Stomach fat

This site has free food log as well as a ton of other health tools if anyone is interested. http://www.sparkpeople.com/ As a person who has always fought the battle of the bulge I have a few thoughts. Mind you I am not a doctor or expert, just someone who has had fought weight issues for most of his life. First, your body is very smart and it reacts to everything you do. Eat too much, eat to little, work out to much, work out to little, sleep too much sleep to little...it all has an effect and I think the effects are slightly different for different people. Bottom line we all have to learn what works for us. I have been thin (under 10% body fat) 2 times in my life, playing football with 2 a day workouts or basically expending very high amounts of calories daily, and after a personal loss which gave me such a knot in my stomach could barely eat for months or very low calorie intake. But, these were not my healthiest times, just my leanest. My healthiest time I had a belly bulge, but great muscle mass, doing 3-4 3000m swim workouts a week with some weight training, but not a ton. But none of that is my point, just that like most people with weight issues I have been down many roads. IMHO, it takes 3 things. What you eat, exercise, and rest/recovery. If you can balance those 3 things, everything else will fall into place. I think when we try to tinker too much we fall out of balance or we get focused on one thing and ignore the other two. You don't have to be perfect, just find a comfortable reasonable middle ground. What do I find reasonable? Try and eat as much food that you can grow or kill, (my apologies to non meat eaters) the further away from it's natural state a food is, the more you should try to limit your intake. Workouts; do resistance for you looks (reduce fat, tone etc) Do cardio for your heart and health. Of course they overlap but these are rules of thumb. Oh and mix it up, I think the body confusion idea is a good one. Finally, sleep. This is the one area I think is often overlooked. Lack of sleep is like poison to your body, and all the exercise in the world won't help you if you never allow it to properly recover. Keep it simple, the best plan is the one you will actually do and do on a regular basis. Setting goals is important, but I find for myself if I focus on the process of staying in balance everything else takes care of itself. And when I find my pants getting tight or my chin filling out, it's usually because I have drifted from the fundamentals. Just my 2 cents, again I am no expert or swimsuit model. -JT

This site has free food log as well as a ton of other health tools if anyone is interested. http://www.sparkpeople.com/ As a person who has always fought the battle of the bulge I have a few thoughts. Mind you I am not a doctor or expert, just someone who has had fought weight issues for most of his life. First, your body is very smart and it reacts to everything you do. Eat too much, eat to little, work out to much, work out to little, sleep too much sleep to little...it all has an effect and I think the effects are slightly different for different people. Bottom line we all have to learn what works for us. I have been thin (under 10% body fat) 2 times in my life, playing football with 2 a day workouts or basically expending very high amounts of calories daily, and after a personal loss which gave me such a knot in my stomach could barely eat for months or very low calorie intake. But, these were not my healthiest times, just my leanest. My healthiest time I had a belly bulge, but great muscle mass, doing 3-4 3000m swim workouts a week with some weight training, but not a ton. But none of that is my point, just that like most people with weight issues I have been down many roads. IMHO, it takes 3 things. What you eat, exercise, and rest/recovery. If you can balance those 3 things, everything else will fall into place. I think when we try to tinker too much we fall out of balance or we get focused on one thing and ignore the other two. You don't have to be perfect, just find a comfortable reasonable middle ground. What do I find reasonable? Try and eat as much food that you can grow or kill, (my apologies to non meat eaters) the further away from it's natural state a food is, the more you should try to limit your intake. Workouts; do resistance for you looks (reduce fat, tone etc) Do cardio for your heart and health. Of course they overlap but these are rules of thumb. Oh and mix it up, I think the body confusion idea is a good one. Finally, sleep. This is the one area I think is often overlooked. Lack of sleep is like poison to your body, and all the exercise in the world won't help you if you never allow it to properly recover. Keep it simple, the best plan is the one you will actually do and do on a regular basis. Setting goals is important, but I find for myself if I focus on the process of staying in balance everything else takes care of itself. And when I find my pants getting tight or my chin filling out, it's usually because I have drifted from the fundamentals. Just my 2 cents, again I am no expert or swimsuit model. -JT