which allegedly reduce, not only subcutaneous abdominal fat but also visceral abdominal fat, in just four miraculous 20-minute sessions (🤣, now this is bordering on fraud)
All I have to say about wasting anything other than monopoly money on such magical miracle treatments is, ‘Good luck with that, you will need it…’
To be specific, those treatments:
Are definitely not equivalent to 30,000 sit-ups, they are merely equivalent to a 20’ abdominal workout you can do on your yoga mat and a couple of weights at your home, for free and without traveling to a clinic. And they do not provide the neuromuscular coordination you gain from doing exercise yourself.
Can help add to the results of your home or gym abdominal exercise routine - but only if you already do your own exercises at high intensity and only if you have 10 to 20 EMS/HIFEM sessions, not the four misleadingly advertised.
They do not reduce any significant amount of subcutaneous abdominal fat. If you lose 20% of subcutaneous abdominal fat after 10-20 such sessions you will be lucky. The usual average subcutaneous abdominal fat loss from such treatments is 5 to 10% after 10 to 20 sessions.
Under no circumstances, such treatments will reduce visceral/abdominal adipose tissue - don't believe the marketing hype or the fake studies
All in all, visceral fat can only be reduced with dieting, carb/sugar avoidance, high intensity exercise and, sure, GLP-1 inhibitor medication. And it never be reduced with either specific exercises or HIFEM/EMS treatments.
Have a treatment in London with the cellulite experts
At LipoTherapeia we have specialised 100% in skin tightening and cellulite reduction for more than two decades and 20,000+ sessions.
This is all we study and practise every day and have researched and tried hands-on all the important skin tightening equipment and their manufacturers.
As strong, deep acting radiofrequency and deep-acting, high-power ultrasound cavitation are the technologies of choice for skin tightening and cellulite reduction, we have invested in the best RF/ultrasound technologies in the world.
(Of course, we keep looking for new technologies every day and if/when a better technology materialises we will be the first to provide it. However, we will never follow the latest ineffective gimmick, just because it’s good marketing to offer the latest hyped up - yet ineffective and/or unsafe treatment.)
Furthermore, over the last two decades we have developed advanced RF and cavitation treatment protocols in order to make the most of our technologies, for maximum results, naturally and safely.
And for even better, faster results, we now combine our RF/ultrasound treatments with high-power red/infrared light LED treatment.
Our radiofrequency/ultrasound/LED treatments are comfortable, pain-free, downtime-free, injection-free, 99.5%+ safe and always non-invasive.
(No unsafe and ineffective RF microneedling or HIFU and no safe but ineffective acoustic wave therapy, superficial RF (bipolar/tripolar/multipolar etc), low power RF/cavitation, electrical muscle stimulation, lymphatic massage, cupping, dry brushing and no ridiculous bum bum creams.)
Our focus is on honest, realistic, science-based treatment, combined with caring, professional service, with a smile.
We will be pleased to see you, assess your cellulite, skin laxity or fibrosis, listen to your story, discuss your case and offer you the best possible treatment.
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Why train with The Cellulite School™?
We all know that training in cellulite reduction and skin tightening is as basic as it gets. It is typically a 4-6 hour training, involving only basic instruction from the manufacturer on how operators can use the machine; lots of myths, erroneous information and misconceptions; and some basic health and safety on how to use the machine.
There is no proper, real training in the science or cellulite, skin tightening, radiofrequency, ultrasound and all related technologies is non-existent - worldwide.
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