Escape Your Shape??

[P Marie]

Greetings Educated Crowd,

Have you heard of Escape Your Shape? I took the quiz at the link below and it tells me I am a "spoon." This means I carry weight in my bottom half. Fine, I knew that. But then the recommendations to "escape" my shape baffle me. I am supposed to do cardio with light weights and high reps and rope jumping and some plyo moves which is fine. But (here's the confusing part) I'm supposed to avoid working my lower body with heavy weights and the following: no lunges, squats, leg presses, ankle weights, no stepping, kickboxing and on and on! I understand that adding muscle will not remove the fat in the problem areas, but can't imagine avoiding working my lower body.

What do you think of this concept? Is it just formulated to be "new" and attract a lot of attention or does it have some merit?

Thank you from a spoon,


http://quiz.ivillage.com/diet/tests/bodytype.htm?ice=iv|df|rl,type

 

[Imafitnessfreak]

Why won't adding muscle help remove fat from problem areas?

 

[materialsgirl]

It's utterly junk science with no grounding in fact or truth. I can't believe iVillage STILL has that stupid quiz on their website (it's been there for years, and people on the fitness forums there are always commenting on how ridiculous it is).

Oh yeah, I'm a "spoon" too, but it's a total load of hogwash.

 

[mckeev5]

I have not seen this before. From the sounds of it though maybe I don't want to.

 

[Maximus]

It seemed a little broad & ambiguous to me. It said I was a ruler, which is actually pretty accurate, but I don't know how I got there b/c none of the multiple choice answers really fit quite right.

 

[P Marie]

Thanks, Sarah, I should have said that I know it's not possible to spot reduce.

 

[P Marie]

Emily,

Thank you! I had never heard of this and it just seemed designed to attract as much attention as possible for a quick dollar. But I had to run it by this crowd which is seriously the most focused and informed out there!

I'm going to do an IMAX just to celebrate!

Thanks,

 

[P Marie]

You know I found the questions limiting too. But I am prone to the spoon thing. It should have raised more of my suspicions from the start.

Thanks,

 

[Imafitnessfreak]

That makes better sense!:7

I disagree with all that ivillage told you. Women for the most part carry their weight through the hips, thighs, butt. It is how we are designed. Not ALL women are like this but we are built that way for reproduction and for surviving the harsh winters with little food. The skinny ones that had little fat died off and therefore could not reproduce. Here we are, a gazzillion years later...trying to keep our bodies from doing what it was designed to do. So how do we do it?

First ignore all the ivillage crap. I didn't trim down my hips, butt, thighs until I STARTED using weights for lower body. How much weight? As much as I can lift over my head!

The heavy weights and cardio leaned everything out and got rid of my "avocado hips"...almost.