How to Get Rid of Body Fat: What Actually Works

“How do I get rid of fat from my [chest / chin / stomach / thighs]?” is one of the most common questions we hear at consultation, and one of the most commonly answered badly elsewhere. Spot reduction — losing fat from one specific area through targeted exercise or local treatment — is not how human fat metabolism works. Understanding what is actually achievable through lifestyle change, and what requires intervention, is the foundation for any sensible plan.

This guide explains how body fat actually behaves, what works and what does not, and where cosmetic surgery sits in the picture.

The biology of body fat

Body fat is not stored as a single homogeneous reserve. It exists in two distinct categories:

Subcutaneous fat sits between the skin and the muscle. This is the fat you can pinch. It accounts for the visible “softness” of body contour — abdomen, hips, thighs, upper arms, chin, chest. It is metabolically less active than visceral fat and is the slowest to mobilise during weight loss.

Subcutaneous fat distribution is largely determined by genetics, sex hormones, and age. Women predominantly accumulate fat on the hips, thighs, and buttocks (a gynoid pattern); men predominantly accumulate it around the abdomen (an android pattern). These patterns are heritable — if your parents store fat in particular areas, you probably will too.

Visceral fat sits inside the abdominal cavity, around and between organs. This is the fat that produces the firm, distended abdomen sometimes called a “beer belly” — it pushes out from inside rather than sitting softly on top. Visceral fat is metabolically active, produces inflammatory signalling molecules, and is the fat type most associated with cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and other metabolic conditions.

Visceral fat responds quickly to weight loss — often disproportionately so, in the first few weeks of a sustained calorie deficit. Subcutaneous fat responds more slowly, and the specific areas it leaves first are determined by your individual pattern, not by which muscle group you exercise.

Why spot reduction doesn’t work

The persistent myth is that exercising a specific muscle group burns the fat sitting on top of it. Crunches will eliminate abdominal fat; tricep dips will eliminate upper arm fat; chest exercises will eliminate chest fat. The biological mechanism this assumes — local fat being mobilised by adjacent muscle activity — does not exist.

Fat is mobilised systemically. When you create a calorie deficit, the body releases stored fatty acids into the bloodstream from fat cells throughout the body, and the pattern of release follows your individual distribution. The muscles being exercised use circulating fatty acids as fuel, but they do not preferentially draw from local fat depots.

This has been tested directly. Studies measuring fat loss from exercised vs non-exercised body areas during training programmes consistently show no preferential loss from the exercised area. A person doing 1,000 crunches a day loses fat from wherever their body releases it first — usually not from the abdomen.

What targeted exercise does achieve is muscle development underneath the fat. Larger, more defined underlying muscle produces a more contoured appearance even at the same overall body fat percentage. The reverse is also true: a normal weight with too little muscle can leave you looking soft, a body type often called skinny fat. This is genuinely useful — but it is muscle development, not fat removal.

What actually reduces body fat

Sustained calorie deficit

The only mechanism that produces sustained fat loss is consuming fewer calories than you expend over months. The specific dietary framework matters less than your ability to maintain the deficit:

• Calorie counting works well for people who like data and structure.
• Mediterranean-style eating (vegetables, legumes, whole grains, fish, olive oil, modest dairy, limited red meat and processed food) tends to produce moderate sustained loss with good metabolic outcomes.
• Lower-carbohydrate approaches work for some, particularly those with insulin resistance or strong appetite responses to refined carbohydrates.
• Intermittent fasting (16:8 or 5:2 patterns) works for some by simplifying calorie restriction into a time window.

The shared feature is sustained calorie deficit. Any framework that achieves that, sustainably, produces fat loss. Frameworks that produce rapid initial loss but cannot be maintained typically backfire through rebound.

Practical principles regardless of framework:

• Adequate protein (1.2–1.6g per kg bodyweight daily) preserves muscle mass during weight loss.
• Vegetables and whole foods as the bulk of intake — high satiety per calorie.
• Limit liquid calories — sugary drinks, fruit juices, alcohol. The single most effective dietary change for many people.
• Track honestly for the first 4 weeks to recalibrate your sense of intake. Most people underestimate by 30–50%.

Exercise — the supporting role

Exercise alone is a poor weight-loss tool. The calorie cost of activity is lower than most people assume, and exercise often triggers compensatory increased eating that erases the deficit. Exercise alongside dietary change, however, improves the outcome substantially:

• Resistance training preserves muscle mass during weight loss, producing better body composition.
• Cardiovascular exercise (steady-state or interval) increases daily energy expenditure modestly and improves cardiovascular health independently.
• Daily walking and overall step count contribute meaningfully to total expenditure without triggering the compensatory hunger that intense exercise often does.

For body fat reduction, the practical combination is: 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity activity, 2–3 resistance training sessions, daily step target of 8,000–10,000, alongside a moderate calorie deficit through diet.

GLP-1 medications

The GLP-1 receptor agonists have substantially changed what is achievable through medication. Average loss is around 15% to 20% of body weight, depending on the medication, over 12–18 months, alongside diet and exercise.

These medications are appropriate for patients with BMI ≥30, or ≥27 with weight-related health conditions. They are not appropriate as cosmetic weight-loss tools for non-obese patients pursuing aesthetic goals. See how to lose weight before cosmetic surgery for details.

Where cosmetic surgery actually fits

Cosmetic surgery is not a weight-loss treatment. Liposuction typically removes 2–5kg of fat in carefully selected cases. Abdominoplasty removes some subcutaneous fat alongside excess skin but is fundamentally a contouring procedure, not a weight-loss procedure.

What surgery achieves is something diet and exercise cannot: targeted contour change in specific areas where stubborn fat persists despite an otherwise good body composition. This matters because the genetic pattern of fat distribution is real. Some patients can lose to a low body fat percentage and still have specific areas — a lower abdominal pouch, hip “saddlebags”, an upper inner thigh deposit, a banana roll beneath the buttock, a double chin — that do not respond to further weight loss. These are exactly the patients where contouring surgery is appropriate.

The criteria for being a good candidate:

• BMI in the appropriate range (typically under 30, ideally under 28). See BMI and eligibility.
• Stable weight for at least 6 months.
• Reasonable skin quality and elasticity.
• Localised disproportion that won’t resolve through further weight loss.
• Realistic expectations — a contour change, not a transformation in overall body size.

Patients who don’t meet these criteria are usually better served by addressing the underlying weight first. Liposuction on an above-target body produces a smaller version of a still-overweight shape, which is rarely what patients actually wanted.

Area-specific notes

Abdominal fat

The first place visceral fat accumulates and one of the first places it leaves with weight loss. Subcutaneous abdominal fat is slower to mobilise. A combination of overall weight loss plus core strengthening (planks, dead bugs, weighted compound movements rather than crunches) builds the underlying muscle while overall fat reduces. For residual lower abdominal fat after good weight loss, stomach liposuction or — where there is also skin laxity and/or muscle separation — abdominoplasty is appropriate.

Chest fat (men)

Important distinction: true gynaecomastia (glandular tissue) versus pseudogynaecomastia (subcutaneous fat). Glandular tissue feels firm and rubbery beneath the nipple; fat feels soft. The two often coexist. Weight loss alone reduces the fat component but does not touch the glandular component. Gynaecomastia surgery combines liposuction (for fat) with surgical excision (for glandular tissue), tailored to the individual mix. Chest-specific exercise builds underlying pectoral muscle but does not eliminate the visible breast tissue.

Chin and neck fat

Submental (under-chin) fat is a common area of localised stubborn fat that does not respond proportionally to weight loss. Some patients have a “double chin” even at a low overall body fat percentage, because the fat pad in this area is genetically determined. Chin exercises (“mewing“, neck stretches, chin presses) have no evidence of effectiveness. For a true localised fat deposit with good skin quality, chin and neck liposuction is effective. Where there is also skin laxity, particularly in older patients, this often combines with neck lift or facelift surgery for a better long-term result.

Hip and thigh fat

The most genetically determined fat distribution pattern, particularly in women. Even with significant weight loss, hip and outer thigh fat (“saddlebags”) often remains. The realistic options are: (1) accept the genetic pattern, (2) liposuction if BMI is appropriate and the pattern is localised, or (3) where there is significant skin laxity (typically after major weight loss), excisional procedures like thigh lift.

Arm fat

Upper arm fat with good skin quality responds well to liposuction. Upper arm fat with skin laxity (typically post-weight-loss or older patients) requires arm lift (brachioplasty) rather than liposuction alone.

What doesn’t work

• Spot exercise for fat reduction in a specific area.
• “Fat-burning” creams, wraps, patches, and devices sold by unregulated providers. None have credible evidence of effectiveness.
• Detox teas and “cleanses” — produce temporary water loss, not fat loss, and can be harmful.
• Cosmetic surgery as primary weight loss. Surgery contours; it does not substitute for the underlying lifestyle change.
• Unregulated fat-dissolving injections from beauty clinics outside the medical regulatory framework. The active agent (deoxycholic acid) is genuinely effective but the patchy regulation means many providers use unbranded compounds with variable outcomes.

Booking a consultation

If you have reached a stable weight and have specific areas of stubborn fat that have not responded, a consultation can confirm whether surgical contouring is appropriate. We will give you a direct answer, including a “your overall weight needs to come down first” answer where that is the right one. Call 020 7993 4849 or use the contact form.

Related reading

• Stubborn fat, skin laxity, or cellulite — what are the differences?
• How to lose weight before cosmetic surgery
• BMI and cosmetic surgery eligibility

Centre for Surgery · CQC-regulated · GMC-registered surgeons · 95–97 Baker Street, Marylebone, London W1U 6RN · 020 7993 4849 · Book a consultation · Finance

Related Articles

• How to Lose Thigh Fat
• How Much Weight Can Be Lost from a Tummy Tuck?
• Liposuction vs non-surgical fat reduction