I want to flatten my stomach and trim my waist down. I could do that by losing five or ten pounds, but frankly, it wasn’t that long ago that I worked to put these pounds on. Weightwise, I’m right where I’d like to be, but I just don’t like the shape of things!
I got a book from the library with exercises I can do, and one of the first sentences was something along the lines of: “Don’t expect to do 500 of these and have it work without changing your diet.” That really took the wind out of my sails because it’s exactly what I had planned to do.
What’s going to happen if I just do the exercises? Will I just make this bulge hard?
Once you develop belly fat, the only way to get rid of it is to get lean. That means using more calories than you take in. There is no magic bullet. In a sense, you could do it by “exercise alone” if you raise your level of activity to the point that it puts you into calorie deficit, but there is no such thing as “spot reducing.”
It depends. If you have a reasonably good diet you will probably drop the weight through increased exercised alone. Assuming that the increased exercise isn’t just 8 minute abs 3 times a week, rather something that gets your heart rate up for 45-60 minutes. If your diet is crap, you might have to drop some of the bad food to see results.
I once had a flat belly and a flat chest to go with it. I have gained some weight, and now I have a small belly and a small chest. And I do mean small…I’m barely an A cup. So these are my two choices? They both suck.
Y’all aren’t telling me what I wanted to hear! Think I’ll go watch that Relacore commercial again…
Well, you would expect to increase muscle tone by working your core - that would be good for you, even if it didn’t reduce the bulge. Also, if you tend to pack weight on in the belly, then maybe shedding just a few pounds would flatten your tummy appreciably. BTW, is it age-related? There are just some things that the march of time makes impossible. Good luck.
Was this aimed at people who want to lose weight, or at people (like you) who want to firm up their existing weight?
I’m definitely no expert, but I’m a little surprised at all the people saying exercise won’t help. I would have thought that, while it wouldn’t get rid of any belly fat, it would strengthen the muscles (abs?) that help to hold it in and keep it in shape.
I agree with this. A strong midsection means better posture, and that alone can do wonders.
The bellies you see on people with fabulous abs aren’t necessarily small, just less distorted and drooping. Think of it another way: in developing stomach muscles, which result do you think is more likely – that the muscles will sag along with the fat that’s already there, or that the muscles will hold up the fat (at least some of it)? Experience says the latter.
It depends on whether the “flab” in question is untoned muscle, or muscle of unknown tone sheathed in fat.
Usually it’s the latter. In which case, all the crunches and situps in the world won’t help the flab situation, as the fat is situated on top of the muscle and you can’t change that physiological fact. You could have six-pack abs under an inch deep layer of fat, and what you would see in the mirror would continue to be that jiggly layer of lard.
If you’ve gotten lean to the point of having a flat stomach but one with no “definition”, then yes, doing the ab work will yield immediately visible results.
The “6-minute abs” programs and Tummicizer machines advertised on TV give the impression that you can “spot reduce” abdominal fat by doing abdominal exercises. This is simply false, which is why you can get these gizmos for free on Craigslist any time of the day or night. To lose fat you need to work it off with exercise over a long period of time, and you can’t control where it comes off either – typically it comes off in reverse order from where it went on, meaning most of the belly fat will come off last as it was first. That’s not what most people want to hear.
There’s no such thing as untoned muscle. Every single person who lives, has lived or will live has six-pack abs. The only variation is whether the layer of fat above them is thin enough for the muscle shape to show through.
It may be possible, but if it is, the sort of ab exercises that most people do won’t make any significant difference. The muscle that holds your stomach in (the transversus abdominis) isn’t worked in crunches or other torso-bending exercises.
Ever heard of Kegels? And I beg to differ because I had let my abdominal muscles get weak and have seen improvement with exercise. In fact, you should be able to ‘suck in your gut’ just by using your muscles and you certainly use them in exercises so I’m not buying this at all.
Another reminder to the OP; do core exercises. Be sure you’re standing straight. Often belly sag goes along with shoulder slump and other bends and droops caused by poor posture.
Heavy squats, deadlifts and standing military presses. But if that’s not what you’re looking for, here are a couple movements I like:
Lie with your head and shoulders on a surface of some kind (I use my couch) and bring your torso up so that your feet are touching the ground and your knees are bent at a right angle. Hold that pose for as long as you can.
Do a pushup, and then bring one arm to your chest. Hold that pose for as long as you can.
Are you short-waisted? I’m tall but the length of my body is small in comparison to my height. I’ve read that if your built like that you can have issues with belly fat. Don’t know if this is true of it just makes me feel better.
I know that no matter how thin I am I never have a completely flat belly. I have one of those ab loungers that I do about 4 times a week and I noticed my waist seems smaller. I haven’t really measured yet.
There may be some minor effect, but the rectus abdominis is not capable of sucking in your gut to any significant degree because its fibers just don’t run that direction.
As a slight hijack that may also relate, is there any sort of excercise that can help with posture? Standing up straight makes me look a lot more fabulous, but it requires a lot of concious effort, and as soon as I don’t think about it, I’m slumpy again.
I keep considering pilates, but with it and yoga I really feel like it would be a good idea to do a class first. I did get a video & book set on it via an impulse buy at the bargin bin at a book store the other day, but then my fear of no classes has set in, and I’m leery. Are classes needed?
That’s where you want to find exercises for ‘core strength’. There’s a bunch online if you do a search.
Yes. If you do some of these exercises wrong, you can really damage yourself. I’ve known several people to hurt themselves doing yoga. So you want to take a class with a certified teacher to learn how to do it the right way, and then you can go ahead and do it on your own if you like.
No. You’ll just have fabulous muscles under the bulge. But, take heart: Muscle tissue requires a lot more calories to maintain than fatty tissues. So if you exercise a LOT, you will use up more calories, so you ought to lose a bit of weight (as long as you don’t eat more than you are now).
Losing tummy bulge is really really hard though. That’s one of the last places it the fat stores seem to leave. So if you want to show off the great abs you built up, then you’ll need to modify your eating habits and do some cardio training for weight loss.
