How do I gut rid of a gut in 20 minutes a day?

Factual Questions
1

I have, unfortunately, got the beginnings of a Pot Belly in the works. From time to time it happens and I gotta stop eating the junk and work out a little bit. I want to do this the most efficeint way possible so:

With an emphasis on abs, what is the best way to lose the weight?

I know simple dieting is not nearly effective as proper diet combined with excersice. Now, keep this in mind: I only have about 20 minutes on a typical day I can(or should I say “will”) spare for excercise. I have effectively 3 jobs (temp/actor/dj) and stay really busy. So I guess my question has 2 parts:

What should I eat?
What excercise should I do for the 20 minutes a day? (I’m guessing crunches and push-ups)

In the eating department, what about fast food, that is food that I can get readily when I’m out running around. Anything out there besides the Subway 6 Grams or less sandwiches?

If it’s important, I’m a 25 year old male about 5’11 and 145 lbs.

Thanks.

2

Liposuction.

3

just kidding, don’t cut your gut off. but seriously, you’re 5’11" and 145 lbs? i’m thinking that you don’t even need to be worried about a gut. i think that’s a pretty healthy weight to be at.

but if you’re really worried about it, do some running, that’s always a winner. running and some sort of ab workout, just crunches if you don’t want to buy any equipment. and with the food, just try to avoid fast food altogether. that subway “6 grams of fat” crap is when you eat just the bread and meat. no mayo, no cheese, no nothing. and you have to pay like 4 bucks to get that, so you can eat cheaper and healthier at home.

4

Must agree with jonfromdenver. I can’t imagine you having much of a belly developing!

5

Does it make more sense if I add the fact that I drink alot of beer. I am a skinny guy, but my belly shows all the Corona’s and Big Macs these days.

DaLovin’ Dj

6

You can’t spot reduce, so you’ll drop weight from all over your frame whatever activity you pick.

Pick an excercise that elevates your heart rate to 80% of your maximum and keeps it there for 20 minutes, 3x a week. Crunches, with proper form, will strengthen and tone your abs.

As has been pointed out - you sound a little thin. Why not incorporate some weight training and fill out a bit. It will help reduce your body fat (muscle burns more calories than fat at a resting state).

7

The problem with being skinny is that it doesn’t take much fat to show. The flipside is that any muscle gain looks terribly impressive. :slight_smile:

As for keeping the belly under control, repeat after me: Spot reduction doesn’t work. If it did, folks who love to talk would never have double chins.

Spot improvement does work-- so if you concentrate on ab work you’ll actually find your belly growing, albeit with muscles. Still looks funny though because it doesn’t fit the rest of your frame.

I think the best way to exercise is to sneak it into your day. Take the stairs, bike or walk to work, park at the end of the lot away from the mall, etc.

8

that’s not a bad thing, keeps ya happy!

that’s the best advice you can get right there.

9

Lay off the beer and Big Macs - but you already knew that. That doesn’t mean you can never indulge again. All things can be had in moderation. A couple beers a week and a Big Mac a month won’t kill you. And after eating real food for a while, you’ll stop craving the Big Macs. There is, however, no substitute for beer.

You can’t “target” your gut for fat reduction. That’s not how your body works. Eating better and exercising will reduce the fat all over your body, more or less. Crunches and sit-ups will increase the strength of your abdominal muscles, but they won’t by themselves do much to reduce your gut.

If you want to reduce your body fat, your best bet for exercise is cardio. Run, swim, bike ride, hike, roller skate, bull ride, aerobics, stair climber, treadmill, rowing machine, etc. Twenty minutes a day to start is fine. Just remember to stretch and warm up slowly before exercising hard. Stretch afterwards, too. Stretching does wonders to reduce muscle injury and pain. Make sure to work up a sweat. After a while, you’ll probably feel so good from exercising, you’ll want to do more.

Eat lots of fruit and vegetables. Fish, lean meat and poultry. Potatoes, rice, bread, pasta. Avoid fats and sugars. Avoid fad diets, including that “no carbohydrates” nonsense. In the long term, your body needs a balanced diet including all food groups.

The key to good health is thinking about it as something you’ll be doing for the rest of your life. Make it part of your lifestyle, but that doesn’t mean you have to be a slave to your diet and workout. Good luck!

10

I second that. Great idea!

11

What’s worked for me is to deal with the hassles of moving to a new apartment, increased responsibility at work, headaches and tension of being dumped a month before you planned to propose, re-learning the stress of dating, and realizing that you haven’t had more than eight meals in the past nineteen days.

Gets rid of that gut right quick.

12

Yeah, but hopefully that’s only a short-term solution.

13

Switch to hard liquor.

14

This is good advice, I just wanted to point out that you should be concentrating on complex carbs, not simple ones. In otherwords potatoes with the skin on them, brown or long grain rice, whole grain bread, and wheat or vegetable pasta. I’m gonna also toss in legumes, since that’s another great source of fiber and complex carbs. The less processed and more intact the grain or vegetable the better for you, and the more your body has to work with and benefit from. The greater amount of fiber will also fill you up more, and keep you from craving fatty stuff.

In your 20 minutes a day, I’d do cardio, Monday/Wednesday/Friday; weight lifting Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday; and “core” training (back and abs) on Sundays. Weight lifting in combination with cardio will not only burn fat, but make you look better proportioned as well.

Some books about eating I learned a lot from are anything by Dr. John McDougall ( http://www.drmcdougall.com/ ) and FOOD by Susan Powter. (Yes, this is a bit annoying to read, stylewise, but is a well researched tome bordering on a nutrition textbook.)

Your local library should have a wealth of weightlifting books dating back to the 70’s (if you’re interested in free weights) as well as more current fare such as Weightlifting for Dummies which I found to be more confusing and unhelpful than some simpler books by Joe Weider or Arnold Schwartzenegger. Muscle and Fitness magazine (also a Weider publication) is good for info, and they also have a Muscle and Fitness Hers for women. They also have sites online for info on types of exercises and general information.

15

toadspittle:

Interesting point. I’ve discussed this before with some bartender friends of mine. The liquor is actually more fatning (sp?) then beer. But presumably you drink less of it then you would beer. I wonder how it really works out, becuase while people at bars like to sound like experts, they seldom are.

Thanks everybody for the diet/excercise advice. Just what I was looking for.

DaLovin’Dj

16

Just don’t eat for awhile, that does it for me.

There used to be a weight loss candy called Ayds. I wonder whatever happened to it?

17

Weight loss candy? There’s a fun concept. :slight_smile:

Hey, OOC, what do you guys think about swimming as a fat burning exercise?

18

Swimming has the nice advantage of being zero-impact. So your knees will thank you. And if you really lose fat, you’ll be less buoyant, and swimming will be harder, so it’ll work even better.

19

Altho swimming certainly burns the calories as well as any other exercise, paradoxically many swimmers are not skinny. Having a certain amount of fat helps with buoyancy, so it’s advantageous for swimmers to have a certain percentage. How the heck that is done physiologically, I have no idea.

Many skinny people develop pots when they age. 25 is kinda young, but you see it in older people, who look skinny if you don’t look at their tummy. These are people who don’t exercise. Forget the weight building if you don’t have time. That’s nice to do, but not necessary. You have to get into shape and stay there. If you want to build muscles and are pressed for time, the abdominal muscles are the ones to work on, and simple situps, with twists for the obliques, will do. That will take only minutes. Stronger abdominals will also help protect your back.

20

They changed the name (I don’t know to what though) due to the rather unfortunate disease of the same name. (Different spelling).