I was just wondering if I could get some tips and advice on what you all are doing to get rid of your mid section. Any specific exersises or routines that have worked for you would be great. Please, no diet advice or calorie advice needed as I'm doing that now.
My current routine is 30 minutes on elipitical and a 10 minute ab workout 7 days a week. But nothing is hlping me lose weight or the lovly tire my kids gave me lol.
thanks so much for any ideas of whats working for you!! glglglgl
I just posted a message somewhere else on this forum that might be helpful. That was related to belly fat, but the same principles apply to your mid section just the same. I'll quote that post below.
So if you read "belly fat", replace that in your mind by "midsection fat" or something :-)
I know you said didn't want to hear anything about diet, but it's actually about a combination strategy involving both diet tricks and exercise in a way that's mutually reinforcing.
So I thought it would be relevant anyway...
This has helped me a LOT, so hopefully it's something that you can use too...
Here you go:
Quote:
Actually, one day of bad eating shouldn't make a difference in fat loss on weeks of good. If anything, it should actually improve it.
I know this sounds crazy, but I've found this to be true.
I posted this somewhere a while back:
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In fact, it doesn't really help if you starve yourself that way, because your body will adjust to the lower energy input, because it thinks there's little food available. So basically to ensure its 'survival', it will adjust its metabolic rate.
The problem is that you might lose weight temporarily (even though this might also include lean mass and not just fat), but eventually this will come to a halt (once the body has adapted to the lower calorie input).
Because you don't see results anymore, you stop the diet. But the worst thing is that by then, because your body has adapted and burns less than it normally did, you now create a calorie surplus much easier when you start eating 'normally' again... which of course gets stored as fat.
So starving yourself is really not the way to go in the long-run, and will eventually actually make things worse.
So like you said, it's much more 'sane' to keep eating, to give your body the idea that there's plenty of food available, so it'll feel it's safe to keep burning calories.
Still, you do need to create a calorie deficit to force your body to tap into its fat stores for energy, so you need to deal with a paradox:
- You need to create a calorie deficit while tricking your body into thinking it's being overfed.
Here's how you can do that:
- Start exercising... Whatever you can do on a regular basis is great.
- Have lower calorie days on which you consciously create a calorie deficit.
- After 3 - 5 lower days, have a higher calorie day. And feel free to have that dessert on such a higher calorie day.
This way, the moment your body is going to adapt to the lower calorie input of the lower days, you give the signal that there's plenty of food after all, so it doesn't have to adapt.
And then lower days follow again, on which your body keeps burning calories because its metabolism stays high due to the higher calorie day and the exercise... which means it's forced to tap into its fat stores to compensate for the energy deficit.
- Another thing you need to do is eat regularly throughout the day. So don't starve yourself and have 1 or 2 big meals. It's much better to eat smaller meals spread across the day. Or 3 meals and 2 healthy snacks in between.
- Make sure you focus on whole and unprocessed foods. And try to have a source of lean protein in each and every meal/snack.
- Make sure you have some good breakfast!
- As a general rule, try to 'eat clean' for 90% of the time.
That means that if you eat 5 meals a day, you'll eat 7 x 5 = 35 meals per weak. 90% of that is about 31 meals. That means you have 4 meals a week to 'screw' your diet. It's best not to completely indulge, but you can definitely feel free to have something you truly enjoy.
This can make sure you'll be able to stick with your diet, because you'll be able to regularly cut yourself some slack.
And besides, if you plan these 'cheats' on your higher calorie days, they may even work in your advantage.
But of course, this approach works best if you exercise regularly.
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As for belly fat in particular, spot reducing isn't possible, so you just need to make sure you get into a process that will continuously have your body tap into its fat stores, without adapting to a lower energy input (which would eventually stop you from getting results).
For me, it always helped to include strength training or resistance training as a basis, to retain my lean mass (which burns calories).
Then I create a structural energy deficit as described above (low calorie days and high calorie days). The added benefit is that I can strategically plan for moments that I eat "bad" (i.e. I plan that on the high days), so that it actaully works in my advantage.
To add to that effect, I often eat low carb on the 'low calorie days', and higher carb on the 'high calorie days'. Or I just eat low carb all day long on the high calorie days, and then have one meal that I eat anything I want.
Through the combination of low carb and exercise (including weight training), I deplete my body from glycogen. This means that when I do indulge in a big meal with bad carbs, most of it will be used to replenish my glycogen stores anyway, so they don't turn into fat.
Plus, as said, this gives my body the signal that there's plenty of food available and no 'famine' is coming up, so it's safe to keep burning calories and keep my metabolism high.
Keep this up long enough and your belly fat will disappear.
I was just wondering if I could get some tips and advice on what you all are doing to get rid of your mid section. Any specific exersises or routines that have worked for you would be great. Please, no diet advice or calorie advice needed as I'm doing that now.
My current routine is 30 minutes on elipitical and a 10 minute ab workout 7 days a week. But nothing is hlping me lose weight or the lovly tire my kids gave me lol.
thanks so much for any ideas of whats working for you!! glglglgl
If you've been doing the same exercise routine for a long time, more than 4-6 weeks, you've reached a plateau, unfortunately... These plateaus happen to the best of us. In order to get out of the plateau you need to change something. Increase the intensity of your exercise, by doing high intensity interval training (HIIT), start weight training - you don't mention that you are doing weight - you can start with body weight, bands, and light weights. Keep your body guessing, you should be changing your workouts at least every 4-6 weeks...
You may not want to hear "diet advice" but the eating part of weightloss is 80% diet... Make sure you're eating the right kinds of foods, as unprocessed as possible, no junk... You don't mention if you're counting calories if you're not start keeping a food journal or counting calories on Fitday.com is a great way of keeping track of your food...
Hope this helps, and keep us posted on your progress...
Need help with Belly/midsection plzzz :))
