Stomach fat

Supposedly, lower body weight is particularly hard to lose. It was explained to me something like it is easier to lose weight as a percentage of your total weight. So for someone who weighs 300#, if they lose 10% (30#), it would be comparable to a 150# person losing 15#. But for that same 150# person to get rid of 30#, you're talking a 20% loss. That said, someone could probably find out how much of that 150# is bones and essential organs, etc to get a real picture of what is possible to lose. There is of course an ideal minimum, few get anywhere near it (maybe someone like Paula Radcliffe). When I increased my running distance last year, I lost weight--from all over my body. My face, my stomach/waist/seat, even my fingers and toes. While I tried to target certain areas, it doesn't really work that way. However, with putting on muscle you can kind of target putting it into your arms, chest, back...wherever you tend to focus. My waist remains that same size or smaller, but my arms and chest are definitely bigger. My weight has increased a little, while my body fat is about the same. The food log sounds interesting, and with The Fortress sharing hers in her blog, I'm considering adding my food intake to mine as well.

There is a cheaper alternative to body bug, gowearfit. Made by the same people, and amazon sells it for under 150 at times. I didn't buy the body bug, he loaned it to me. It doesn't work in water so it was basically useless to me other than the experiments that I did with them.

I swam for years and always kept in great shape. I quit for 2 years. After turning 41, which was 7 months ago, I started back up again. I swim 5 days a week for an hour, mostly freestyle. I'm in great shape again everywhere except for this stomach fat I can't seem to lose. Can anyone recommend any good workouts that can get rid of this? Are your 1 hour workouts "easy" at this point? Eventually your body reaches a plateau unless you are continually challenging yourself. If you are not on a team with a coach, I really recommend it, because when I used to swim solo, I would never push myself like a coach would and I never lost that much weight. Once I started on a team, I have been losing about 5 lbs a week consistently. (Doing 3 practices a week of 1.5 hour each - coached). Additionally, make sure your diet adjusts with your workout. A lot of people think they workout so they can eat whatever they want, unfortunately, this only goes so far and as someone else noted, if you consume more calories than you burn, you will not lose the fat. If your body has gotten to the point where your current workouts are "easy", you wont even be burning as many calories as when you first started back swimming. Try to cut out all the pointless calories like: - All sugar drinks (coke, lemonade, sugar-added juices, etc). Gatorade can be acceptable because it has fewer calories, but just make sure you use it to replenish, not as a way to satisfy your hunger all day long - Get the burger with no bacon and no cheese, it really wont taste that different after the first few times and after a while you will start to feel the cheese/bacon are too rich and you wont like the taste - No fries or other high fat sides, try to get things that arent modified much from ground to mouth. (ie: black beans and rice over fries, etc). Those are just some examples. If you can try to evaluate where you are spending calories, you should be able to focus on good balanced meals and avoid all the "toppings" on so many things. Even when you splurge and get a slice of pizza, get chicken and veggies as toppings instead of pepperoni take a paper towel and press it down to soak up all the extra grease/oil you dont need to consume and does not change the taste of the pizza at all. Anyways, my 2c, hope it helps.

This SCY season I had a two week period (in between the weeks I was sick!) where I was working out 5-6 days/wk 2-4 hours per day (weights, bands, swimming, and abs). I was consuming no more than 1200 cal/day (usually around 1000). I did not lose a single ounce. I realize I gained a lot of muscle, but alas, the belly fat did not budge. I am now thinking that cortisol may be my problem. I have done some reading about it since someone mentioned it. My job is extremely stressful with a whack-job for a principal, and I usually get no more than 4 hours of sleep in a row each night (and that has been for the last 10 years, since having kids). I am going to the dr today for a neck injury that has been getting worse over the last 2 1/2 weeks, and I am going to ask him if there is a way to find out if someone has too much cortisol. I'll let you know what I find.

where I was working out 5-6 days/wk 2-4 hours per day (weights, bands, swimming, and abs). I was consuming no more than 1200 cal/day (usually around 1000). I did not lose a single ounce. I realize I gained a lot of muscle, but alas, the belly fat did not budge. I am now thinking that cortisol may be my problem. I have done some reading about it since someone mentioned it. My job is extremely stressful with a whack-job for a principal, and I usually get no more than 4 hours of sleep in a row each night (and that has been for the last 10 years, since having kids). Crap, that's a lot of working out, girl! I wonder if the 4 kids are even more stressful than the job? I have read that insufficient sleep is linked to weight gain as well. Inadequate and/or ineffective/interrupted sleep is definitely one of my issues too. Hope your neck is better soon!

I think the only way to get six-pack abs is to have a very low body fat percentage. There are plenty of guys who look like the proverbial "98 pound weakling" but have definition in their abs merely because they've got no body fat. You can do 1,000 crunches per day, but unless you get rid of that spare tire around your waist you'll never have a six-pack.

This SCY season I had a two week period (in between the weeks I was sick!) where I was working out 5-6 days/wk 2-4 hours per day (weights, bands, swimming, and abs). I was consuming no more than 1200 cal/day (usually around 1000). To workout that much and only consume 1000-1200 calories is very interesting. Did you have to constantly fight the urge to eat? Also, did your performace decline after the first few days? Based on those numbers there'd be a serious calorie deficit each day.

I did the P90X WITH the kids, and the bands after they went to bed. The abs and wts I did at the gym (about 70 min) where they have an awesome daycare. Dan- I wasn't really hungry. I have a nutrition program that I am doing that is really pure nutrition and doesn't leave me hungry. I used Accelerade and GU as well, and lots of water. Fort- From what I read, the sleep can also lead to increased cortisol (stress) and keep the fat on. My kids are not stressful really. They are really good, most of the time. Carrick seems to have past the tantrum stage (the only one to have had that, thank God!), and they are really a happy bunch overall. Kirk- Not that you were addressing me in particular, but I don't have the desire have 6 pk abs. I know my abs are strong, they are just covered in lots of fat! I'm more interested in why the fat won't go away. My belly fat is grossly disproportionate to the rest of my body.

I think the only way to get six-pack abs is to have a very low body fat percentage. There are plenty of guys who look like the proverbial "98 pound weakling" but have definition in their abs merely because they've got no body fat. You can do 1,000 crunches per day, but unless you get rid of that spare tire around your waist you'll never have a six-pack. I'm not sure what you mean by, "very low body fat percentage," but I started getting comments on my abs when my body fat went down to 15%. Don't yet have a 6-pack, but I do have some definition there... The best way that worked for me to get rid of that spare tire was running. Sure, you can have a 6-pack behind it, many people do. It just won't show until you get rid of that fat layer.

Karen, I find your report very hard to understand. Assuming you are more or less an average sized woman--somewhere between 5'1" and 5'10"--and you weight from 115-152 lb., give or take, your basal metabolic rate has to be somewhere in the ball park of 1200 + kcals per day. In other words, you need this much just to stay alive, even if you spend 24 hours a day lying around in bed. Now add in the amount of calories burned from exercise, walking around, doing your job, helping your kids survive, etc., and I wouldn't be surprised to find you were burning close to 2500-3000 kcals a day, especially on the 4 hours of exercise days. Maybe even more. Thus, your calories in (1000, or so you say!) are not nearly enough to balance the calories out (2500-3000). Granted, the old chestnut about 3200 caloric deficti = 1 lb. of weight doesn't always apply. But to experience ZERO weight loss during two weeks of this just doesn't make any sense at all. Do you drink coffee? Do you put milk or sugar in the coffee? Is it possible you were getting hidden calories in some other way? How many GUs, for instance, were you taking (those are 100 kcals each). The only thing I can conclude is that you either overstated your exercise dramatically, understated your food intake dramatically, or are a medical oddity that defies all known laws of physics. A famous weight researcher conducted studies on restricted calories and increasing exercise on identical twins. Interestingly, he conducted these studies in the Canadian wilds where there were no vending machines or other sources of food where the volunteers could consciously or unconsciously boost their intake of food. BTW, what he found is that decreasing food and increasing exercise both helped to lose weight--but not in a predictable way. Some people are diet responders, other exercise responders, and some respond well to neither. It seems to be genetic in some regards, because if your twin was one way, you were the same way. High congruence within twin pairs, low congruence between pairs. Not sure about the cortisol business. The sad fact is that weight control is like a vaudevillian set of drawers. You close one, and another pops open to clout you on the shins. We evolved to contend with starvation; we are not well adapted to contend with all you can eat modernity.