SHAPE UP
Fat can go, but your body type will stay

By Charles Stuart Platkin

Fortunately or unfortunately, much of your body type is genetic. But the question remains: Is it possible to overcome this genetic predisposition and change your body shape? Well, I have good and bad news. Yes, these areas can be changed or reduced, but it isn't easy.

Understanding fat

There are two types of fat: subcutaneous and intra-abdominal. Subcutaneous fat is below the skin, and intra-abdominal fat (the traditional "apple" shape) is behind the stomach muscles, and around the organs. Most women store their fat subcutaneously, in their breasts, hips, buttocks and thighs (the traditional "pear" shape), while most men store theirs in the abdomen, lower back, chest, and the nape of the neck.

Intra-abdominal fat is considered the most dangerous. "All of the potential health risks, including diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease — are related to the intra-abdominal fat," says Dr. David Heber, professor of medicine and director of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition and author of "The L.A. Shape Diet."

Can you get the perfect body?

"Theoretically, you can get rid of every 'pocket' of fat if you want to become obsessive and take it to the extreme. Just take a look at competitive bodybuilders — they get very lean compared to your average person, but they're working at it like a job," says Ed McNeely, an exercise physiologist at Sports Medicine Specialists in Toronto, Ontario, who has worked with more than 30 Olympic medalists.

You need to keep things in perspective. "For instance, if you have a wide pelvis, that's not going away," says McNeely. He adds that even Olympic athletes have pockets of fat they can't lose, and they're training for thousands of hours each year.

Heber is even less optimistic. "There is fat you can change and fat you can't."

His point is that it's hard to overcome genetics. "It requires tremendous discipline, and even then, you're not going to move mountains," agrees Dr. Byron Hoogwerf, an endocrinologist at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

Losing it

The problem is that most people try to get rid of these fat deposits by restricting calories and increasing the duration of their aerobic exercise. "This is exactly what not to do," says Dan Benardot, researcher at the Laboratory for Elite Athlete Performance at Georgia State University in Atlanta. If you start to significantly decrease your calories, whether they're made up of carbs, protein or fat, your body will start to protect itself and go into "starvation" mode.

Unfortunately, this is what most popular diets accomplish. "Your body is very efficient, and when you start to restrict calories and increase your energy expenditure (exercise), it will attempt to conserve fuel, creating more stored fat," says Benardot. And where does it store it? Precisely where you don't want it — in your hips, abs, thighs, or buttocks. "These 'pockets' of fat are always the first to be filled up and the last to leave," says Heber.

So, if you try to "starve" those pockets away, you'll end up losing weight in areas that you don't necessarily want to, and the problem areas will remain problems.

Not only that, but when you go on any quick-fix diet and restrict calories or carbs, "you start to lose lean muscle tissue, which is the opposite of what you want," says Gary Granata, director of the Applied Physiology Laboratory at the Ochsner Clinic Foundation in New Orleans.

Combine it

There's still hope. In order to get your body in the best possible shape, experts recommend a combination of weight training, eating balanced meals (without severe caloric restriction) and increasing aerobic intensity, but not necessarily duration.

Weight training helps preserve muscle tissue, speed up your metabolic rate (so you burn more calories while at rest), and increase the size of your muscles. Although you can't "spot" train (exercise one spot on your body and have the fat melt away), you can increase the size of the muscle under the fat, which will make the fat appear leaner.

Most people don't wait long enough to see the results; they're scared off by the increase in muscle mass (and the larger size of the very body part they're trying to reduce).

"We tend to panic and stop training when our muscles start to grow under the fat — that's a mistake. You need stick with your entire program — which has to include diet, cardio, and strength training — for at least four months in order to see real change," says McNeely.

In terms of diet, Benardot and Granata recommend fueling your body by eating smaller meals throughout the day, not one or two large meals, even if the calories are the same.

In addition, Benardot recommends increasing the intensity of your aerobic exercise, not the duration. He also warns, "Never exercise while hungry — you need to feed the exercise."

And finally, when asked if there is a specific exercise, food, or supplement for each body type, all experts agreed — any such claim is nothing more than a marketing gimmick.

Charles Stuart Platkin is a syndicated health columnist. Write to info@thedietdetective.com.