No one wants to have a muffin top. It doesn’t look good, and it sure doesn’t make you feel good. A muffin top is the accumulation of adipose tissue (body fat) around the waist, and they typically form when a person is above a certain body fat level. We will go over the basics of how to get rid of a muffin top conceptually, as well as specific methods for fat loss that will eliminate your muffin top.
Eliminating the Muffin Top
The best way to get rid of an unwanted muffin top is to lose body fat overall until the muffin top is gone. You see, body fat accumulates on people in different areas at different rates, and the amount of fat loss it takes to lose your muffin top depends largely on individuals factors as a result, with some people developing muffin tops as soon as they gain a little bit of weight and others not getting one until they are significantly overweight. This is why some people who are more overweight than you may not have a muffin top. Body fat accumulation follows very specific individual patterns. Whatever the case in your situation, there is a straightforward way to get rid of the unwanted muffin top: lose body fat overall. Since fat is naturally stored in the waist region after reaching a certain level of body fat, it stands to reason that the reverse is also true.
The body will lose fat from the waist area in reverse order of how it developed in terms of body fat gain. This means if the first thing to happen when you gain weight is that you develop a muffin top, it will also be the first thing to go when you lose body fat. There are also cosmetic interventions for localized body fat loss, specifically in the waist area. These procedures are really the only way to selectively lose fat from the waist area without losing body fat overall. However, these may be preferable to some individuals who do not want to lose body fat overall. Cosmetic procedures for localized waist area fat loss include cryolipolysis and laser lipolysis.
How to Lose a Muffin Top
There are a number of ways to lose body fat, but all of them require effort on your part to change your activity level and eating habits. However, some are cosmetic procedures that require essentially no effort from you, but even with those, dietary and behavioral changes are necessary to maintain the results achieved by the procedures. There are also medications that can help you lose body fat, but they too require effort on your part to eat in a way that is conducive to losing weight as well as exercising. However, there is no reason you shouldn’t take advantage of all the resources available to you to lose body fat, so we have prepared a thorough list of fat-loss methods for your reading pleasure.
Dieting
The most reliable fat-loss solution that exists is diet and exercise. You need to take in fewer calories (a calorie is a unit of energy) than you are using daily in order to be in a caloric deficit. This means that you will have something called a negative energy balance, which leads to fat loss. The best way to lose body fat with regard to diet and exercise is to track your daily caloric intake. You would typically use your height and weight to calculate your basal metabolic rate (BMR), then multiply that by a constant representing activity level to get your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE). Your TDEE is how much energy in calories you expend every day, and if you eat less than this, you will lose body fat. Simply track what you eat every day, and make sure it is below your TDEE. There are plenty of online calculators that can calculate your BMR and TDEE for you, so all that remains for you to do is to track your daily food intake to make sure it is below your TDEE. There are many apps and online resources that will track your daily food intake for you. Additionally, you can engage in cardiovascular exercise to help lose some body fat. Cardiovascular exercise is any type of exercise that gets your heart beating faster. The American Heart Association recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity cardiovascular exercise a week. This translates to 30 minutes a day during the work week. You can easily meet these cardio requirements by jump roping or running during your lunch break.
Psychological Treatment
Sometimes a psychological issue can cause weight gain and fat accumulation on a person. For example, binge eating disorder is a mental disorder that can lead to unwanted fat gain. Even if a mental illness per se isn’t the cause, many people gain weight because of an unhealthy mental relationship with food. They oftentimes use food as a reward or use it as a way to comfort themselves.
Believe it or not, ensuring you get the proper sleep for weight loss can be an important factor. For these reasons, psychological treatment is a viable option for weight loss for many people. A therapist will help you get to the root of the problem and address why you are overeating, and will consequently help you lose body fat. Therapy is one of the many tools in your arsenal for permanent fat loss.
GLP-1 Agonists
These are a class of medication that imitates a hormone in the body responsible for the feeling of satiety. GLP-1 agonist medications such as semaglutide can reduce appetite in people by imitating incretin, one of the hormones responsible for the sensation of feeling full. This makes weight loss through calorie restriction easier for the individual, as they are no longer as hungry after the same amount of food and remain full for longer. A person will be less hungry on this medication, though they will still have to adjust their eating and exercise habits to lose body fat effectively. However, unless the eating issue is purely psychological, this will make losing body fat far easier, as it will reduce hunger and cravings related to hunger.
Cryolipolysis (Fat Freezing)
Fat freezing, also called cryolipolysis, is a medical procedure in which fat cells in your body are exposed to freezing temperatures in order to kill them and reduce overall body fat. This is done with the use of a cryolipolysis device, which freezes the fat cells in a specific part of your body but leaves the skin cells intact. Fat freezing is an FDA-approved medical technique, and it is typically administered in a doctor’s office or outpatient facility. Fat freezing is used to cause localized fat loss, and it can be used to specifically target a muffin top. However, there is a known complication called paradoxical adipose hyperplasia, in which the amount of fat in the area treated actually increases. For this reason, this treatment is riskier than other cosmetic interventions, such as laser lipolysis.
Laser Lipolysis
This procedure, also referred to as “laser lipo,” involves the application of a low-intensity laser to the fat areas you wish to lose. Lasers can generate singular-directional light and heat to a minimal area. With laser lipo, the technician will target the cell with the laser. The laser penetrates the skin, reaches the targeted fat cells, and bores a tiny pore into the cellular membrane. In addition to creating a small hole, the laser emulsifies (melts) the lipids inside the cell, which allows them to seep through the pore.
The body’s lymphatic system then naturally disposes of the lipids. Emerald Laser by Erchonia works differently from other laser lipolysis methods. Emerald’s system uses ten 532 nanometer lasers to target fat cells. While the system allows the cells to drain, they remain intact. Other laser systems destroy the fat cells, which can lead to fatty deposits developing in other areas of the body.
Additionally, Emerald Laser is relatively painless when compared to other laser systems. Most patients don’t feel anything at all. Laser lipolysis is a minimally invasive weight loss method that targets body fat exclusively. It is innovative and relatively new. Laser lipolysis by Emerald Laser is the first FDA-approved laser lipolysis process.
Emerald Laser
Get rid of that pesky muffin top once and for all! Check out Emerald Laser to find a provider near you.
