Here you go @Gobacktotheworld2- Lyle at his verbose best!
Just a random post since it allows me to avoid real work, something spurred by a discussion in a thread about visceral fat. It's something I mention to consultation clients frequently.
It has to do with the pattern in which we lose fat.
And basically we lose it from the inside out and the top down.
Which means this, IF someone is carrying a lot of visceral fat, that is usually the first bit that's lost. OR certainly it represents proportionally more of the fat loss.
Now, in general, dudez are more likely to carry visceral fat than ze womynz. It's hormonal with testosterone directly causing fat storage in dudes and estrogen protecting against visceral fat in women.
There are exceptions. Hyperandrogenic women (i.e. PCOS) often carry more visceral fat due to elevated testosterone. Post-menopause, women who don't go on HRT often see a shift to a more central fat pattern ,including visceral. This is due to the loss of estrogen signalling.
If a premenopausal women gains a LOT of bodyfat, you often see a relative increase in upper body fat as well. Similarly, in men, who tyically carry little lower bodyfat, they will start to develop fatter hips and thighs with extreme fat gain. Thus is the balance of the universe maintained.
For dudez, visceral fat accumulation really starts to, err, start at about the 15% mark (old methods, this equates to 18-21% via DEXA). Hard to pin a value on it to women but outside of PCOS/meno w/o HRT, it'd be high 20's or more probably.
When you're carrying a lot of visceral fat you tend to notice a couple of things. One is that you just 'feel' thick through the middle.
Visceral fat accumulates around the organs and tends to pooch the stomach without you having the ability to suck it at all. you just feel thick and solid.
At the extremes, yu can get that appearanec where it looks like someone swallowed a beach ball.
Losing Visceral Fat
As noted, for people carrying more visceral fat, it tends to come off first. Though it is more sensitive to activity than diet by and large. But it's very metabolically active, both easy to store and mobilize compared to subcutaneous fat. So in a deficit it goes bye bye.
But unless you have the beach ball thing going on, there doesn't tend to be a lot of visual changes. Yeah, you can finally suck your tummy in but outwardly you look the same mas o menos.
But you 'feel' lighter and leaner and don't have that thick feeling through the middle.
We contine
Top to Bottom
After visceral fat starts to disappear, the next place we tend to lose fat is top to bottom. And I men literally top of the body.
So you start to see changes in the face for example. Whch can be good or bad. As Duchaine pointed out years ago, people with rounder faces tend to diet down better than those with narrow faces who often start to look a bit gaunt. Especially at the extremes.
You also start to see changes in the upper body, chestal area, deltoids and such. It all just has to do with differenecs in how relatively easily or difficultily (???) the fat is to mobilize.
It's fairly common in dudes getting leaner to get a pretty leaned out and often vascular chest/delt area while their abs still look like the Pillsbury Doughboy. That's because life is nothing but an existential nightmare from which we can never escape.
Things continue moving down with a little bit of inside out showing up again.
The Abs
Once the UPPER body starts to lean out, the midsection will eventually start to move. There's a huge gender difference here.
Women, who generally carry a lot more lower bodyfat on average, which is always the last to move, will get visible abs a lot eaerlier than dudes.
So their upper bodies get lean and then they start getting visible abs in the high teens with often a full six pack in the 15-16% range (older methods, add 3-6% for DEXA). In that range.
For men it takea lot longer. At 15% a guy will get what I call the ab window, that inverted U that surrounds the abs. 12-13% and the upper blocks start to come in. It may take single digits to get a full 6 pack.
Of course, even at 15% most dudez will have ripped legs while women have abs but more lower body fat. Each wants what the other has (smoething something existential crisis).
Now, the abs show a similar inside out and top to bottom pattern. Upper abs are easier to mobilize than lower abs. There is also a deep and superficial component to the abs (I discussed this in Stubborn Fat Solution because ony I could turn up that obscure literature).
So dudes get upper abs with a ring of fat aroudn the low abs/low back. Then it starts to lean out from deep to superficial. Finally at single digits, they get a 6-8 pack.
Dudez often ask "I'm lean but still have a ring of fat around my lower midsection. Is this genetic?" Yes, it's the genetics of being a dude.
I'd note that within the context of stubborn bodyfat, for most dudez who don't carry much lower body (hip/thigh fat), abs/low back are the 'stubborn areas'. But they are nowher near as stubborn as what womyn go through.
Lower Bodyfat
Finally there is hip and thigh fat which is the single most stubborn bit of fat to get rid of. And which is more likely to be found in womyn. Lots of factors including genetics, receptor ratios and while estrogen gets teh blame, progesterone is really the big player her (with estrogen potentiating progesterone's effects).
Because flatly if estrogen were causing/maintaining lower bodyfat, it would get EASIER to lose lower bodyfat as women got leaner and their hormone levels went FUBAR. This is objectiveye disprovable and untrue. Yes, there is more going on there.
By the time a womyn is approaching losing lower bodyfat she'll usually be sub 15%. Back in the day, it wasn't uncommon to see stage ready female competitors with a SHREDDEd upper body and fat hips and thighs.
Duchaine described this as "Having stapled two different bodies together."
I discussed the whys and wherefores in too much detail in Stubborn Fat but modern diet, training and supplement ideas make it a lot easire to get rid of.
NB: High intensity activity tends to have a much more profound effect on lower bodyfat, especially if you do the stubborn fat protocols (combining high and low intensity activity). There are a couple of studies where womyn, even at higher BF% who inluded intervals or weight training lost proportionally more lower bodyfat than womyn who only did low intensity who lost nearly all upper body.
But most women will have to get to low teens to really shift lower body fat. Something something existential crisis.
Summing Up
So there ya' go, the pattern of fat loss
Inside out and top to bottom so roughly
Visceral fat (essentially gone in dudes by the 15% mark)
Face
Upper body
Abs which go upper, deep lower, superficial lower
Lower body
Ok, I guess I gotta go do some work emails now. Bleh.