So you want a nice stomach

unknown

You want to lose belly fat and have a nice flat toned mid section? We see that a lot on this site. Hell, that was my goal for my birthday last year. We all want to be able to take our shirt off at the pool or beach and look great, but how do we do it?

1. Slight calorie deficit. Eating 800 calories and killing yourself in the gym is not going to get you there any faster. You need to fuel your body appropriately. I suggest the TDEE-20% method. www.1percentedge.com/ifcalc (If you have questions please feel free to ask them here). Make sure to weigh everything you eat! Guessing could put you well over your calories.

2. Strength training. If you want that toned mid section look you have to put some muscle there. If you just want a nice flat stomach muscle will still help it look tight. You can begin with Strong Lifts, a hypertrophy routine or a strength program from bodybuilding.com (free!). One that includes compound lifts like deadlift, squat, bench press and pull ups will help. Work on increasing the amount of weight you use. When the weight gets heavier you engage your core more and it builds the muscle.

3. Muscle insurance. There are a variety of studies done on the amount of protein the body needs. I like to think of higher protein as muscle insurance. My suggestion is about 1gram of protein per pound of lean mass. Make sure to get fat in your diet to help joints and metabolic processes. Make sure to get carbs in your diet to fuel workouts.

4. Cardio. I like cardio once or twice a week for 30 minutes. It's good for the heart and lungs. It doesn't add much to the calorie burn for the week, but it helps even things out in case you haven't been completely accurate weighing food.

5. Patience! It is not going to happen overnight. If you stick with it you could lose around 1% body fat a month. We aren't going to be perfect all the time. Enjoy birthdays and holidays. It is life and things will happen. Don't stress, learn to love the process.

FINALLY: Losing fat is like trying to dry out a sponge. You can't dry a corner while the rest of it is still wet. You won't magically lose belly fat or thigh fat or any other fat. It will come off where it wants to. Keep working at it! It is possible!

unknown

itsmeGennie wrote: »

@prettywingss04 You should start at the very first post.

• You can not spot reduce - meaning if your stomach/abs/middle is protruding because of fat there, you would have to lose overall fat on your body because your body doesn't discriminate. It just burns the nearest fat cell. Blame your mom for the distribution of fat cells.
• You can make your middle "tighter" and more firm by doing core exercises and have a strong core BUT if you have a layer of fat over your muscles, then you probably won't see your work
• How long have you been eating clean and exercising? What kind of exercising do you do? If you want to maintain your proportion as you have it, start weight training 3x/wk and do a little cardio to burn some fat
• How many calories do you eat now? If you want to maintain your weight, then no you shouldn't cut your calories but if you want to take my advice in the first bullet point, I would do a deficit of 20% and start from there
• How have you been eating clean if you don't know how much you eat? Clean eating is not only the actual things you eat but also your portions. You should figure that out ASAP. Use a food scale to figure out a meal plan to reach your calorie goal. Make sure your protein is spread out over the day (have some at every meal
• You should take body measurements - get a measuring tape and take measurements of waist, hips and each thigh. I wouldn't use the scale because they are all liars. You ThiNK you haven't seen results but it's because you havent been paying attention. If you lost an inch, it'd be hard to see with the naked eye. Get an objective view.
• Also, take pictures to see progress but take them every 2 weeks. in 4 weeks being consistent, you should see visible results.

hth

Hey, thanks so much for the response ! Im just now noticing the little notification alert, didn't realize there was one .
Im aware i can't spot reduce so for now I've picked up a goal of trying to loose about 10 pounds. Its really not much, but I guess because its so small it doesn't seem like much is changing. I was exercising for about 4 months before this. Most was weight training for my legs and a little upper body. I saw change in my legs quickly, they are much more firm and "toned" which was what i was looking for but there was no change whatsoever in my stomach area. I averaged about an hour or so of cardio a week, though i don't know if i should change that?
When I mentioned clean eating, I was referring to whole, nutritious foods, this was prior to MFP, therefore, prior to actually weighing foods. Since I've joined, I have been measuring which I think is helping
Im doing a deficit which puts me at about 1800 calories a day, and I'm comfortable with it so just waiting to see some change.
And yea, I'll be taking some pictures:) I actually think i won't be weighing myself, maybe once a month and take it from there.