One would think with 10-15 hour exercise weeks, the bulk of which is aerobic, and fairly regulated eating and drinking - that it would be easy to lose that last pinch of flab around the waist. Overall body fat is 10% - if I lost the spare (bicycle, not car) tire - I would be at a nice 7-8%.
Any tips how to achieve that? I’ve reduced my intake slightly - overall weight goes down a couple of lbs, but the damn bulge remains!!! Need suggestions!
two words - shrink wrap
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Don’t eat anything that has “partially hydrogented … oil” listed on the contents list. If it’s something you really want to eat, like various breakfast cereals or peanut butter, chances are you can find a similar food in an organic/whole foods style place without the partially hydrogenated oils.
ask yourself, is it really fat? I have a small bulge, but there is no fat there (its rock hard and you cant pinch away any fat), its just how my abdominal muscles, and the organs underneath have arranged themselves. I must also mention that i am the only one who can see this, so its probably just me holding myself to too high a standard, and it may be the same for you.
Two things:
You need to some a little bit around the middle in order to bend. You don’t want to reach down to tie your shoes and have your stomach tear, do you?
If you really want to get that last inch, take a really, really deep breath, now don’t let it out. There you are, an inch or more has been taken in.
Adam
It really is fat! I can feel the muscle underneath, but can definitely pinch away about an inch of fat.
Peter826 - thanks. That was exactly the type of suggestion I’m looking for.
Eat less, Exercise more
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Ab exerices. Once you get down to <10% bf, it’s very hard to target that specific area. It’s not like your body goes into a ‘okay lets take the fat from the bulge in the stomach’ mode, it gets its fat from all around.
Your best bet is to do a lot of lower-ab type stuff, which will strengthen the muscles and make that flab go away.
If you post a list of everything you eat in a day, maybe some of the others online could give you some accurate suggestions.
When I was trying to get my % bodyfat down the two biggest gains were made when I quit eating dairy products (especially those containing fat) and wheat products. (I already didn’t eat red meat) If you cut out fast food that’s another easy way to drop some pounds.
If you were ever quite heavy you may just have extra skin around your waist.
Richard
Hmm… I always was told that ab-exercises were not the way to go to reduce ab-fat, but more of overall aerobic stuff. But I guess that was advice for someone who doesn’t exercise in general.
I do have a weakness for ice-cream, and also do have 2 large mugs of 1% milk every day.
Not eat wheat products - how does that lead to fat? I do eat a lot of wheat (tortillas, bread etc.) based on the logic that wheat is better than flour.
Never eat fast food, so that’s not an issue.
I think what you’re saying is - watch out for fat from any source…
You might give intense, short intervals a try. Here’s a good article on the subject.
http://www.achieve-fitness.com/forget.htm
You could do them on the bike, probably the best since it’s sport specific, or you could do some Olympic-style lifts, snatch, clean and jerk, etc…, with a dumbell. Lot’s of bodybuilders take fat off without much aerobic work using resistance training.
Good luck.
I tried the Paleo-type diet and lost all the weight I wanted to lose last season. Check out Gordo Byrn’s site (www.byrn.org) and go to the G-tips page, read the Nutrition 101-301 articles. Good start.
Get up early, drink two cups of coffee (black) and plenty of water. Jump on your bike and ride for an hour (but not much more or you will break down muscle).
It really is fat! I can feel the muscle underneath, but can definitely pinch away about an inch of fat.
Peter826 - thanks. That was exactly the type of suggestion I’m looking for.
I think what you’re saying is - watch out for fat from any source…
You need to eat fat, just make sure to cut out/down the saturated and trans fats.
Watch out what you eat specifically not too many foods with partially hydrogenated fats or simple sugars/carbohydrates in em…this stuff gets converted to energy too quickly and then gets converted to fat if not used. Also adds to the triglyceride problem too and overall cholesterol health. I paired off the last bit of fat by eating complex carbohydrates exclusively, veggies, fruits, and didn’t eat after 7PM …still don’t eat after 7 PM or if I am really starving I go for veggies plain. Hope that helps…
I’ll second the suggestion to check out Gordo’s nutrition articles, they’re a great place to start.
Be careful when reading the % fat in foods. You need to look at the percent of total calories from fat. For instance, if a serving of food is 100 calories and 15 of those are fat the food has 15% fat content. They only get away with calling milk 1% because they take the % fat as a function of volume and most of the volume in milk is water. If you apply this calculation to cheese or many other foods you’ll see most of the calories are from fat.
The comment about wheat is just because, in general these are calorie dense foods as opposed to nutritionally dense foods. For example, calorie for calorie it’s more filling and nutricious to eat an apple, some brown rice or a whole bunch of broccoli rather than a slice of white bread.
Richard
try cutting out sugar. even the stuff hidden in processed food. i cut out sugar and drop those extra jigglies with ease.
k
sugar is evil
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