Can body fat relocate?

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Soldato
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I am on a calorie restriction at the moment but I'm concerned. The concern comes because I've dropped two belt buckle holes and yet my stomach still looks the same. Has the body fat around my waist simply squished elsewhere or is that impossible and instead I should be happy with the apparent weight loss?
 
The fat in your body isn't only just under the surface of your skin, its also much deeper and around your organs. Where you hold it is dependent largely on genetics. You also have fat on your back.

The answer to your question is no, thought I'd elaborate a little.

:edit: don't forget by eating less (especially if you're cutting down on carb heavy stuff in my experience) will reduce the size of your waist without any real noticeable fat loss, just by a decrease in your bloated insides. Lovely huh.
 
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The fat in your body isn't only just under the surface of your skin, its also much deeper and around your organs. Where you hold it is dependent largely on genetics. You also have fat on your back.

The answer to your question is no, thought I'd elaborate a little.

So it might not be a uniform loss, in my case some weight loss on my waist and perhaps organ fat reduction but not necessarily any visible loss to my gut. This is reassuring, thank you.
 
Fat Cells are always present, whether you are stick thin or very fat. It's not possible for them to shift, other than through something like surgery. That is the reason people having cosmetic fat reduction surgery can end up with it in weird accumulations due to having the actual cells that store the energy gone.

You can't choose where you loose fat from, it tends to come off in 'layers' almost, meaning overall rather than specific areas. It happens pretty much in the reverse to where you first begin to store fat. In men, it is first stored in the belly/lower abdomen. So when trying to loose weight, this is the last area you will shift.
 
I've lost 25kg and still have a bit belly fat left to lose, as Nexus said above, men tend to store fat there first and it's the last to leave. Once you get down to a certain percentage body fat you might get better aesthetic results by working on building more muscle since broadly speaking it's the fat/muscle ratio that determines how you look (obviously taken to extremes too much muscle can be quite gross).

If you check out the weight loss thread you can see quite a few comparisons, my own (not lunchtime viewing) is at http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=22424727&postcount=852 and you can see that I still have some fat lurking about.
 
For me my gut is the last thing to go, though I can feel that the fat on the outside isn 't that deep, so as mentioned it's probably all the fat on my internal organs. That's the stuff they say causes diabetes, cancer and heart disease apparently, so yeah keen to get rid of it.
 
Here's an idea - weigh yourself. If you weigh less you've really lost weight.

I don't want to weight myself. Weight is stupid in my opinions; all I care about is what I look like. If I look how I want to look then what I weigh is irrelevant. I'm also likely to give up my diet when I hit a round number rather than deciding based on how I look.
 
Where do you wear your belt!?

Saggin-law-11-500x374.jpg


:D
 
I think belly fat is one of the hardest areas to get rid of. Your body will strip fat from other areas (starting with extremities and limbs) before eating away at fat from your torso.

This is why although I've lost around a stone in the past six months and have hit my "ideal" weight, I can still pinch more than an inch :(

*This information could be entirely false
 
Does this explain the fat legs / thin legs dilemma? I'm fat and I have fat legs, but you also get fat guys with stick-thin legs like Dr. Robotnik's shape!

Are you seriously asking if genetics is a factor in body shape?

No. Genetics has no effect on the shape of your body. It's all dependent on the individual style and preferences of the toy maker when you're in the factory.
 
Also remember there is a difference between subcutaneous fat and visceral fat. Visceral fat being significantly a bigger health issue than just a bit of flab.
 
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