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Belly Fat Weight Loss and the crunch effect myth
Do crunches and sit-ups affect body fat?
I have always restrained myself from writing about this topic. The reason behind this is that I thought the myth of crunch and sit-ups’ effect on belly fat had been entombed forever.
I was wrong, this myth is still propagating not only amid ordinary people but also among famous fitness gurus.
Why do we have body fat?
After being digested and processed, macro-nutrients such as fat and glucose are first converted after several steps into glucose and fatty acids. Glucose is released in the blood for urgent energy needs. Likewise, some of the fat becomes available in the blood as free fatty acids. The surplus is stored as fat and glycogen.
Both glucose and fatty acids are used as primary sources of fuel. Glucose is more used for physical activities that require speed, power and so forth. While fatty acids are mostly called on during periods of sleep, indolence or mild physical activity. Those two sources of energies are stored as fat and glycogen when the body doesn’t need them. Since glycogen cannot be stored to a great extent but fat can, any calorific surplus – be it from protein, carbs or fat – is automatically converted to fat.
Abdominal obesity is a stored amount of energy:
Each pound of body fat yields 3500 Cal, this means; if you had 10 pounds of fat hanging on your body, the amount of energy you are storing would be:
10 X 3.500 Cal = 35.000 Cal.
You have to burn this amount of energy you have accumulated or stop eating and theore letting the body use the stored fat as a source of energy.
Crunches and Sit-ups can’t extinguish this particular spot of fat. Spot reduction is not possible, don’t waste your time. The only possible solution is to cut your calorie intake and exercise regularly. Your workout must include aerobic and resistance training for better results
Why does crunch have no effect on belly fat?
Crunch is a very poor exercise in terms of aerobic effect. 100 crunches burn roughly between 5 to 10 Cal. Let’s see how many crunches you’ll need to in order to lose a mere 10 pounds of belly fat.
35.000 cal/0.05 = 700.000 crunches.
Let’s assume that you are going to do three sets of 15 crunches everyday with no break. This means doing 45 crunches per day seven days per week.
700.000/45 =15.555 days = 42,62 years!
Youll need 42,62 years to remove that 10 lbs of fat! And wait! You would never be able to ditch those 10 pounds of fat in 42.62 if ever you did take one calorie per day above your weight maintenance calorie intake.
Maybe you may think that I was unfair to crunch because I have used the value of 5 Cal per 100 crunches which seems to be the most accepted value. If I changed the value to 10 Cal, or even 50 Cal, the amount of time needed to lose 10 lbs of fat would be respectively 21,31 years and 4,26 years.
Where did the crunch myth come from ?
Thanks to infomercial scams, they are still using the same technique and the same skit. In order to sell their machines, they compare them to crunch in terms of effect on abdominal muscles. Yet, some machines can contract abs 700% or 250% more than crunches, but this is a moot argument. Abs contraction has no effect on fat loss.
_http://only-healthy-ideas.blogspot.com/2011/10/belly-fat-weight-loss-and-crunch-effect.html
Belly Fat Weight Loss and the crunch effect myth
I have always restrained myself from writing about this topic. The reason behind this is that I thought the myth of crunch and sit-ups’ effect on belly fat had been entombed forever.
I was wrong, this myth is still propagating not only amid ordinary people but also among famous fitness gurus.
Why do we have body fat?
After being digested and processed, macro-nutrients such as fat and glucose are first converted after several steps into glucose and fatty acids. Glucose is released in the blood for urgent energy needs. Likewise, some of the fat becomes available in the blood as free fatty acids. The surplus is stored as fat and glycogen.
Both glucose and fatty acids are used as primary sources of fuel. Glucose is more used for physical activities that require speed, power and so forth. While fatty acids are mostly called on during periods of sleep, indolence or mild physical activity. Those two sources of energies are stored as fat and glycogen when the body doesn’t need them. Since glycogen cannot be stored to a great extent but fat can, any calorific surplus – be it from protein, carbs or fat – is automatically converted to fat.
Abdominal obesity is a stored amount of energy:
Each pound of body fat yields 3500 Cal, this means; if you had 10 pounds of fat hanging on your body, the amount of energy you are storing would be:
10 X 3.500 Cal = 35.000 Cal.
You have to burn this amount of energy you have accumulated or stop eating and theore letting the body use the stored fat as a source of energy.
Crunches and Sit-ups can’t extinguish this particular spot of fat. Spot reduction is not possible, don’t waste your time. The only possible solution is to cut your calorie intake and exercise regularly. Your workout must include aerobic and resistance training for better results
Why does crunch have no effect on belly fat?
Crunch is a very poor exercise in terms of aerobic effect. 100 crunches burn roughly between 5 to 10 Cal. Let’s see how many crunches you’ll need to in order to lose a mere 10 pounds of belly fat.
35.000 cal/0.05 = 700.000 crunches.
Let’s assume that you are going to do three sets of 15 crunches everyday with no break. This means doing 45 crunches per day seven days per week.
700.000/45 =15.555 days = 42,62 years!
Youll need 42,62 years to remove that 10 lbs of fat! And wait! You would never be able to ditch those 10 pounds of fat in 42.62 if ever you did take one calorie per day above your weight maintenance calorie intake.
Maybe you may think that I was unfair to crunch because I have used the value of 5 Cal per 100 crunches which seems to be the most accepted value. If I changed the value to 10 Cal, or even 50 Cal, the amount of time needed to lose 10 lbs of fat would be respectively 21,31 years and 4,26 years.
Where did the crunch myth come from ?
Thanks to infomercial scams, they are still using the same technique and the same skit. In order to sell their machines, they compare them to crunch in terms of effect on abdominal muscles. Yet, some machines can contract abs 700% or 250% more than crunches, but this is a moot argument. Abs contraction has no effect on fat loss.
_http://only-healthy-ideas.blogspot.com/2011/10/belly-fat-weight-loss-and-crunch-effect.html
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