What Causes the Dreaded Muffin Top, and Can I Lose It?

You've probably heard someone complaining about their 'muffin top' before. Hopefully, you've realized it has nothing to do with the breakfast pastry we've all grown to appreciate deeply. It concerns the problem area around the midsection that many call love handles.

Stubborn belly fat produces it, and here's what you can do to prevent or eliminate it.

What is a Muffin Top?

"Muffin top" is the slang term for fat accumulation around the midsection, right above the hips.

Tight-fitting pants can make excess fat spill over the waistband of your pants, giving the appearance of a muffin top in your midsection.

Muffin tops, like regular muffins, come from the kitchen. Consuming excess calories is often the cause, resulting in higher body fat and weight gain.

Board-certified plastic surgeon Dr. Kevin Hanz from our Dallas body sculpting office explains that a muffin top refers to excess fat that hangs over the lateral hip area. It can extend circumferentially and tends to be quite resistant to diet and exercise.

Furthermore, there are two types of fat, both of which can contribute to the formation of a muffin top. Subcutaneous fat is found under the skin, while visceral fat surrounds the abdominal organs.

Finally, loose skin that hasn't contracted after weight loss can also cause it to form in some cases.

What Causes a Muffin Top?

A few factors can cause the midsection to expand to the point of creating a muffin top.

The main cause of a muffin top is an unbalanced diet. If you're consuming an excessive amount of calories, you're contributing to fat storage around the midsection. Ensure you're burning more calories than you're eating, which is always attainable by dieting with a calorie deficit.

Another factor is your genetics. Genetics don't dictate if you'll be overweight, but they do dictate where your body stores fat. If you're genetically prone to storing fat around the midsection, then developing a muffin top will be more likely.

Excessive anxiety can cause your body to increase cortisol levels, leading to the accumulation of fat in the midsection. Stress hormones lead to overeating, which will lead to extra fat around your waist.

Factors to Consider:

• Aging: Estrogen fluctuations related to menopause can cause waist fat.

• Insulin resistance: When the body resists insulin, it stores more fat around the midsection than it uses for energy. Too much fat in this area can lead to health problems such as type 2 diabetes.

• Lack of sleep: Bad sleep causes you to produce more cortisol.

• An unhealthy diet: Eating a diet high in processed food and sugar will augment your waistline.

• Lack of exercise: If you aren't actively burning calories, you will have difficulty losing belly fat.

A Guide to Removing a Muffin Top

As previously stated, the most effective way to get rid of a muffin top is by burning body fat. You can achieve this by committing to exercise, better eating habits, and reducing stress.

Muffin Top-Creating Foods You Should Avoid

Food alone does not create excess fat; eating more calories than you need makes you gain weight.

Use a calorie calculator on the internet to estimate the amount of calories you need to eat per day. The calculator will consider your weight, age, gender, and height to make the calculation.

Let's imagine that you need to eat 2000 calories a day to maintain your weight (your basal metabolic rate). To lose weight, you need to eat less than 2000 calories a day. You will gain weight if you consume more than 2000 calories a day.

As a rule, 2500 calories equals one pound of fat. Therefore, if you consume an extra 2500 calories every week, you will get fatter with one new pound of fat every seven days.

If you only eat 1500 calories a day, you're eating 2500 fewer calories per week. That means you will lose a pound of fat every seven days. These are, of course, only rough estimates.

Therefore, avoid eating calorie-dense foods and focus on protein over sugar. Two glazed donuts are 380 calories worth of food that will leave you hungry. You can make a healthy chicken wrap with around the same calories that will keep you satiated.

In the end, it's all about making the right choices.

Any Exercise Helps With Fat Loss

For efficiency purposes, doing cardio will help you burn calories the best. But if you don't like running or do not feel comfortable with it at first, you should pick an exercise that will keep you motivated because it's fun for you to do.

You can get rid of a muffin top with these exercises:

• Strength training: moving weights at the gym will help you build muscle and burn overall body fat when coupled with a healthy diet.

• Swimming: You can burn calories with variations to target your core for a thinner midsection.

• Boxing: Boxing is a complete sport that will help you become fitter, thus zapping away your muffin top.

• Hiking: Hiking in nature can help you reduce midsection fat without the need to be confined to a closed space.

It is important to note that exercise does not burn fat in the specific area you're working on. That's why crunches don't burn fat in the abs, and calf raises don't burn fat in your calves.

When exercising, you're burning fat throughout your body in an overall manner. Therefore, with consistency, results will come through.

Can I Lose My Muffin Top in Nashville? 

At AirSculpt®, patients can seamlessly get a snatched waist at our Nashville offices.

But, do not confuse Waist AirSculpt® with a traditional surgery with more significant risks and discomforting factors.

AirSculpt® procedures remove fat from your midsection without using invasive tools.

Instead of a scalpel, we use a biopsy punch to form a symmetrical two-millimeter opening to remove stubborn waist and abdominal fat.

A mechanical cannula, spinning a thousand times per minute, precisely extracts fat without causing damage to the surrounding tissues.

We avoid using stitches or general anesthesia, which results in an average downtime of 48 hours and a total recovery time of at least 50 percent shorter than that of the traditional liposuction procedure.

To learn more about how our Nashville body contouring experts can assist you in achieving an hourglass figure that boosts your confidence, schedule a free consultation today.