About 3 months ago my body was in somewhat of a state. Over the winter period I’d been eating terribly, the kind of eating that you know is bad, and then as if to punish yourself you do it more. Anyway, the net result was my body was flabby and at least 5 kgs overweight.
The strange thing was though, that in the right conditions (usually dehydrated), my physique didn’t actually look too bad. I wasn’t 100% happy with it, but at the same time, it wasn’t the worst figure in the world. It felt ‘tight’, if a little flabby.
Deciding to change things, I started doing a rigorous interval training cardio program, figuring that my main goal was just to burn the excess fat I’d put on during winter. This program was essentially a combination of yoga, plyometrics and regular cardio in short bursts, and if the amount I was sweating each workout was anything to go by, it seemed to be quite effective.
And then along came ‘soft fat’…
Around three weeks into this program, a strange thing happened. I looked in the mirror, and my body was the worst I’d ever seen it. It was unbelievable, just how flabby every part of my body was.
My gut had drooped into a ‘pouch’, and looked like something you’d expect on a middle-aged man, not a relatively fit 26 year old. My chest had also drooped to look more like breasts, and there wasn’t a ‘firm’ part of my body to be found.
I couldn’t believe it. You can imagine the disappointment I felt after enduring such a grueling cardio routine for almost a month, only to seemingly go backwards! It wasn’t until I did a little research that I figured out what was actually happening, and all I can say is it is one ugly sign of progress.
But why? Why???
Basically what was happening is my body was finally starting to process the old stored fat, in a very big way. As a result of this, blood was starting to circulate around the fatty areas and a long-term buildup of ‘hard’ fat was beginning to soften up as it became ready to be consumed by my body.
To allow for this fat consumption, your body needs to start opening up capillaries near your skin’s surface and allowing blood to flow through. When you are in a fairly dormant state of little or no exercise, these capillaries close over time, as the fatty areas of our body are very hardy and don’t require much in the way of circulation. This increase in circulation and opening of capillaries leads to softening of your subcutaneous fat.
The second factor at play is that you have a certain number of fat cells in your body regardless of your current body composition. The reason your actual fat levels vary is to do with what state the fat cells are in. They can either be filled with fat, or shriveled up and empty, as well as any state in between.
One theory regarding the appearance of ‘soft’ fat is that when you lose fat deposits quickly from your fat cells, they haven’t had time to get smaller to accommodate, so they fill the extra space with water. This theory was based on a preliminary study, and which admitted to being inconclusive.
To me though, this theory of filling with water makes sense purely from a ‘how I felt’ perspective, as I didn’t seem to get bigger or smaller, but rather the weight on me just became very jiggly and soft.
This period lasted for about a week as I continued my routine, but after this time I did start to lose weight appreciably and my body got much more toned and lean.
Moral of the story: Don’t panic!
If you are in a state of sudden exercise-fueled weight loss, be aware of the potential for this soft fat phenomenon to occur, and just know that there is nothing much more you can do than ‘ride it out’.
At the end of the day it is a very good sign that your body is increasing circulation through old hard fat stores, and this is just an unfortunately ugly road bump on the way to weight loss.
Sam Matthews is a fitness blogger from New Zealand.