[Braniac101]

im a real fitness fanatic and have a great interest in sports. i enjoy playing football and training in olypmpic wrestling.
my concern is the love handles. i was quite chubby when younger but have managed to convert most fat into muscle. The pecs are a little fatty but the shape can be seen.
i need a few excersizes or routines to lose the LOVE HANDLES/ MUFFIN TOP. the rest of my body looks good but the love handles let me down as they covert the otherwise set body into a fatty one
in a t-shirt, i will look fat from behind rather than muscle due to these
i want to hear from someone who has experiance with love handles but has solved the problem through good excersizes. i also want to know the workouts used.
thanks in advance

[RollerBall]

You can't spot lose fat. However, you've managed to "convert" fat into muscle so with your biochemical wizardry maybe you'll have a chance.

Reduce your body fat by following a cutting diet and continueing to work out. From the sounds of it your BF% is actually still quite high, do you have a pic/can you get a measurment?

[xoxAngel_Kxox]

Everyone hold their fat in different (stubborn) places. For me it's tummy & love handles as well, and the only thing you can do is exercise to lose fat in general, as you can't spot reduce. If you say you already have muscle then I assume you lift already with the training for your wrestling? If this is the case, and you're happy with the effect that your lifting has on your muscle mass, then simply try adding more cardio into your routine and ensure that you're not eating more calories than you're burning. You should find that the excess fat comes off nice and gradually.

[Apocalyptic Fish]

(Original post by Braniac101)
im a real fitness fanatic and have a great interest in sports. i enjoy playing football and training in olypmpic wrestling.
my concern is the love handles. i was quite chubby when younger but have managed to convert most fat into muscle. The pecs are a little fatty but the shape can be seen.
i need a few excersizes or routines to lose the LOVE HANDLES/ MUFFIN TOP. the rest of my body looks good but the love handles let me down as they covert the otherwise set body into a fatty one
in a t-shirt, i will look fat from behind rather than muscle due to these
i want to hear from someone who has experiance with love handles but has solved the problem through good excersizes. i also want to know the workouts used.
thanks in advance

O rly?

[The Troll Toll]

(Original post by RollerBall)
You can't spot lose fat. However, you've managed to "convert" fat into muscle so with your biochemical wizardry maybe you'll have a chance.

Why does converting fat into muscle require biochemical wizardry?

[RollerBall]

(Original post by The Troll Toll)
Why does converting fat into muscle require biochemical wizardry?

Fat and muscle are two completely different tissues. You can't convert one into the other. Replace? Sure. Convert? no.

[Norton1]

They're not love handles if nobody loves you.

[silent ninja]

(Original post by The Troll Toll)
Why does converting fat into muscle require biochemical wizardry?

It's like turning **** in to gold

[getfunky!]

You have to lose fat all over your body. Love handles/chubby sides are some of the more difficult places to lose fat but it mostly depends on your diet!

you have to eat healthy food and drink a sufficient amount of water everyday and do a lot more cardio as your abdominial area is covered in fatty tissue. Once you lose fat from all over your body, your abdominal muscles will start to show.

[The Troll Toll]

(Original post by RollerBall)
Fat and muscle are two completely different tissues. You can't convert one into the other. Replace? Sure. Convert? no.

But talking about biochemistry implies we're talking about molecules, not tissues. Are you saying you can't convert or move the molecules in one tissue to molecules in another?

[HFerguson]

(Original post by The Troll Toll)
But talking about biochemistry implies we're talking about molecules, not tissues. Are you saying you can't convert or move the molecules in one tissue to molecules in another?

maybe biophysical, biomechanical or anthropometric is a more appropriate word? I'm sure we all knew what rollerball meant

[Arturo Bandini]

The Troll really took his Toll in this thread!

[RollerBall]

(Original post by The Troll Toll)
But talking about biochemistry implies we're talking about molecules, not tissues. Are you saying you can't convert or move the molecules in one tissue to molecules in another?

There is no biochemical pathway (biochemistry is the study of biochemical processes, not molecules themselves, go look up the definition), where you can convert fat into muscle.

Don't bother replying if you're going to try to straw man me with that "moving molecules" BS again. At least try to be reasonable when trolling.

[The Troll Toll]

(Original post by HFerguson)
maybe biophysical, biomechanical or anthropometric is a more appropriate word? I'm sure we all knew what rollerball meant

I kind of disagree. I think we really all knew what the OP meant when he said he'd converted fat into muscle, and what everyone means when they say that. I don't really like when people try to sound smart by saying the cells can't convert into other cells. Why should we talk about cells?? Why not molecules, or more pertinently, proportional energy storage. I mean, let's say I converted my kitchen into a conservatory. If I posted that here I swear I would get dumbasses saying "OMG there's no way you did that because there is no physical process by which you convert brick into glass."

It's just parrotting of the worst kind. Everyone knows what someone means when someone "converted" fat into muscle, so saying they didn't on a meaningless technicality really adds nothing to the discussion. Especially when the technicality probably isn't even technically correct.

(Original post by RollerBall)
There is no biochemical pathway (biochemistry is the study of biochemical processes, not molecules themselves, go look up the definition), where you can convert fat into muscle.

WTF is a biochemical process if it's not a molecular process?!!?!?You're basically saying the definition of biochemistry is biochemistry, because what the **** else would a "biochemical process" be? I know the definition of biochemistry, watch:

Biochemistry, n: That thing I did my degree in.

[The Troll Toll]

(Original post by Arturo Bandini)
The Troll really took his Toll in this thread!

I'm gonna reply to you now because I just took a shower and was thinking about this thread. My thoughts led me to think that RollerBall will reply with something stupid (which happened) and HFerguson will reply with a lot of meaningless verbosity that takes the attention away from my points and onto how many medic words he knows. Maybe this is unfair. But whatever. I'm not disagreeing with anything you've said, I'm just ranting and I'm doing it to you because you'll probably have something intelligent to say about it.

First of all, isn't my trolling amazingly meta? When I troll in H&R they are too dumb to notice, but I can troll here just by saying things I think and people see my name and assume I'm trolling, which means I'm trolling by not trolling. Abed would be proud.

Anyway, you can view the body on a number of levels, right?

The first and most basic level is just as an organism (or even a population, but let's stick to talking about individuals for the sake of simplicity). You look at the body and observe basic things. Like it stayed the same weight, but grew a six pack and swoleceps. On that level you don't look at the detail and you'd probably say that body converted fat into muscle. This is what literally everyone means when they say it.

The second level is organs/tissues. This kind of merges with the first level, but you're cutting the body open. You can tell on this level that the adipose tissue got smaller and the muscle tissue got bigger. You can't really say it converted, but you can't say it didn't because again you're not looking at a tonne of detail.

The next level is individual cells. Now we're getting into the nitty-gritty, and the one place the technicality actually works. If you track one cell, you can see that the fat cell did not convert into a muscle cell. Fair enough.

But the body is also more complex than cells. They are full of molecules. So let's say we tracked a molecule through the process. There's a high chance it will get converted into another molecule, excreted, whatever. It may also leave the cell. A free fatty acid might get secreted by the cell, enter the TCA cycle of another cell (let's call it a muscle cell) and then be converted into an amino acid. This amino acid can be converted into a constituent of a protein (let's call it actin). Is it the same molecule? Not really. Was it an example of fat being converted to muscle? Arguably.

Molecules of course, are not the smallest level. They are made of atoms. We can hypothetically track them through the process, but since our bodies are not nuclear reactors we can have a much less woolly definition of when something is the same atom. Can a carbon, oxygen or even nitrogen atom that was once taking up space in an adipose cell, find itself taking up space in a muscle cell? Unequivocally, yes.

At this point we can go further, and talk about physical stuff and subatomic stuff, but that's not really relevant either. My point is that the oft parrotted comment which adds nothing to the discussion, and cannot have advice inferred from it is markedly less sophisticated and less useful than "SQUATZ AND MILK" or "CROSS BODY CURLS GIVE A BETTER PUMP". It relies on the entirely arbitrary definition of "convert" and serves only to make a self righteous dickhead who goes to a made up medical school look intelligent, until someone who is actually intelligent comes along (which rarely happens on forums for some reason).

(Original post by Mr. Fox)
quoted because I JUST want to talk to someone who knows how to think.

Ya get me?

[Mr. Fox]

(Original post by The Troll Toll)
I'm gonna reply to you now because I just took a shower and was thinking about this thread. My thoughts led me to think that RollerBall will reply with something stupid (which happened) and HFerguson will reply with a lot of meaningless verbosity that takes the attention away from my points and onto how many medic words he knows. Maybe this is unfair. But whatever. I'm not disagreeing with anything you've said, I'm just ranting and I'm doing it to you because you'll probably have something intelligent to say about it.

First of all, isn't my trolling amazingly meta? When I troll in H&R they are too dumb to notice, but I can troll here just by saying things I think and people see my name and assume I'm trolling, which means I'm trolling by not trolling. Abed would be proud.

Anyway, you can view the body on a number of levels, right?

The first and most basic level is just as an organism (or even a population, but let's stick to talking about individuals for the sake of simplicity). You look at the body and observe basic things. Like it stayed the same weight, but grew a six pack and swoleceps. On that level you don't look at the detail and you'd probably say that body converted fat into muscle. This is what literally everyone means when they say it.

The second level is organs/tissues. This kind of merges with the first level, but you're cutting the body open. You can tell on this level that the adipose tissue got smaller and the muscle tissue got bigger. You can't really say it converted, but you can't say it didn't because again you're not looking at a tonne of detail.

The next level is individual cells. Now we're getting into the nitty-gritty, and the one place the technicality actually works. If you track one cell, you can see that the fat cell did not convert into a muscle cell. Fair enough.

But the body is also more complex than cells. They are full of molecules. So let's say we tracked a molecule through the process. There's a high chance it will get converted into another molecule, excreted, whatever. It may also leave the cell. A free fatty acid might get secreted by the cell, enter the TCA cycle of another cell (let's call it a muscle cell) and then be converted into an amino acid. This amino acid can be converted into a constituent of a protein (let's call it actin). Is it the same molecule? Not really. Was it an example of fat being converted to muscle? Arguably.

Molecules of course, are not the smallest level. They are made of atoms. We can hypothetically track them through the process, but since our bodies are not nuclear reactors we can have a much less woolly definition of when something is the same atom. Can a carbon, oxygen or even nitrogen atom that was once taking up space in an adipose cell, find itself taking up space in a muscle cell? Unequivocally, yes.

At this point we can go further, and talk about physical stuff and subatomic stuff, but that's not really relevant either. My point is that the oft parrotted comment which adds nothing to the discussion, and cannot have advice inferred from it is markedly less sophisticated and less useful than "SQUATZ AND MILK" or "CROSS BODY CURLS GIVE A BETTER PUMP". It relies on the entirely arbitrary definition of "convert" and serves only to make a self righteous dickhead who goes to a made up medical school look intelligent, until someone who is actually intelligent comes along (which rarely happens on forums for some reason).



Ya get me?

Right, it's all about contextual appropriacy, and suitably interpreting what's relevant to the discussion.

A. Least demanding level: fat can be converted to muscle (i.e. composition changes, total mass of lean tissue increases as total mass of adipose tissue decreases).

B. More demanding level: the conventional ways of thinking about biochemical processes don't support the notion that fat cells can be converted into muscle cells.

C. Even more demanding level: there are valid interpretations of processes at the molecular level that support the notion that fat can indeed be converted into muscle - even if it's somewhat incidental.

All levels are valid. The point is that the discussion at level A is needlessly polluted by attacking it from B (nice one, RollerBall). The absurdity of doing so is highlighted in turn by attacking B from C (The Troll Toll).

The OP clearly doesn't give a flying ballsack about what you have to say, Rollerball - he wants to lose his love handles.

[silent ninja]

The Troll Toll -- the main issue with your argument and why Roller probably pounced on it as that it is a commonly known bro-science myth that fat does actually magically convert in to fat. The bro science recommends being a fatty then "toning" up by making it in to muscle. "Check that muscle out bro, it's just a bit flabby atm." No sir, a tyre is a tyre.

This thread has gone off on a tangent in far too much detail. Only on TSR do we get the equivalent of 'my dad's better than yours' with education.

[ch0c0h01ic]

(Original post by Braniac101)
im a real fitness fanatic and have a great interest in sports. i enjoy playing football and training in olypmpic wrestling.
my concern is the love handles. i was quite chubby when younger but have managed to convert most fat into muscle. The pecs are a little fatty but the shape can be seen.
i need a few excersizes or routines to lose the LOVE HANDLES/ MUFFIN TOP. the rest of my body looks good but the love handles let me down as they covert the otherwise set body into a fatty one
in a t-shirt, i will look fat from behind rather than muscle due to these
i want to hear from someone who has experiance with love handles but has solved the problem through good excersizes. i also want to know the workouts used.
thanks in advance

Myth No. 1 - You cannot turn fat into muscle. By altering your diet an exercise regime you can influence how much of one or the other you can gain/lose but you cannot convert one into another.

Myth No. 2 - You cannot spot reduce fat. By cleaning up your diet and getting plenty of exercise you will lose fat however this will be from across your whole body. There is not a single exercise or diet you can do that will preferentially burn fat from one region compared to another.

Every successful fat loss diet gets you to eat less and to lesser degrees eat better and exercise mores are aware of or not). As a "fitness fanatic" or someone that strength trains 2-3x a week and does cardio/conditioning 2-3x a week your issue is not that you don't do enough crunches or ab workouts but your diet.

General pointers:
1) Reduce portion sizes of everything
2) Drink less calorie containing beverages (eg; fruit juices, smoothies, milk, alcohol)
3) Drink less alcohol
4) Eat less processed food, takeaways and ready-meals
5) Eat more lean meats, fish and low fat dairy products
6) Eat more vegetables
7) Drink more water, green tea and black coffee

The best thing you can do is keep an honest food/drink diary for a week and then post it here for more personalised advice.

(Original post by RollerBall)
Where did you do your degree? London solent? I'll have you know I study at THE university for medicine, you can't even apply, you're selected. You can't impress me by saying you've studied biochemistry and then spout rubbish.

"If you have something to say of any worth then people will listen to you." - Oscar Peterson

Apart from being rude boasting about qualifications does not give your argument any credence either way. Rather than it being a measure of who is right or wrong it is a pretty good indicator of a breakdown in communication (eg; you haven't explained yourself properly, your argument is not rational, arrogance).

If someone is that interested about your background they will ask and they will be far more impressed if it isn't shoved down their throat.

[HFerguson]

(Original post by ch0c0h01ic)

"If you have something to say of any worth then people will listen to you." - Oscar Peterson

Apart from being rude boasting about qualifications does not give your argument any credence either way. Rather than it being a measure of who is right or wrong it is a pretty good indicator of a breakdown in communication (eg; you haven't explained yourself properly, your argument is not rational, arrogance).

If someone is that interested about your background they will ask and they will be far more impressed if it isn't shoved down their throat.

he was trolling bro

The thing I love most about the fitness forum is after the OP's question is answered, but sometimes before, it just devolves into trolling, arguing and "my dad's bigger than your dad"; it's funny as ****. Probably pretty unhelpful for the majority of people legitimately wanting advice, but it might help if people read the stickies. People these days have no initiative; they come to the fitness forum and just ask questions and never question anything they have previously been told regarding health and fitness. Why can't people go off and google and research and read on their own, and critically evaluate what they're reading?

[Arturo Bandini]

(Original post by The Troll Toll)
I I'm just ranting and I'm doing it to you because you'll probably have something intelligent to say about it.

That's too much pressure, I don't cope well under pressure.

But I will say this: "WRONG YOU CAN'T CONVERT FAT INTO MUSCLE" is up there with "THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS TONING" in the list of Smart-Arse Things That Don't Need to be Said, That People Say on TSR.