Need to lose belly fat!

[SiM]

The first post was full of fail.

1. Do not avoid eating fat. Just eat healthy fats. Ghee is good fat, it is fine to eat it as long as it is within your calorie limits.
2. Do weights. At 60kg you are puny. Weights = muscle = less fat which is good unless you are training to become a professional marathon runner.
3. No need to bother with cardio yet. Get some strength first, its more important. Start doing HIIT (1 min sprint, 1-2 min walk, then repeat for 20 min) at the end of your weight workouts when you feel you are ready.
4. Eat whole foods. Despite what most people think wholegrain bread is not that much better than white bread. It is still a highly refined and processed product. It is fine to have two slices a day, but I would stop at that.
5. http://stronglifts.com/how-to-lose-b...ast-naturally/
http://stronglifts.com/burn-the-fat-...ew-tom-venuto/
http://stronglifts.com/stronglifts-5...ining-program/
6. Try to eat zero sugar. It is not needed in your diet at all. "Slow burning"/Low GI carbs are fine, but don't eat too much and try to eat it naturally (sweet potato, oats, qunioa, wild rice). Western and veggie diets usually have too much carbs.

[OilSheikh]

I've just given the thread a quick skim, not really read anything in depth, so sorry if this has already been mentioned..

But have you thought about getting a mate to go with you?.

All my mates have been made redundant and they now work elsewhere.

[Whiternoise]

1) More calories out than calories in (simple really, but people forget it)

2) Sugar is harder to watch for than fat. You can eat lots of "low fat" stuff, i.e. semi skimmed milk but take an example of my own. I like blackcurrant squash (aka Sainsbury's Ribena), have done since i was a nipper. If you look on the high juice bottles with the added sugar the sugar content for a 250ml glass is about 20g sugar. Now, i was drinking this stuff by the pint to keep my fluid intake up when i started going to the gym. That's 40g of sugar per glass and i had 4 a day. Go figure. The sugar free stuff tastes almost exactly the same and has 2g per glass. It's worth looking out for, lots of people drink smoothies because they believe they're good for you - sure they're one of your five a day, but they're chock full of sugar.

3) Eat fruit for snacks, or just drink a pint of water. Keep a bowl (of fruit!) by your desk and much on an apple when you get peckish.

4) Need to fill up? Fill half your plate with veg instead of carbs.

5) Soup for lunch. It's been shown to "appear" to the body to be twice as filling as a regular meal and is often pretty healthy.

6) As for the gym, do an hour's work out as follows:

10 mins cardio
20 mins weight training
30 mins cardio

I generally just do rowing because i'm awful at running and cycling (at a rate that actually burns a decent amount of cals) is boring. It's a fantastic leg work out and until you get technique right you'll do a bit of arms and abs too (though if you do it right it should be all leg - so says a past thread). I did machines last term but i'm going to try free weights this time.

The gym is only going to be effective if you cut the crap out of your diet. I've managed to stay roughly the same weight (65kg, i'm 5'.6" ish) and i've definitely bulked a bit. My mate who i go with is about 70kg same height, and he's pretty ripped - 6-pack and all. The belly is really hard to get rid of unless you properly go for it!

[Steve A]

Everyone's body is different, some methods will work some wont, but all handy tips here,

Keep at the Gym,

8.8g fat Per 100g of fat aint very good ....

i lost a stone in a month a while back by just cutting down portions and not eating bread! and not doing hardly any gym work. i do have a high metabolism but i used to eat A LOT

5"9 - 11st 8lb - and im happy with that tbh

hmmm i fancy a KFC now !!!!

[Champman99]

I'm going to be going on a purge after my exams finish on Friday.

My main excercise is going to be swimming, its a bit of an effort, but I find that running/cycling or heavy gymwork leaves me with so many aches and pains that it means I can do less and less, wheras swimming is a great workout and doesnt pressure my joints like pounding the treadmill or pavement does.

I read something recently that what I did previously (two small meals at breakfast and lunch, and then a normal meal at dinner) isnt actually ideal (despite what kellogs tell you). Its better to have a very hearty breakfast and then eat less as the day goes on. Although of course these studies come out with different results all the time.

I would say that if you can restrict yourself to say 1500 calories, and you know from the gym machines that you've burnt a good proportion of that, then you are doing well. Protein tends to fill you up more than other stuff, it is slower and harder to suggest. Something like 30% of the calories in protein are used up in the effort of digesting it. This is why the Atkins diet is good for weight loss, even if it is terrible for your cholestoral, and other health concerns.

For example if I needed a snack I would usually either go for a banana, or just a single slice of ham. My top weight loss area is actually in the supermarket. If I buy it, ill probably eat it, so I make sure I go to the supermarket with a specific list, so I'm not tempted by all the taste delights that are on offer. You cant eat it if it's not in the house!

[oolon]

Change the order you eat things,

Eat breakfast like a King
Lunch like a Prince and
Dinner like a pauper

This gives your body this gets the calories into your body when it is most active, eating large meals at the end of the day before sleep gives more chance for it to be stored.

[Iron Sights]

I can personally recommend martial arts, it has everything you need disipline, strength, stamina, cardio, conditioning etc. Not only will you pick up a few moves but its also a group thing as well, you will make friends.

Now with so many to choose you will be spoiled for choice, my personal favourite is wing chun kung fu, its more close quarters combat, and was apparently invented by a woman.

the principle behind wing chun was that smaller guys can take out bigger people and btw it doesn't have fancy kicks so you wont be ripping your pants anytime soon

[TooNice]

Start doing HIIT (1 min sprint, 1-2 min walk, then repeat for 20 min) at the end of your weight workouts when you feel you are ready.

Either I am incredibly unfit (quite plausible), doing it wrong (also plausible), or you are going to kill someone who is trying it for the first time I decided to give HIIT a go for the first time in a while two weeks ago, but had to stop after a mile (7min 39 sec, target was a modest 10min).

Couldn't even cool down properly, head was spinning and had to lie down. To be honest even when fitter, 12 minutes was already pushing my limit (stamina sucks ). Might be that I am taking the 'sprinting' part too literally (I let my HR get to the 190-200+ range).

Anyway I am joining the love handle trimming club. Like others on this thread, I am not overweight/fat, but I'd like to lose about around 3% of body fat (that's about 2kg of fat) in the next 3 months.

[SiM]

Either I am incredibly unfit (quite plausible), doing it wrong (also plausible), or you are going to kill someone who is trying it for the first time I decided to give HIIT a go for the first time in a while two weeks ago, but had to stop after a mile (7min 39 sec, target was a modest 10min).

I don't see myself as very fit, but I managed 1min fast 2 min slow when I was doing HIIT... You could always start at 45s/2m or 1m/3m and work your way up. Your "sprints" will get slower through the workout, but don't worry, just make sure you are going as fast as you reasonably can go (i.e. without collapsing)

Couldn't even cool down properly, head was spinning and had to lie down.

When you stop quickly, your heart rate does not slow down fast enough and you get a rush of blood to your brain. This is why this happened. Slow your pace down a bit earlier and don't stop when your HR is still high, keep lightly jogging/walking until you are cooled down.

Might be that I am taking the 'sprinting' part too literally (I let my HR get to the 190-200+ range).

The faster the better. 190-200 HR isn't a problem as long as you walk/lightly jog long enough for your HR to come down a little between sprints.

Anyway I am joining the love handle trimming club. Like others on this thread, I am not overweight/fat, but I'd like to lose about around 3% of body fat (that's about 2kg of fat) in the next 3 months.

Good luck! I would recommend doing weights + HIIT, worked very well for me, building a little extra muscle increases energy expenditure and you will look better once the fat has gone.

[TooNice]

Cheers! How long can you work on weight? Stamina always being an issue, I find that I can't do a whole lot more of anything but cardio after 30 min, and I have no idea how people can do a whole hour (no matter how modest it sounds).

[matty-hodgson]

Cheers! How long can you work on weight? Stamina always being an issue, I find that I can't do a whole lot more of anything but cardio after 30 min, and I have no idea how people can do a whole hour (no matter how modest it sounds).

Stamina is something you build by pushing past that half an hour.. You just need to keep pushing yourself . 2 Minutes more each time, 2 reps more each week, 2kg more each time. They all add up, and that's how you build on what you already have.

[OilSheikh]

Moving about my belly more ... Doing excercises that move belly about. Nothing better than direct impact!

[jim]

Nothing like trampolining for moving your belly around

[OilSheikh]

Nothing like trampolining for moving your belly around

Nah. Belly dancing FTW!

[kalniel]

Cheers! How long can you work on weight? Stamina always being an issue, I find that I can't do a whole lot more of anything but cardio after 30 min, and I have no idea how people can do a whole hour (no matter how modest it sounds).

All our machines at the gym have heart rate guidelines listed on them - to build up/strength something uses the upper end, something like 80-90% capacity which corresponds to different heart rates at different ages.

To fat burn they show a much lower capacity - 65-75% or so. Running out of stamina will help you build up muscle/heart etc, but for maximum fat burning you actually want a lower intensity exercise, for longer.

And I wouldn't recommend weights as a way of burning fat at all to be honest. You should build up your cardiovascular system first, so that you're healthy and can exercise longer/more safely. Then it's just long slogs on whatever device you can use the most resistance for for longest (ie takes the most calories to work). I used to cycle, so for me that's quite easily the bikes - 550 calories burnt/hr is no problem and I'm not up to full fitness yet either.

Remember there's no correlation between where fat is on your body and what you should work to remove it - calories out > calories in is the only way to get rid of fat, no matter where it's located.

[morfeus]

Lots of good points here.

HIIT sounds like what some ppl call interval training - this is very very good exercise as your bod will keep burning calories long after you've stopped ie hours after the gym session.

Weights on their own may not be ideal for losing body fat but as part of a balanced gym session, I believe it is good to keep weights of some sort in, whether they are 'free weights' or a machine for specific muscle groups. Bigger/ stronger muscles will use more calories just in 'idle' than smaller/ weaker muscles.

And it has been mentioned a couple of times, unfortunately there is no way to lose the fat around your belly only - you will lose it over the whole body :-(