How to lose belly fat

Ciara 5

Hello looking for advice on how to loose my 'stomach pooch'. I'm a 5'7, 70kg female in early 20s.
I've recently noticed the scales creeping up & holiday photos of wide hips/pooch.
So I've started going to the gym everyday for about 1hour.
I do
- 5 km on the bike
- ab workout:
30 heel touches *2
30 bicycles *2
30 crunches * 2
30 wide toe touches *2
30 Starfish crunches *2
30 Windmills *2
30 sec plank
- 15 squats * 3
- 10 squats with 5 kg kettle bell *3
- 10 55kg leg presses * 3
And finish on cross trainer for 5-10mins.

Diet wise I've an intake of about 1,500-1,700 calories a day.
This week I've gained a kg (was 69kg starting) I've read online this is normal? However I measured my waist,hips & abdo before starting and there's been no change this week.
Will it just take a while to see some changes or should I be doing something differently? Thanks

Alf Veedersane

How accurate is your tracking of calories? Do you weigh your food? Is there some estimating? Is absolutely everything included.

Ciara 5

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

How accurate is your tracking of calories? Do you weigh your food? Is there some estimating? Is absolutely everything included.

Calculated using my fitness pal. Don't weigh food. They have estimated my target as 1,600

Smoked Tuna

Ciara 5 wrote: »

Calculated using my fitness pal. Don't weigh food. They have estimated my target as 1,600

Food needs to be weighed.

For example what appears to be a very small bowl of porridge with milk could be 300 calories easily. A large bowl could be 800 calories easily.

Same applies to other food types. It can add up very quickly!!

Alf Veedersane

Ciara 5 wrote: »

Calculated using my fitness pal. Don't weigh food. They have estimated my target as 1,600

It's difficult to track your calorie intake if you don't know how much of a food you're having.

Your calorie intake to stay the same weight would be ~1800 calories so if you want to lose weight.

A single measurement that's up 1kg doesn't mean anything in and of itself. My weight swings across a ~1.5kg range over the course of a week so if it's still up next week, then it might mean something.

It could just be water.

Zillah

We say it a lot around here, but for good reason: exercise will help but the only real way to lose body fat is reducing calorie intake. If you've gained weight you're eating too much (not that a 1kg fluctuation means a lot). Make sure you get lots of fibre from veg, and a good protein source in every meal: you'll feel full and less inclined to eat junk.

You can't target one body part for fat loss, your body will generally add or reduce fat all over, in slightly different proportions for different people. Stomach is usually first to get fat and last to lose it.

That said, your bmi is in the upper range of normal, so doing weights and trying to gain some muscle while dropping body fat is a good idea. You can get away with doing both at the same time a little bit when you're starting out, but you'll need to pick on and focus eventually to see any results.

bladespin

Calculate your daily macros then look for a good hiit workout, 30 mins or so 2 days on, 1 off and any excess weight will melt away, once you're down look at a weights w/o and use this to add muscle which will boost metabolism - my 2c but it's worked incredibly well for me. Above all macros.

Ciara 5

Thank everyone for your advice. Basically it's my diet that seems to be the issue, I've always thought that I was eating healthy enough but evidently not. Im thinking of starting the body coach plan to help me? Would that be a good place to start?

Alf Veedersane

The best place to start would be to get a handle on what your calorie intake actually is.

It might be where it needs to be or might just need tweaking but if you don't measure it you can't manage it.

It doesn't need to mean you have to overhaul everything necessarily.

harr

I use my fitness pal as well...while it helps it's not a sure way to get the food in order..when I started using it I weighed my food for the first month and saved all my food and saved all my usual meals for that month,it's then so much easer to get a handle on what your calories are...weigh out a bowl of porridge 40g and see how small in looks. I weighed a regular bowl I used to eat and it was 90g more than double the calories and the same was happening with other meals..
I now have all my regular food saved on my fitness pal..
Another mistake I made was eating to few calories...I was happily getting by on 1500 and while the weight was dropping it wasn't constant and on the advice on trainer in gym I increased my intake to 1800 and did more weight training not much just increased it a small bit...that tweak of upping calories and doing slightly more weights...I now see a loss of at least a 1lb-2lb a week..
Good luck