I had tentatively set my goal weight to 175, because when I was at that weight before people considered me "skinny," so I figured that I should be rid of my belly by then. However, I'm only eight pounds away from that and I'm nowhere near seeing my abs; I still have a belly to suck in (it's the first place I gain fat and the last place I lose it). I don't want to have to reduce myself to a near-skeleton to finally be rid of that last bastion of fat (ok, a little exaggeration there, but you get my point).

At first I thought that perhaps I should start watching my fat intake, but then I realized that as long as I'm in a calorie deficit, it wouldn't really matter (at least as far as getting that flat stomach). Is my only option to just keep losing weight until my belly disappears, no matter what my weight goes down to? (I know I can tone up by exercising, but I'm just talking about getting rid of the fat; I'm going to the gym, too).

What's your height? Unless you are really tall you may need a lower goal weight to lose the belly!

First off, how tall are you? 175lbs is going to look very different on someone who is 6 feet tall vs. 5 feet tall.

What is your exercise routine? Have you been lifting? It sounds like what you need to work on more is body recomposition where you build muscle/lose fat but not necessarily lose weight.

The older we get, the more muscle mass we lose - unfortunately if we do not maintain our muscle mass, our "X" weight at a younger age may look much differently than our "X" weight at an older age. This may be the issue. I say just continue on with strength training at the gym and give it a lot of time to recomp your body.

There's nothing wrong with dropping your goal weight down 10 pounds and seeing how you feel then. As you yourself said, exercise can do wonders. Chances are you'll look better at that weight with exercise vs. losing 10 more pounds without it.

Actually, weight training gets rid of the fat. I think you may just need to maintain your current weight and replace fat with muscle.

Before, when you weighed 175, you may have had more muscle which would equate to lower body fat.

agree that at this point, it's less about the number on the scale and more about looking and feeling the way you want. So I'd focus on the toning and weight training - still follow your eating plan to take off the last few lbs, but to get the shape you want, it's not going to come just from taking off those pounds.

Unless your body fat is 20% or less, your belly will most likely remain. Find out your body fat and go from there. A firm, flat belly is obtained by getting to at least 20% body fat. I think at this point, the number on the scale should be secondary to body fat IMO. Hope this helps.

I'm 5'10" and I build muscle very easy, as I've lifted weights off and on all my life (I'm 47 now). I'm also beginning to think that this belly isn't going to be gone at 175. I'm amazed at how much (to me) it still sticks out. I know for a fact that I don't have one at 160 (my high school days), but I was QUITE slender then - more like a juvenile, not-yet-grown weight. I have no choice but to keep losing until it's gone.

Btw, lifting will help to burn calories, accelerating my calorie deficit, which in turn will burn the fat while simultaneously giving me better shape. I'd like to add here that just because I'm building muscle doesn't necessarily mean I'm losing fat, so it's irrelevent unless I'm in a calorie deficit.

So I'm curious - can a person drop their BF without losing weight? If I thought I was already too thin, but I had some belly to lose, could I do it without dropping more weight?

If you maintain at 175 and are gaining muscle, you are losing fat. If you are gaining weight while gaining muscle, more than likely, you are not losing fat.

Muscles need calories (and protein) too! The more muscle you have, the more calories you are burning. The lower your body fat %, the higher your BMR.

By the way, when my body fat was 40%, it was calculated that I was only burning 1000 calories a day - which means if I were to sit at a desk all day and not work out, that's all the calories I would burn. Sucks, huh?

My body fat was 40% at 125 pounds. I'm an apple so it was all in my tummy. UGH!

I'm not a doctor but fat is fat and has weight which means that dropping body fat will equal losing weight IMO. Everyone loses weight differently so you trying to get rid of the belly fat might require losing less or maybe more weight than someone else. You can't spot-reduce (obviously), just do some form of cardio exercise that you like (for me it's running) and try some interval training (I like sprinting) to amp up the calorie burn and the belly will reduce. Just keep at it. I try not to pay too much attention to the scale, it's how my clothes fit, my BMI, waist-to-hip ratio; there's other factors that are more important to me. Oh and this goes without saying, eat well too.

Yes to this. Let's say you reach 175lbs and are happy with your WEIGHT but not your body fat percentage. What you can do is eat at maintence level calories (make sure to be getting in enough protein!) and lift heavy. Your goal would then be to build muscle. I highly recommend the book New Rules of Lifting for Women, it talks about this in there.

If you're lifting often you could actually see the scale up go up after a workout and you might appear bigger after a strenous workout too. DON'T FREAK OUT! It's just your body retaining water while it repears the muscles that you tore during your workout. This process is what helps you build muscle and the water retention will eventually go away.

Once you hit 175lbs it might be more worthwhile for you to take measurements than look at the scale to get an idea if you're losing fat/gaining muscle. You could also try to get your body fat measured (I'd recommend calipers as probably the cheapest more accurate measurement if you can find someone to do that for you).

I think the thing for me to do now is measure progress by the tape measure, not the scale if I'm also working out and lifting, building muscle. But muscle builds slowly - only about five pounds a year, so I think I'll see fat loss faster than muscle gain. I think I'll see the changes I want to see in how well my pants fit me around the waist. I'm just now into my size 34 jeans where they're not too tight and uncomfortable to wear. So my next goal could be baggy 34s and somewhat snug 32s.