How many advertisements have you seen which try to sell the idea that you can pinpoint belly fat and/or thigh fat with a special exercise? If you're like me then you've seen quite a few of them. There are enough of them that many people have the misconception that this is actually possible when in fact it is not. It is simply not possible to pinpoint fat in this way through exercise.



What exercises like this may help you do is build a little bit of muscle in whatever part of the body they are focusing on and of course there is nothing wrong with that. It's very important to know that building muscle in a part of your body isn't the same thing as burning fat there.

Genetics are the reason that some people hold onto fat in their stomachs or thighs while others do not, and there's definitely not any exercise around that will change your genes. And I hope you already know that diet pills are absolutely worthless in this area too. In fact they won't do you any good in any area (don't even get me started on what a waste of time and money diet pills are. Don't use them.)

So does this mean you are helpless when it comes to stubborn fat in these areas? Absolutely not. It just means that you must go about defeating that fat in a different way. You must take a big picture view of things.

Lowering your body's overall body fat percentage is the real key to burning off stubborn "hard to lose" fat because when you do that you give your body no choice but to let go of that fat.

And how do you do that? Diet & exercise. You may be thinking to yourself "Didn't you just write that exercise doesn't work?" Not exactly. Exercise is a big part of burning away fat, it's just that it can't be used to burn away fat in a pinpointed way. Instead you should use cardio exercise to burn extra calories (and to improve your overall fitness level) and work on building muscle so you speed up your metabolism for faster fat burning.)

As far as diet goes it's very important that you choose a diet that you can stick with. The truth is that many different kinds of diets are effective, what's important is choosing a diet plan that you won't get tired of following.

It's because of this that I'm so fundamentally against low calorie diets or any other kind of diet that makes you keep track of what you eat in any way. I definitely think that any sort of calorie counting diet is doomed to failure because there is no one that can keep up with it for very long. I believe it's a great idea to start a diet which is based on eating certain foods which are good for you rather than counting all of the calories that you eat.