I guess I need to lose some fat - OR - what's a usual difference between BPEL & NBPEL

Just measured today for the first time since July. My BPEL was 6 1/2”, an increase of 1/4”, and my NBPEL was 5 3/4”. I hadn’t measure my original NBPEL, so I have no idea was the gain was there.

I’m a fit guy—not a lot of body fat, and I have a flat stomach but I don’t have a six-pack or discernable abdominal muscles except along the side (serratus muscles).

I’ve done a search and did find one reference to a fit person having a one inch fat pad, but mostly just a lot of references to the fact that fat pads differ between person to person.

So, I offer up a potentially difficult question: is there a way to reduce the fat pad specifically? Obviously diet and exercise will reduce overall body fat, but I know that certain supplements can help target certain fat deposits (e.g. Yohimbe apparently helps target the love-handle region, which seems to be one of the hold outs for my body’s fat deposits.. I should really pick some up).

Nope.

Oh, crap. It appears my search-fu was weak. The "Similar Threads" down at the bottom pointed to someone asking essentially the same question: Lose fat pad to gain NBPEL. No answers in that thread either.

I concur with Marinera…nope. I had a medical situation a couple of years ago and over the course of it lost about 25 lbs. I was thinner than I’d ever been. Did my fat pad change at all? NO. I really believe that the abdominal fat is absolutely the last to go under any circumstances. I don’t think 3/4” is all that much of a fat pad. I believe that a lot of guys who are fairly fit generally are carrying around that much fat pad. I may be wrong.

Usually difference is about half an inch but it can be up to an inch difference is many average weighing people.

When your body uses it’s stores of fat for energy, it selects fat cells using a weighted random method. So, fat is used in a reliably distributed fashion across the entire surface of the body, but some areas are selected randomly more often than others. For example, your extremities tend to store and keep less fat than your belly, of which the fat pad is a part of. If you are already relatively fit, I would not worry too much about it for a few reasons - one, it takes a punishing amount of diet discipline for most guys to get lean, hard abs, and two, you can use that area of your body to stimulate a woman in several positions. So, while you don’t want a lot of fat, a certain size to the fat pad is useful in my experience.

Great, that’s the information I was looking for. So my fat pad is a bit above average, but not ridiculous. Thanks!

A bit above average?

I haven’t really heard of fat pads lower than half an inch and rarely hear anything over an inch. So you’re about average with 0.75 inches, not above average.

Ah, okay. You’re right—I misunderstood.

There is a laser treatment that causes the fat inside the adipose cells to emulsify and exit the cell through a temporarily formed pore in the cell membrane.

It can effectively cause spot reduction.

Liposuction in any of its myriad forms will also spot reduce the pubic fat pad.

There is also cryolipolysis — a machine is used to lower the temperature of the fat cells to the point where they die and are absorbed by the body.

Another way to spot reduce.

I’m going to start lane swimming again.

Back in my teens I was a lifeguard and swam regularly. I had max a half inch fat pad (now it’s 1 inch). This was pretty much all the physical activity I did. Now that I’ve started to workout regularly at the gym, I’ve become complacent with the cardio equipment there, except I notice I don’t push myself as hard as I did when I swam (I’d sometimes pass out in the shower LOL).