belly fat - need a plan

[Anonymous]

I'm 46 and need to lose 15-20 pounds. After 3 kids, I have a horrible spare tire around my belly. I have upped my walking regimen and trying to get 12k steps a day. Will start adding in weight training twice a week. Can someone help me with concrete suggestions on what else to do. The extra weight is hurting my back and knees so I need to shed this.

[Anonymous]

Core workouts. They won’t get rid of the fat (only caloric deficit will) but it can help strengthen your core and alleviate back pain.

[Anonymous]

Go low carb, cut sugar, processed foods, and bread, count calories. Unfortunately, at our age the only way to rid oneself of a spare tire is to lose fat, through diet. Exercise alone will no longer work, unless you are running 10 miles a day.

[Anonymous]

Cut sugar, all of it, especially added. Limit fruits, too, to 2-3 serving a day. Your diet should be mostly veggies and protein, plenty of both.

[Anonymous]

Thanks. The diet is the challenging part especially because I’m the one making 3 meals a day for the kids (we eat mostly at home).

[Anonymous]

Gina Livy. A friend recommended her weight loss method to me. Google her.

I am over 50 and post-menopausal. I never lost all of the baby weight from having a child at 40, and after menopause, it seemed to all be in my gut. Lost 25 lbs in her 13 week program (which costs under $60 US per session . . . She is in Canada, so $60 Canadian) and gained some great habits along the way. I look and feel better than I have in years.

My belly has flattened considerably. Ten more pounds to go to be the weight I was on my wedding day. . .

[Anonymous]

Keto diet. Core exercises to strengthen abdomen. Cardio.

[Anonymous]

I'm in the same situation, OP, and I've been struggling since the beginning of the year to get rid of that jiggly impostor.

What's tripping me up is the calorie count. I don't have a will of iron when it comes to restricting calories. I have developed a solid exercise plan, which includes plenty of core exercises and well as cardio. My abs are well-developed, I can feel them under the fat, so what I really need is to lose weight, and not eat as much! And somehow... it's so hard follow through. I've got teens and a husband who eat junk food in front of me, double up on meal portions, ask that I make our favorite savory and sweet dishes... so I am constantly surrounded by temptations!

SIGH.

[Anonymous]

Cut sugar and refined carbs is a good start.

Weight lifting is great too.

But walking...no. It is better than sitting, but if you want real results you need more intense cardio to up the fat burn and get a real metabolism boost. Do some HIIT training. If you can talk, look at your phone, read during your workout, it isn't hard enough.

[Anonymous]

You can't outrun your fork, as they say. So, start by cutting calories. It's easiest to cut foods that are high calorically but leave you hungry. So, basically cut carbs and focus on proteins and good fats. If you can cut sugar, that will help a lot, too. I don't think that you should cut out fruit, which tend to be high in fiber and relatively low in calories, not to mention high in nutrients. Eat a lot of salads with avocado and hard boiled eggs. Make your own salad dressing with olive oil. I don't drink alcohol at all.

[Anonymous]

You have to lose the weight through diet - cut all sugar, most alcohol, and most processed carbs. Lots of lean protein, healthy fats, vegetables. Then work on the core with running, weight training, Pilates. But you have to cut the calories first.

[Anonymous]

Your first focus should be one cutting calories. You need to maintain a calorie deficit. You should find your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) first. This is how many calories you use in a day. You can find calculators online for this.

You should then determine how much weight you want to lose per week. Once you have that, identify the daily calorie deficit from your TDEE that you need in order to lose x amount per week. The same calculators should be able to calculate this. If not, just search for TDEE, calorie deficit, calculator.

Then, for a period of time you should closely monitor what you eat, calorie-wise. It can be very helpful to use an app. I’ve used Lose It, but there are others out there. This will help you see how many calories you should be consuming (TDEE minus the number of calories to keep you at your calorie deficit).

You should start seeing results the first week. Meaning, if you really are eating at the calorie deficit needed to lose .5 lbs per week, after a week you should see the scale lower by .5lbs. However, things may not stabilize like this for several week. People often underestimate how many calories are in what they eat. This is where an app like Lose It is very helpful.

You should re-examine your TDEE every so often. Many times when people hit a plateau, what has happened is that they’ve lost enough weight that their deficit is no longer a deficit and is just their new TDEE. You probably won’t have this issue with just 15-20 lbs.

As far as exercise, cardio- this will add back in calories to your daily amount. Let’s say what you need to consume to lose .5 lbs a week is 1400. If you work out and it estimates you spend 200 calories, you can now eat 1600 calories and maintain your calorie deficit/ability to drop .5 lb that week.

[Anonymous]

Since presumably you are feeding your kids healthy food-- no crap sugar or grease -- then you are eating healthy too, right? . When I had my first child at 42 I no longer kept junk food in the house . It's been 10 years since there was chips or candy in in the house. I figure my kids get it elsewhere , but not in our house. They don't whine or ask for it, anyways -- it's just not a part of their diet. More along the lines of something you might have at birthday parties.

I do not limit fruit. It may be breakfast, it may be a snack, it is often dessert. Blueberries with almond milk was tonight's dessert, or instance.

Yes, it is more about calories than exercise once you are pre-menopausal. Coming from an athlete, here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your first focus should be one cutting calories. You need to maintain a calorie deficit. You should find your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) first. This is how many calories you use in a day. You can find calculators online for this.

You should then determine how much weight you want to lose per week. Once you have that, identify the daily calorie deficit from your TDEE that you need in order to lose x amount per week. The same calculators should be able to calculate this. If not, just search for TDEE, calorie deficit, calculator.

Then, for a period of time you should closely monitor what you eat, calorie-wise. It can be very helpful to use an app. I’ve used Lose It, but there are others out there. This will help you see how many calories you should be consuming (TDEE minus the number of calories to keep you at your calorie deficit).

You should start seeing results the first week. Meaning, if you really are eating at the calorie deficit needed to lose .5 lbs per week, after a week you should see the scale lower by .5lbs. However, things may not stabilize like this for several week. People often underestimate how many calories are in what they eat. This is where an app like Lose It is very helpful.

You should re-examine your TDEE every so often. Many times when people hit a plateau, what has happened is that they’ve lost enough weight that their deficit is no longer a deficit and is just their new TDEE. You probably won’t have this issue with just 15-20 lbs.

As far as exercise, cardio- this will add back in calories to your daily amount. Let’s say what you need to consume to lose .5 lbs a week is 1400. If you work out and it estimates you spend 200 calories, you can now eat 1600 calories and maintain your calorie deficit/ability to drop .5 lb that week.


This right here is the absolute best advice on here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your first focus should be one cutting calories. You need to maintain a calorie deficit. You should find your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) first. This is how many calories you use in a day. You can find calculators online for this.

You should then determine how much weight you want to lose per week. Once you have that, identify the daily calorie deficit from your TDEE that you need in order to lose x amount per week. The same calculators should be able to calculate this. If not, just search for TDEE, calorie deficit, calculator.

Then, for a period of time you should closely monitor what you eat, calorie-wise. It can be very helpful to use an app. I’ve used Lose It, but there are others out there. This will help you see how many calories you should be consuming (TDEE minus the number of calories to keep you at your calorie deficit).

You should start seeing results the first week. Meaning, if you really are eating at the calorie deficit needed to lose .5 lbs per week, after a week you should see the scale lower by .5lbs. However, things may not stabilize like this for several week. People often underestimate how many calories are in what they eat. This is where an app like Lose It is very helpful.

You should re-examine your TDEE every so often. Many times when people hit a plateau, what has happened is that they’ve lost enough weight that their deficit is no longer a deficit and is just their new TDEE. You probably won’t have this issue with just 15-20 lbs.

As far as exercise, cardio- this will add back in calories to your daily amount. Let’s say what you need to consume to lose .5 lbs a week is 1400. If you work out and it estimates you spend 200 calories, you can now eat 1600 calories and maintain your calorie deficit/ability to drop .5 lb that week.

This is the only thing that works for me, including the app. Even when I monitor calories “in my head” I don’t lose weight. I need to log, record, etc exactly this way.