The famous answer: no

The truthful answer: yes, and we are doing it all the time whether we want to or not, so we might as well know what things affect our fat distribution in various body parts.

There’s a kernel of truth in the “no”, though, and where that comes from is that we cannot exclusively put fat on in a certain area only, and nor can we do “spot reduction”, i.e., intentionally lose fat from only one place.

How, then, do we do fat redistribution?

Your body is a living organism, not a statue

It’s easy to think “I’ve been carrying this fat in this place for 20 years”, but during that time the fat has been replaced several times and moved often; in fact, the cells containing the fat have even been replaced. Because: fat can seem like a substance that’s alien to your body because it doesn’t respond like muscles, isn’t controllable like muscles, doesn’t have the same sensibility as muscles, etc. But, every bit of fat stored in your body is stored inside a fat cell; it’s not one big unit of fat; it’s lots of tiny ones.

In reality, any given bit of fat on your body has probably been there for 18–24 months at most:

Fat turnover in obese slower than average

…and there are assorted factors that can modify the rate at which our body deals with fat storage:

Human white adipose tissue: A highly dynamic metabolic organ

So, how do I get rid of this tummy?

There are plenty of stories of people who try to lose weight from one part of their body, and lose it from somewhere else instead. Say, a person wants to lose weight from her hips, and with careful diet and exercise, she loses weight—by dropping a couple of bra cup sizes while keeping the hips.

So, we must figure out: why is fat stored in certain places? And the main driving factors are:

• hormones
• metabolic health
• stress

Hormones affect fat distribution insofar as estrogen and progesterone will favor the hips, thighs, butt, breasts, and testosterone will favor a more central (but still subcutaneous, not visceral) distribution. Additionally, estrogen and progesterone will favor a higher body fat percentage, while testosterone will favor a lower one.

This is particularly relevant later in life, when suddenly the hormone(s) you’ve been relying on to keep your shape, are now declining, meaning your shape does too. This goes for everyone regardless of sex.

See:

• What You Should Have Been Told About The Menopause Beforehand
• The BAT-pause! ← this is about the conversion of white adipose tissue to brown adipose tissue, and how estrogen helps this happen
• Topping Up Testosterone?

Metabolic health affects fat distribution insofar as poor metabolic health will result in more fat being stored in the viscera, rather than in the usual subcutaneous places. This is a serious health risk.

See: Visceral Belly Fat & How To Lose It

Stress affects fat distribution insofar as chronically elevated cortisol levels see more fat sent to the stomach, face, and neck. This fat redistribution isn’t dangerous itself, but it can be indicative of the chronic stress, which does pose more of a general threat to health.

See: Lower Your Cortisol! (Here’s Why & How)

What this means in practical terms

Assuming that you would like the fat distribution that says “this is a healthy woman” or “this is a healthy man”, respectively, then you might want to:

• Check your sex hormone levels and get them adjusted if appropriate
• Improve your overall metabolic health—without necessarily trying to lose weight, just, take care of your blood sugars for example, and they will take care of you in terms of fat storage.
• Manage your stress (which includes any stress you are experiencing about your body not being how you’d like it to be).

If you are doing these things, and you don’t have any major untreated medical abnormalities that affect these things, then your fat will go to the places generally considered healthiest.

Can we speed it up?

Yes, we can! Firstly, we can speed up our overall metabolism:

Let’s Burn! Metabolic Tweaks And Hacks

Secondly, we can encourage our body to “move” fat by intentionally “yo-yoing”, something usually considered bad in dieting when people just want to lose weight and instead are going up and down, but: if you lose weight healthily, it comes off everywhere evenly, and if you gain weight healthily, it goes mostly to the places where it should be.

So, a sequence of lose-gain-lose-gain might look like “lose a bit from everywhere, put it back in the good place, lose a bit more from everywhere, put it back in the good place”, etc.

So, you might want to gently cycle these a few months apart, for example:

How To Lose Fat (Healthily!) | How To Gain Fat (Healthily!)

You can also cheat a little, if it suits your purpose! By this we mean: if you’d like a little extra where you already have a little fat, then you can put muscle on underneath it, it will pad it up, and (because of the layer of actual fat on top) nobody will know the difference unless you flex it with their hand on it.

Let’s put it this way: people doing squats for a bubble-butt aren’t doing it to put on fat; they’re putting muscle on under the fat they have.

So, check out: How To Gain Muscle (Healthily!)

And finally, for all your body-sculpting needs, we present these excellent books:

Women’s Strength Training Anatomy Workouts – by Frédéric Delavier

Strength Training Anatomy (For Men) – by Frédéric Delavier

Enjoy!