A myth to weight loss is that you can "target lose weight" on a specific area of the body.. this isn’t true. your body loses weight systematically. Your thighs just happen to be one of the last places your body will start losing weight, preceded by your stomach.

Let me breakdown the science of weight loss.. if you know how your body loses weigh, then you’ll know why your exercises work or don’t work.

A calorie isn’t an actual physical item… you can’t look at it with a microscope or anything.. it’s a unit of measurement of energy.. specifically

1 Calorie (AKA a kilo-calorie) that you see on your nutrition facts, is a unit of heat equal to the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree at one atmosphere pressure …

Calories come from everything. Vitamins, fiber, carbs, transfat, etc.. Most of the stuff that gets converted into nutrition for your body doesn’t affect your weight gain.

So what’s the enemy? Carbs are the enemy, specifically sugar based carbs, this is where 90% of the calories come from in most of your carb based foods. (Dietary Fiber, if i recall correctly, does not get absorbed by the body, but digested)

Carbs are what gets turned into fat if it’s not used up, not calories.. Carbs are just full of calories.

If you are looking to lose weight, the basic idea is to eat a low carb diet, and work out at the gym. (consult your doctor first)

Once your body runs out of it’s temporary storage of energy, which consists of meals you have eaten in the last 24 to 36 hours, it will turn to 1 of 2 things into energy depending on the exercise you are doing… Muscles or Fat..

If you do cardio (aerobic) based exercises, you will begin burning fat for energy.. If you do resistance based exercises (anaerobic) then you will start using your muscles for energy (which is part of building new muscles)

You might want to look at something called "ketone urinalysis sticks" Ketone bodies are created when your body burns fat for energy, and can be tested by these sticks you urinate on. They will turn a purple color. The darker the purple, the more ketones you have, and the more fat you are burning. This is a good way to know if you are burning fat or not.

The other things you might have been told to worry about other things on foods, such as the "Trans fat" and "partially hydrogenated oils". Contrary to popular belief.. eating fat does not make you fat. What it does do is make your blood pressure higher because of cholesterol build up.

Carbs are the enemy with weight gain. If your temp storage of energy isn’t used up, it will get converted to fat.

Carbs are found in fruits, starch based foods, and of course our favorite.. Sweets..

Veggies and meats are little to 0 carbs.. If you see Dietary Fiber under carbs, you can eliminate that from the carb total.. it’s carbs from sugar that are the bad guys. Dietary Fiber carbs is digested through the body, not absorbed.

So the first goal is to deplete your temporary energy storage. If you are running on the treadmill, this will probably take 20-30 minutes. Especially since your body is used to it. Once your body gets used to doing a specific exercise, it gets used to storing energy specifically for that. you don’t want to stick to just 1 exercise, you’ll never get anywhere after awhile.

Once you’ve depleted your temporary storage of energy, anything you start doing after that is gonna use your fat for energy if it’s cardio based (aerobic based) exercises.

Make sure to also drink water. Besides hydration, water is the catalyst used to convert fat into glucose, which then converts into ATP, or the energy molecule. (Ketone Bodies are a side affect of this that leaves your body through urine, this is how most of the used weight leaves your body)

Your muscles are built by destroying old muscle, and creating new muscles. So as you begin breaking down old muscle, your body uses protein to build new muscle. Don’t overdue muscle training, when your temp energy reserve is used up, you can start doing more damage after while than good.

So summary.. Low carbs diet, variety of different aerobic exercises, and devotion!

Don’t be worried about "Weight" specifically either. Start looking at your body. While doing this type of workout and diet, you will be gaining muscle and losing fat. So if you see you’re still at the same weight, your probably gaining muscle and losing fat. Muscle weighs more than fat, so don’t worry if you might see your weight rise. Don’t worry about the number, look in the mirror and see if you notice it.

It will take about 2-3 weeks to put your body in exercise mode, where you might start noticing fat being taken off… After about a month and a half, you should notice that you are melting fat off for awhile. You will get to a point as well where you will level out for muscle building and weight loss. Most of the time, people are happy with this area. Just maintain exercising and eat good and you’ll keep the pounds off. If you get to your target fat level, and you don’t want to lose anymore, start eating carbs again (but not too many) and continue working out. You will put your body in a stale mate and you’re body type wont change that much.

Hope this helps!
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