How to Get Rid of Flabby Arms

How to Get Rid of Flabby Arms

 I’ve recently been asked to write about how to get rid of back-of-the-arm fat. It’s been called lots of things: “wings, lunch lady arms, even chickens (you know who you are who calls these chickens).”

But before I tell you how to get rid of this, I’ll tell you how NOT to get rid of it.

Where most people go wrong when trying to lose that back-of-the-arm fat (let’s just call it “triceps fat”) is they start doing lots of exercises for their triceps. Months and months later, they have very firm triceps… underneath all the fat that’s still there.

So by all means, do triceps exercises, just don’t expect those exercises to get rid of the fat over there.

With that out of the way, how do you get rid of the fat over there? Clearly exercise by itself isn’t the answer. There has to be more. And lucky for you, there is.

First of all, get the basics taken care of: do some form of resistance training (whether it’s lifting weights, or using your body weight or using some elastic bands, etc.), eat right (this one by itself, I could write an encyclopedia about, especially since what’s right for one person isn’t right for another), and supplement right.

Although fat loss comes off the entire body at the same time, after measuring hundreds of people, I’ve noticed that different areas of body fat respond at different speeds to different nutrition and supplementation strategies. For example, I see the greatest drop in the love handles when refined carbohydrates are removed from the diet. I see the greatest drop in thigh fat when more veggies are added from the brassica family (broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower).

The back of the arm responds very well to an increased consumption of lean red meat (not exclusively, but 2-4 times per week) and fish, plus some specialized supplements, like DIM (diindolylmethane), calcium-D-glucarate, resveratrol, grape seed extract, green tea extract and fiber (I’ll bet you didn’t know there are different types of fiber. The specific type good for triceps fat is lignans. Flax seeds and sesame seeds are by far the greatest food sources of this).

You wouldn’t take all of these at the same time, but only 2-3 at once.

Before you get all excited, thinking “all I have to do to get rid of my lunch lady arms is take these supplements”, I want to make 2 important points:

 

1. Most supplements will only affect body fat for 8-14 days, after which they lose their effectiveness, so it’s important to rotate supplements. That doesn’t mean that they lose their effectiveness for other things, but just as ways of affecting body fat, the effectivness is lost after 8-14 days.
2. The BIG assumption I’m making here is that the triceps are your BIGGEST problem area. In other words, you store more fat in your triceps than any other area (including your belly, buns and thighs, upper back, etc.). If it isn’t, the supplements listed above won’t be optimal.

I’m also assuming that your nutrition is good to begin with, and you’re exercising.

I’m also assuming that you’re taking some other supplements that are good for just about everything (like a multi-vitamin, fish oil, magnesium and zinc). I’m assuming that your digestive system and liver are functioning well. These are all assumptions which, if they aren’t true, the above supplements either won’t work or won’t work as well as they could.

I know this seems like a lot of information, but if you’ve been reading my newsletters or heard my talks for any length of time, you’ll know that I’m not a fan of one-size-fits all exercise, nutrition and supplementation programs. So if you want help in figuring out what’s right for you, I encourage you to take advantage of the Olympics promotion (read the beginning of this newsletter for details).

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Until next week,

 

Igor

647-271-8672

www.torontofitnessonline.com

 

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