I know it's a healthy weight. That's why my original goal was 167. Unfortunately, my stomach makes me look 20-30 lbs bigger than I am... I just want what everyone wants. A flat stomach. I just want to look normal/average. I've been overweight all my life.

""The LAST thing you should be lifting weights for is to lose fat."

At first glance, this seems crazy. But think of it this way…lifting weights shouldn't be done just to burn calories (i.e. the exerciser's mentality). Lifting weights should be done to build and maintain muscle mass (i.e. an athletic performance mentality).

Sure, you're going to burn calories when you train, but that should be the major goal of your lifting sessions. Leigh and I are in TOTAL agreement on this point." -http://www.staleytraining.com/articles/product-reviews/fat-loss-troubleshoot.htm

Maybe I just find this statement confusing and I've reading between work calls so I don't really have time to over think it. (Not working right now, but cleaning and, again, not much time..

I am re-looking the Leigh Peele info.. I went to her website instead. It was interesting. I may buy that. Does it have any info on what to actually DO with weights and such? I just bought Tosca's book to try with that. I feel like a newbie all over again. :S Resistance training is a whole other ball-park than nutrition and cardio and calorie counting, etc etc. I know all of that- or else I wouldn't have lost 120 lbs... Honestly, I would be happy at 150ish if I was thin. I am not saying skinny. I just mean thin. That is all I want. I only say goal numbers like 135 and 129 and get worried about 10 lbs and what not because I am NOT thin and my stomach swells up whenever I gain anything...water or fat is irrelevant to that. ****, I would rather be 180 and thin than 120 and skinny fat. :P

Low carbs works better for some than others. High fat/low carb does me in, high carbs/low fat works well. I eat TONS of carbs (150-200 g a day), mostly from fruits, lentils/beans, and occasional serving of grains and I am losing weight at a rate of about .75-1 lb per week on a 1200 cal diet. I've always lost weight with a high-carb, low-fat, diet and maintained on high carbs. I'm really happy to hear you've lost weight in 4 days, but ultimately as has been mentioned, it comes down to calories in < calories out :)

Actually, that's not "tons of carbs." Even though it's roughly 50 to 75% of your calories, that's still relatively low. The SAD (standard American diet) averages 80 to 90% of calories coming from carbs.

The definition of "low-carb" varies tremendously even among the experts, but you fit at least a couple of the most common definitions - one being fewer than 200g of carbohydrate (this is an older definition. More dieticians now use 150g or 100g as the cut off) and another (which you at least sometimes meet) is 60% or fewer of total calories coming from carbohydrates.

I dont disagree with counting cals at all! I have been counting everything on atkins even though thats not what you have to do persay. But I still cant get my mind around eating a ton of fat and still being able to lose weight. The thing is carbs are not bad its the ones you get from all the processed foods that are the kicker on any diet. You cant eat 100, 100 calorie packs and still think you are eating healthy when your not, but I feel like you could eat that much in idk spiniach lets say and have no probs. I am sure some of the weight I have lost is water but I am also been drinking a ton of water (more then I have in 6 months) this is also not a quick fix for me and yes eventually I will be adding in carbs again according to what atkins says, but its not going from 20 to 300 in a matter of days. I feel when you are not doing a special low carb or low fat diet or what have you and are just counting cals it is imparitive that you find out what the % daily of other things you can have for that amount of cals and dont go over that. I believe this does work for people but never has for me so thats why I am doing this now. To be honest I am not a atkins preacher I am to new at this but with what I have learned in school I understand why low carb diets work not just the drasticly low one though. The simpilist way I look at it is our bodies make ATP from the three carbs first then fat then protein when you have less carbs and you body stores all of it then it uses the fat for atp and stores the carbs as glucose. This doesnt mean however that you should in anyway eat as few carbs as atkins says.

As for OP when it comes to your tummy I think the biggest thing is to tone and target that main area. Watch your food to a point. I havent been over weight my whole life but have been much of my adult life and I know how frustrating it is. I hope you find exactly what works for you! Good luck!


I am not a doctor and I have no right to give medical advice as a matter of fact I am a fat girl that still needs to loose 80 lbs :P this is just what I have learned and am trying and thus far it is working. But well see in 6 months if I can still say the same :)

Brooklyn I hope you don't become what I refer to as a low carb fanatic. These are people who have had a lot of trouble losing weight in the past and when they find low carb dieting is easy for them they stop learning and simply start preaching.

So please don't stop learning.

I assure you that dispite drinking a lot of water a large percentage of the initial weight loss when one starts a low carb diet is water.

I assure you that you're losing weight because of the caloric balance not the macro nutrient ratio.

Yes it is true when you low carb it your body makes adaptations and runs off of fat more than carbs but it still comes down to calories.

There may be a thermodynamic advantage to low carb dieting but if there is one it is very very small.

For quite a lot of people, the thermodynamic advantage to low carb dieting is much larger than one would expect.

It's hard not to become "fanatical" when you experience such a dramatic difference that cannot be accounted for by calories alone.

For 35 of 40 years of dieting, I assumed and devoutly believed that weight loss was a matter of calories in/calories out. Even at 8 years old, I grasped the concept of calories, and assumed (because my doctor told me so) that I would lose as much weight on 1000 calories of snickers bars as on 1000 calories of fruits and vegetables.

Even when I reluctantly tried low-carb, I assumed it was going to work (if it did) because of the calorie restriction, and only the calorie restriction.

Even when I realized low-carb was "easier" than low-fat dieting, I assumed it was because of the calorie restriction.

Even if that were true, I was pretty happy to discover the difference in my hunger. I can't eat enough on a high-carb diet to feel satisfied. Even on 6,000 calories I feel half-starved 24/7. I even dream about food. The more I eat, the hungrier I get.

I noticed this even as a child. As early as 12 years old, I found it easier to eat nothing, than to eat anything (because I never would have considered restricting carbs - "everyone" knew that was unhealthy).

So, even if low-carb was "easy" because of it's effect on appetite I would have been impressed, but I discovered there was more to it.

On low-carb, I feel better, have fewer health problems and less pain, and have more energy for activity. Respiratory problems that had been diagnosed as allergies, asthma and copd disappear on low-carb, and reappear on excessive carb. Autoimmune symptoms, including a very disgusting raw, open weepy skin rash (that hubby calls "face rot") also disappear on low-carb and reappear on high-carb.

The "differential" seems to be about 300 to 500 calories. On 1800 - 2000 calories of low-carb I lose very slowly and very inconsistently. On low-carb, I lose consistently better and feel much less hungry on the same calories of higher carb. I still have a hard time restricting carbs as much as I probably should, because after 40 years of "low-carb is dangerous" I have a hard time convincing myself otherwise, even though I have the proof of it in my food and symptom journals.

Even when I'd proven the significant difference to myself, I assumed I was the freak. That "normal" people would lose as much (no more no less) on 1800 calories of carbs as 1800 calories of protein & fat.

The more I read about low-carb plans the less I believe this is true. I think there are millions of people with my experiences (many of them have shared their experiences here). I do believe that insulin resistance plays a huge role. I suspect that if you're insulin resistant or diabetic, you're more likely to find a low-carb diet significantly more effective than high-carb.

I still have a hard time wrapping my brain around the extreme difference between low-carb and high-carb eating for me. I do tend to feel rather "fanatical" at times, just because the difference has been so incredibly dramatic - almost "magical" because it violates so many of the principles of weight loss I was raised to believe in.

My recommendation to anyone would be to experiment with different macro nutrient ratios, because for some people the difference not only exists, it's quite dramatic. Make the experiment as controlled and "scientific" as you can. Give low-carb dieting a 3 to 6 month trial, keeping detailed notes of not only your calorie level, but also your mood, appetite and hunger level, hours of sleep, energy level, body temperature, health symptoms (sounds like a lot I know, but bear with me)... then give another diet composition the same try. 3 to 6 months of high-carb, low fat. Repeat your experiments several times, and see if you don't find some differences you didn't expect.

I very much did, and it shocked me. I thought I was a freak, until I read more and more of the low-carb literature and found that my experiences weren't at all unique. Many people have shared similar experiences. To be honest I was shocked, and as a result it is hard not to become fanatical or preachy. When you experience a miracle or an epiphany, you tend to want to share it with as many people as possible.

I've desperately tried to control my weight since I was 5 years old (I'm 45 now), and in 40 years of dieting I've only been successful with weight loss by three methods. Amphetemine diet pills when I was around 14 (and which stopped working within 2 years), a very low-calorie prepackaged meal system (Nutrisystem - calories were extremely low, the food was horrible and I was extremely hungry and miserable but I bought no off-plan food) and low-carb dieting.

Of those three choices, you can guarantee that I'm fanatical about low-carb - even though I can't "stick to it" as well as I'd like, it's the only plan that has ever worked for the long haul (about two and a half to three years, so far), and the way it has worked is nothing short of dramatic (and not too far short of miraculous).

Ironically, I first considered actually trying low-carb, not so much for weight loss as for autoimmune disease. I had read several books on autoimmune disease, suggesting that grain-consumption was linked to autoimmune disease. At the time, I was diagnosed with a life-threatening autoimmune disease (because it had destroyed cartilage in my nose, I was initially diagnoses with Wegener's granulomatosis - fatal if not treated). Later, it was decided that I actually had "undifferentiated or mixed connective tissue disease," because the disease wasn't progressing as fast as Wegener's generally does (although I do wonder if severely cutting grains contributed to the slowing of the progression of the disease. As probably did my treatment for sleep apnea, as sleep deprivation has been known to caused immune and autoimmune disfunctions in rats).

When I return to a high-carb diet, autoimmune symptoms reoccur. I had scarring on my lungs from the autoimmune disease, which I was told would probably be permanent. Since drastically cutting grains and carbs, the scar tissue is actually healing.

Am I preaching? Oh God Yes. When a person experiences miracles, they tend to do that.

I can't guarantee anyone else miracles, but experiencing them myself I of course want to tell people "give it a shot, see if it helps."

It is very easy for people to jump to conclusions though, and ideally everyone should take a research and methodology class or two before even attempting self-experiments, so at least you have some chance of recognizing placebo effect. With self-experimentation you can't entirely escape it, as you can't perform double blind experiments on yourself. You always know the goals and nature of your experiment, so placebo is always possible, but right now there isn't much alternative.

For me, I didn't fully believe that my observations were realistic, until I noticed the body temperature change. I've always had a lower than normal body temperature. I remember as a child having a temperature under 96 degrees and my pediatritian explaining to my mother that viruses can lower as well as increase body temperature. After that, my body temperature was always a degree or more below normal. If I had a temperature of over 98.0, I was quite sick.

After a couple of months on low-carb, I started noticing that my body temperature was consistently above 98 degrees. Even more so than other more dramatic health improvements, it was the body temperature changed that convinced me that something other than placebo had to be going on. Even the face rash and respiratory problems (or lack of them) I could attribute to placebo effect, but body temperature? That didn't make sense to me. Why would I, and how would I raise my body temperature (if I had expected the effect, possibly - but it was only after I experienced it that I started looking to see if it was an effect anyone else had experienced, and I learned that it was).

I'm not saying everyone needs to be on a low-carb diet, or that low-carb diets are a panacea for every ill on the planet, but my experience has been so dramatic and unbelievable, I can't help but preach.

Im just gonna say thanks and drop it there because I feel like my posts are taking away for OP. But I just want you all to know that I researched this beyond belief because other then over eating I refuse to harm my body with diets that will hurt it. If I am going to over feed it not a smart idea to turn around and starve it kwim? Anyway thanks for your opinions and such just more for me to take into account!

No matter how we get there I pray that we all get there healthy and safe! God bless and good luck to everyone here at 3fc!!!

You're the opposite of someone that I would characterize as a low carb fanatic. Maybe fanatic is the wrong word. Maybe zealot would be better.

My point is that you understand why low carb works (calories), why it works better for you (carbs are a problem for you and there is more than one reason), and you know this isn't the only way to lose weight.

I know you've seen it on the low carb forums. People who think the only way to lose weight is low carb, that carbs are the devil (along with insulin) and they use Taubes cherry picked data to back up their point of view. I just thought of the perfect example. Fred Hahn.

Have you ever been tested for a gluten sensitivity or a grain allergy? your story sounds very much like others I have heard of people finding out they were gluten intolerant (especially with regards to the face rash).

As people cut carbs they often go gluten free by default...

I was tested for celiac disease, and the test was negative (supposedly a more accurate test that would not yield a false negative because I had been eating gluten-free for quite some time). I didn't have allergy testing, because one of my meds makes allergy testing more dangerous (it could interfer with the drugs given to counteract anaphylaxis if I were to have a severe allergic reaction).

I could go without the med for several weeks to have the test, but I opted for an elimination diet instead.

Whether it's an allergy or intolerance, I react most to wheat (possibly due to the gluten, possibly a generic wheat allergy), although I do have a milder, but significant reaction to excessive carbs in general (especially from sugar and grains, even gluten-free grains) but it takes a much larger amount to trigger a milder reaction.

I avoid wheat entirely, and limit other grains (I seem to be least sensitive to quinoa, wild rice, millet and amaranth - high protein "non-grain" grain analogs). I also buy gluten-free bread (rice and tapioca flour), but eat only about one slice per week. Oatmeal doesn't seem to cause problems, but since oats are often cross-contaminated with wheat/gluten, I avoid it usually anyway - maybe having a bowl of oatmeal maybe once a month.

There's been some interesting research on the genetics of the ability to digest wheat/gluten, and apparently the genetic test is the most accurate (but also the most expensive, and not generally covered by insurance).

Yea, this is exactly what I have been hoping the problem is... It is only my lower abdomen/hip area (my true waist isn't large at all) and secondarily my thighs/ Everything else is totally fine. I have no problem with anything else. I'm just concerned at what weight i will have to be before that "last ditch spot" will finally be gone.

Lynn, I think you're my sister in the search for the elusive flat stomach. I am not sure that I will ever get rid of my kangaroo pouch no matter how hard I try. I just have to resign myself to knowing that it may be the last weight I lose, and I will just have to hope and pray that my cleavage continues to distract people from checking out my tummy.

I've been trying to work really hard on my posture, as that seems to help lessen the pouch visually.