Why you can lose fat and still not look any better in the mirror...

Japanese researchers have shown that you lose fat from different parts of your body, depending on whether you lose weight with exercise or diet.

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Publishing their findings in Medicine and Science in Sports & Exercise, the research team showed that dieting leads to a greater reduction in visceral (pronounced viss-er-al) fat - the fat that protects your internal organs.

Exercise, on the other hand, has a greater impact on subcutaneous (pronounced sub-cue-tain-ee-us) fat. Subcutaneous fat is stored just under your skin, and has the biggest impact on the way you look. The minor effect of dieting on subcutaneous fat could explain why dieters can lose a lot of weight, but remain unhappy with the way they look.

The women in this study took part in a 13-week exercise and diet program. One group followed a low calorie diet, combined with 1-2 days per week of exercise. Group two made no change to their diet, but exercised 3-4 days each week.

Although both groups lost roughly the same amount of fat, the women who exercised for 3-4 days each week lost more subcutaneous fat than those who exercised only 1-2 days weekly.

• In the group who exercised more frequently, 6 of every 10 pounds of fat lost came from subcutaneous fat.

• In the group who exercised less frequently, less than 3 of every 10 pounds of fat lost came from subcutaneous fat.

When the results of both groups were analyzed, the researchers found a link between exercise frequency and the loss of subcutaneous fat. In other words, the more often you exercise, the more subcutaneous fat you'll lose. The minor effect of dieting on subcutaneous fat could explain why dieters can lose a lot of weight, but remain unhappy with their appearance.

In short, if you really want to look good naked, dieting alone isn't enough - you'll have to exercise!

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Reference
Abe, T., Kawakami, Y., Sugita, M., & Fukunaga, T. (1997). Relationship between training frequency and subcutaneous and visceral fat in women. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 29, 1549-1553