Want to lose belly -- have read previous threads! Please advise.

Dave!

Hey folks,

I know ye don't like people posting unless they've read previous threads on the subject, and I have , but hopefully ye can give me some more specific advice.

Background...
I'm 18, weigh 11st, and am around 5ft 10. I don't do any exercise at all really. I know you're all appalled at this! But I'm hoping to change it, hence my posting.

My diet is probably quite bad, I'll give ye a rough idea of what I eat on an average day.
breakfast: Recently, it's been Corn Flakes, a fruity yoghurt, a cup of tea. I went for about 2 or 3 weeks having a chocolate eclair most mornings, so this is a big improvement! :eek:

lunch: I've gotten into a habit of eating a bar of chocolate or 2, and 2 packets of crisps Terrible habit, but I've gotten food posioning from the sandwiches in work, so can't touch them again. I've generally been too lazy to make sandwiches to bring in. I'm hoping to change this, but am a little at a loss as to what meats (I'm very carnivorous!) I'm allowed to eat in a (brown break ) sandwich. Would ham, cheese, lettuce, onions, tomato be healthy enough? Leave out the cheese?

dinner: I don't really have much if a say in this since it's my mother cooking it, and she's cooking for 5 people. It's not really practical for me to be making a meal at the same time, either. But she cooks healthy food, like lasagne, spag bolognese, coddle, curry, casserole (all bar the first 2 with a decent amount of vegetables). I have white rice and white pasta, which I understand is bad, so if the option is there I'll go for the brown choice.

I eat medium servings of breakfast and lunch, and don't generally feel particularly full after them, but I eat a big serving of dinner, and feel bloated and full after it. I'm not sure, but I think that's because I eat really really fast, so rather than it all hitting my stomach slowly, it all gathers and hits it really fast altogether. But despite that, I put up with the hunger during the day and eat lots of snacks from 7pm-11pm.

snacks: Usually biscuits, chocolate bars, crisps, and lots and lots of tea. I'm like an old woman when it comes to tea! I know the other crap is bad, and I'll have to replace this with fruit, but is tea bad for me in terms of putting on a belly? I have 1 small sugar, and a little bit of (full fat ) milk.

other: I don't drink much alcohol. I go out once or twice on the weekend, and lately have been spending around E50 on a night, which is decent enough. I do however "occassionally" eat take-away Pizza is my vice, and I'd maybe have it once or twice in a fortnight. I'd also have the odd curry and sometimes a chipper. I know I have to cut this out completely, or at least make it a once-a-month thing if that.

The Plan(TM)
EXERCISE

Okay as I said, having read the previous threads, I know I'm going to have to exercise alot. I'm not a member of a gym, so I'm gonna have to work out at home or in the area. I'll be going back to college next year so I'll be able to use the gym cheapo, but for now this'll do.

I'm gonna start out running 3 times a week -- Mon, Wed, and Fri night. I'll have to pick out a route around my area, but can anyone give a suggestion of what distance I should be covering? The cardio will reduce my body fat, I understand... And all the sit-ups in the world won't make a difference if I've still got loadsa fat on my stomach.

But despite that, I'm gonna do some sit-ups regularly too. Anybody wanna gimme and example of how many I should be doing? I'm thinking 50-100 each time, and doing them on the Tuesday, Thurs, and Sat (or) Sun.

Now onto the...

DIET
This'll have to change dramatically, so let's try and put together a definite daily routine Or rather, I'll try, and maybe one of you nice people can rubbish it and post a proper one! lol

breakfast: porridge, a piece of fruit, and some toasted wholemeal break. Again, should I have tea with this? What's an alternative drink to have in the morning? I wouldn't usually drink milk on its own in the morning. Should I have low-fat butter (which is horrible, lol), or is full-fat alright?

lunch: As I mentioned earlier I'm gonna have to make sandwiches to bring in, so I'm thinking brown or wholemeal bread (2 or 4 slices?), ham, lettuce, onion, tomato. Maybe a yoghurt too. Water?

dinner: I think it's relatively healthy as it is, but I'll buy some non-white salad and rice to go with anything. Any more suggestions?

snacks: I'll buy lots of fruit. I was feeling peckish an hour ago and made the decision to eat a banana! I'm on the road to healthiness! lol

other: No more take-away food until I start to notice fat coming off my stomach, and then it'll be once a month.

The last thing I'm wondering about is water -- I don't drink it on its own at all really. Sometimes I'll stick my head under the tap (eww, I hear you say ) if I'm particuarly thirsty, but I'd rarely fill a pint glass or bottle and drink it. Should I be drinking alot more? Maybe bring a bottle to work and re-fill it?

======================

Okay that's all I can think of at the moment! For those of you who managed to read it all, thank you for the determination! And please post any advice that you can think of. I think I have a decent idea of what I've gotta do, but it's gonna take alot of determination to be able to go through with it I gotta get the lead out to be honest.

Thanks again

plonk

First off i have to say i changed my diet and it made a big difference.
Youre looking at trying to reduce your calorie intake daily. And IMO the best way of doing this is by giving up chocolate crisps fizzy drinks white bread.

This is what am doing and have lost nearly 2 stone.
In the morning try and have some wholemeal cereal (no sugar) with low fat milk a natural yogurt and a cup of tea. Add fruit to the natural yogurt to make it nicer. Fruit yogurts tend to have a lot of sugar in them.

Lunch time im usually out and about so fruit.

Dinner time veg and lots of it sometimes with tuna or meat of some sort

Supper Orange apple banana any fruit really in a bowl with natural yogurt on it

If i get hungry id eat a tin of beans or tuna.

I started this last april and started going to the gym in may but only for the summer (lost a stone and a half over summer by gyming and dieting). Back in college now and lost half stone since september by just kepping to the diet.



You dont seem to be that overweight for your height but it wont do any harm

Hope this helps

Plonk

tribulus

Hi DaveMcG,

Thanks for all the info, makes it easier!

I'm sure people can expand/alter on what I say but I'll start the ball rolling.

First off, water. You have to drink water man! Bring in a 500ml or 1ltr bottle and try to refill it 2-3 times. Also try have some with every meal, even a few sips to start off with before you graduate to gulping down pints at a go!

Your (new) breakfast is good, though try to get some more protein in there, a few eggs or egg whites would be good here. Don't worry too much about the amount of food you have for breakfast, your body has been fasting and needs the calories. I would take it easy on the saturated fats though if you're trying to drop bodyfat. So maybe stick to egg whites and use the real butter sparingly. And drink some water!

For lunch brown bread isn't too bad but get rid of the crappy processed meat. Cook a chicken breast or two, drizzle it in some extra virgin olive oil or some other unsaturated oil and use that as the sandwich meat, again take it easy on the mayo/butter if you're using it.
Perhaps a better choice would be a chicken salad (homemade) with some brown rice.

For dinner you probably need to take it easy on the carbs, although brown/wholemeal past or rice is okay here.

Snacks try to get a mix of macronutrients e.g carbs/fat/protein. If you're eating lots of fruit+veg you should be fine for vits and minerals. Example of a snack would be a piece or two of fruit with some mixed nuts (preferably unroasted+unsalted) and water again! Or cottage cheese if you can stomach it.

Also try to eat 5-6 times a day, with your meals fairly evenly spaced out. This will keep your metabolism up and hopefully stop you buying chocolate and crisps (there's too many vending machines in ucd )

As for exercise , don't bother doing all those sit-ups, 50-100 unweighted sit-ups will do very little for your abs. Hopefully you can progress to the gym where lots of compound lifts (squats, deadlifts etc.) will help your abs, then you can worry about adding in crunches and the like.

Also I'm not too knowledgeable about cardio work but I think the general consensus is low intensity cardio for fat loss. What does that mean? I'm not too sure to be honest I think a general guideline would be a slow jog/brisk walk - you could hold a conversation but you'd need to pause for breathing (please correct here people if needs be)

3times a week should be fine. Get your diet sorted first then worry about the cardio. Best of luck

turbot

To get even fitter, here is how to do it:

1) Educate yourself:

I reccomend you read:

- The Low GL Diet by Patrick Holford
- The BodyDoctor guide to fitness
- Read "Unlmited Power" by Anthony Robbins
- The PH Miracle by Dr Robert Young

(I have read many books in this area, and these ones are particularly good)


2) Change your way of thinking about food

Get Paul McKenna's I can make you thin book or even better, his 4 CD set about eating more healthily.

Even better, go to a good hypnotist or NLPer and get them to reprogramme what you want to eat and crave. PM me for a reccomendation.

3) You need to workout, and do it the smart way. Going for Jog's is better than nothing, though you can do better. So apply the bodydoctor workout plan - and find other ways of exercising.

Also - by doing short, really intense circuits that push your heat rate hgih and workout your whole body, you'll increase your metabolism.

Join a local, good gym. Get a training partner. Motivate each other.

Choose other forms of exercise that you enjoy and do those also.

4) Get the right supplements, which Patrick Holford reccomends, to balance your blood sugar and boost your energy and lower your cravings.

The ones I think are worth your while especially investigating include:
- Chromium Picolinate
- Good multivitamin
- HCA / Citrimax

Dave!

Thanks for the advice! Anyone else got some help for me?

Today I had...

8.10am
porrige, with sliced up banana mixed in
slice of wholemeal toast (& full-fat butter)
tea

10.40am
an apple

12.35pm
wholemeal bread sandwiches (x4 slices): ham, low fat cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, egg white

Drank about 1.5L water too.

Now gonna have coddle and then later I'll have a slice of toast or 2 Might put banana on it.

Am I headed in the right direction? I'm hoping to be motivated enough to weather the storm later and go for my run

cormac30

Dave,
your 18, 5ft 10' and 11 stone.
to be honest your weight sounds about right.
as you mentioned you are totally out of shape so this needs addressing.
if I was you, I would concentrate on building muscle to give your body some definition.
cardio exercise is important also (both for fitness and to burn fat)

your location says your from tallaght
there's a really good gym in tallaght called Westpark.
I'd check them out as i'm fairly sure they have good discounts for students, that is if you are one. they have some great classes, particularly the spin classes. these are a 45 minute workout on bikes. doesn't sound like fun but with some pumping tunes, you are burning sweat by the end of it. the pool is great also. i don't work there by the way, just can recommend it if you are serious about getting in shape.


also diet is really important but enough said about that by the others.
Best of Luck, and remember. No pain, No gain!

Sangre

Do you actually have a belly at 11st? When I was that weight about a year ago I was verging on 6pack territory and I'd be 5'10 at most. Or do you mean you're just kind of...'soft'.

BTW on the toast and banana, they'd be full of carbs and sugar, not great if you're not about to exercise. I'd recommned totally removing white bread from your diet where possible.

mloc

i know this is a little bit perhaps vague, but what you'll find is that a diet to lose weight and a diet to gain muscle are pretty similar in composition/number of meals per day etc, the difference being the size of each meal.

In both cases, the cardinal rule is to break up your meals into 5 or 6 a day. It's a good idea to forget traditional terms such as breakfast, lunch and dinner and start just thinking of a meal as just that... a meal. The idea is that by spreading out the meals your bodies metabolism will speed up, often dramatically.

Dave!

Thanks for that lads!

To address ye'r point, I know that I'm not overweight. I'm quite happy with my weight really! I used to be quite light and nimple, and I'd rather be 'sturdy' as I am now

But I have a belly, that's what I wanna get rid of. I have a good amount of fat on the belly, but it also appears to be sticking out from underneath the fat, like my stomach is large. It resembles a beer belly, which is strange since I don't drink much.

So yeah that's what I'm trying to get rid of, I'm happy with my weight.

I didn't do my run Couldn't face the cold and wind! I'll have to see about joining a gym.

I've no excuse for not sticking to my diet though, so I'll do that. I turned down biscuits today! I'm on my way!

padi89

DaveMcG wrote:

But I have a belly, that's what I wanna get rid of. I have a good amount of fat on the belly, but it also appears to be sticking out from underneath the fat, like my stomach is large. It resembles a beer belly, which is strange since I don't drink much.

Its not your stomach thats large or swollen its your intestines,your stomach is further up your abdomen.You do not have to be a drinker to develop a belly, beer belly is just a term.I would'nt be eating two bananas everyday either,try to vary the fruits you eat.

padi89

DaveMcG wrote:

But I have a belly, that's what I wanna get rid of. I have a good amount of fat on the belly, but it also appears to be sticking out from underneath the fat, like my stomach is large. It resembles a beer belly, which is strange since I don't drink much.

Its not your stomach thats large or swollen its your intestines,your stomach is further up your abdomen.You do not have to be a drinker to develop a belly, beer belly is just a term.I would'nt be eating two bananas everyday either,try to vary the fruits you eat.The best thing i ever bought myself was a steamer,really really handy for quick meals.

pbsuxok1znja4r

Heeey Daveo I'm in something of a similar situation to you right now! Just coming back from a long, long period of complete physical inactivity. Yeah, my belly's gotta go too!!

Anyway I'd thought I'd ask for a little advice of my own here if that's ok??
I'm back running 3-4 times a week, I think I'm making decent progress, it's extremely difficult for me to know how much I'm running because I'm just going outside and doing it, like, but a very random estimate would be that I'm pushing 2-3k, 20-30min runs maybe this week...not sure though. I'm having agonising ankle problems though; even when I just walk briskly for a length of time I get horrible tightness and pain across the front of both my ankles, I don't know what's wrong, I never had this before, but it's like when they get fatigued like that I can't flex them upward as in toe-up, heel-down direction. Could anyone know what's wrong with them? It's actually more severe when I'm walking than it is when I'm running!

Oh and I'm running at night after 9pm, is that a good idea? I'm giving considering to trying mornings but getting up at 7am is an utter nightmare for me as it is...I don't want to give my willpower cause to pack it in altogether on me!

Also I'm gulping water all day long in an effort to melt away fat. And I mean the really stubborn, not-evenly-distributed kind of fat. Will water help me do this? Is there something else (readily available, inexpensive preferrably!) I can drink that would also work well?

TBH I can see my leg muscles are obviously a lot sharper now I'm back running, but I'm gunning for much more of a transformation than that and like I said, I wanna shift the stubborn stuff and legs were never the real problem.

There's no way I'm joining a gym this time, I want to save my money for other stuff. I might look into investing in some weights for home but for the moment I'm just lifting my own bodyweight (which is a reasonably significant 13 stone). I'm 20 and 6'0.

Anyway here's what I might be found eating in a day:
Morning, from about 7am - 9am: A litre of water. Maybe cereal. I'm always running out the door for the bus so that's all I grab. More often than not I just have liquids for the first 2 hours of the day.
9am-12am: Breakfast smoothie (a half-decent one made in front of me, not bought in a bottle or anything), I'd say it's about the size of a pint. More water!
12am: Apple juice (yeah, from concentrate ) and one of those big oats flapjack bars.
Then I might have a sandwich or 3-egg cheese omlette at home at around 2.30-3.00 or else just drink more water 'till dinner, which, on weekdays is usualy something like spaghetti or pork chops with plenty of carrots, potato, whathaveyou. And since I've cut out junk I'll just have water for the rest of the night. Willpower has never been a problem for me...I think my metabolism must be in bits or something instead.

Em tbh I'm not seeing much results yet. I never really do for some reason Anyone advise? Especially 'bout my ankle problem!
Cheers!

And best o' luck Dave, lemme kno how it's goin! Sorry if I've hijacked your thread but I reckon we're looking for similar advice!

brianthebard

OP, have you checked your body fat% lately? It would make it easier to know how much work you have to get your abs showing. Also, perhaps the problem isn't too much fat for your body, so much as too little muscle? As has already been said you aren't overweight for your height, but I know that even when I had a bmi of 25, it wasn't until it was 22 that I had a flat stomach.

Transform

'Couldn't face the cold and wind'- sounds like you are not so committed after all?

or are you really going to become one of those people who when all is said and done more is said than done?

More talk of what you ARE doing and less on what you are going to do. Start new post if you wish

Sangre

Tbh, not a chance I'd go out in this weather.

pbsuxok1znja4r

I actually quite enjoy going out in the bad weather to do my running, for some reason. Ah, the outdoors

rubadub

DaveMcG wrote:

8.10am
porrige, with sliced up banana mixed in
slice of wholemeal toast (& full-fat butter)
tea

10.40am
an apple

12.35pm
wholemeal bread sandwiches (x4 slices): ham, low fat cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, egg white

Split up 6 meals, they should be of roughly equal calorific value (breakfast can be bigger). Those 4 slices of bread can be quite a lot of calories. WOuld be better having 1 sandwich at 10.40 and a second at 12.35, and an apple with each. Bananas carry more calories than most other fruit

Sangre

scouser.tommy wrote:

I actually quite enjoy going out in the bad weather to do my running, for some reason. Ah, the outdoors

I like it brisk and cold, just not wet and windy. My point was just because I'm not willing to run in any weather doesn't mean I'm not willing to exercise (i.e. I'll go to the gym)

TerrorFirmer

DaveMcG wrote:

But I have a belly, that's what I wanna get rid of. I have a good amount of fat on the belly, but it also appears to be sticking out from underneath the fat, like my stomach is large. It resembles a beer belly, which is strange since I don't drink much.

I get that as well. Not as bad as I used to since I started eating well, but I still have it. When I wake up my stomach is as flat as a pancake. When I eat anything - and its not allergies, as I have tried cutting out various aspects - my stomach bloats extremely badly. Like you described, it is not actually all fat, as theres not much to grab, but I can feel my stomach or whatever pressing out. Annoying, but to date I haven't found any solution. I have a six pack visible on the flatter moments, so again, its definately not actual fat. I would think you might have something similar, as 11st is about right for your height.

brianthebard

Is it Candida?

symptoms of candida

Obviously you may not have all the symptoms, but if you have had your allergies tested and have cleaned your body of excesses of certain products(for instance wheat or eggs) and still have a bloated looking stomach without a lot of fat, it could be candida. As the website says it won't be diagnosed by your doctor though.

connundrum

scouser.tommy wrote:

I'm having agonising ankle problems though; even when I just walk briskly for a length of time I get horrible tightness and pain across the front of both my ankles, I don't know what's wrong, I never had this before, but it's like when they get fatigued like that I can't flex them upward as in toe-up, heel-down direction. Could anyone know what's wrong with them? It's actually more severe when I'm walking than it is when I'm running!!

I'm having this problem too, and its rather annoying. I've been treadmill running for about 4 months now, and have only recently started grass and road running. For some reason its my left ankle which is most affected.

I know that there is a huge difference in outdoor and indoor running, and I have suffered with shin splits before. This is different though. I will persevere with the outdoor running though as I want to join a football club before christmas. But damn is it sore!

pbsuxok1znja4r

It really is annoying, puts me off going out running so much. Still went out today for a coupla K's though, in the lovely cold and wet
Hopefully it will just go away as I slowly reclaim fitness
Lemme know if and how you solve yours, though!!