how to lose my belly?

[pagey3]

I am going on holiday this summer and want to lose my belly.  For the last 3 months I have been excercising regularly - usually some decent excercise at least twice a week.  I have started walking more instead of taking the car, and I have started to eat more fresh veg and less processed salty fatty food, and less crisps (my weakness!) 

My bottom is definitely smaller, my skin clearer.  However I cannot shift my belly - it is driving me nuts!  I am a size 10 everywhere, but if something has to go around my waist I am at least a size 12!  Could someone recommend some good excercises/belly loss plans?  Any tips would be more than welcome - its spreading fast!

[ronianna]

oh honey, my heart goes out to you.

I'm going through exactly the same thing right now (exact same sizing too!). I have a PT at my gym who is helping and motivating me, but you're doing all the right things.

You cannot target specific area's of fat with exercise - period. Your body decides where to deposit fat and later where to use it from if required.

You should continue to exercise you stomach muscles (this should be in addition to core training too - much better results and posture will develop by training this whole mid section).

If you start to increase your training now ie, before you lose your tummy, then when you do you'll have a nice shape waiting underneath.

As far as food/diet goes - you're pretty much on the right track - ignore vogue fast loss programmes you don't need that. Eat a good healthy balanced diet, plenty of water and you'll get there. Remember breakfast and don't 'fast' your body - eat little and often but not after 8pm.

As I once heard someone say....eat less move more!

Roughly speaking - take the amount of energy you put into your body via food, minus energy used through life and exercise - if the resulting figure is positive your body will store it as fat and if it's negitive it will use some of it's fat deposits.

I know all of you biologists out there will say it's far more complicated than this - but in it's crudest terms that's the easiest way for us laypeople to understand our bodies.

Good luck - train hard and keep going it'll be worth it when you get on holiday I promise.

bye

[lilyfrog]

another couple of hints that I find helps.

Ditch the alcohol, completely. That goes straight on the tum.

Only eat your carbs in the day and not after 5pm or so.

Oh yeah and snaks of soup in the morning and afternoon or fruit smoothy make it much easier to have a smaller lunch and evening meal.

As for the crisps I am afraid it has to be cold turkey (soo hard isn't it, I could eat a movie size bag of doritos now!!)

[MargeB]

Is that true about alcohol? I like to think of a glass of red wine as 'guilt free', but thinking about it, I guess it is full of sugars. Is there a big calorie/fatness difference between beer and wine and spirits?

[pagey3]

Thanks for the advice - I was hoping that no one would tell me to stop the alcohol but I guess its the only way!  I read somewhere that vodka has less calories than anything else - and gin.  Beer and wine the worst.  So theoretically vodka lime and soda, or gin lime and soda should be relatively guilt free.

I;m a strong believer that a little bit of what you fancy does you good - a glass of red wine every now and then won't make you fat, but 3 bottles every weekend may have some bad effect (I've just finished uni its been quite a hectic month!)  I know that's probably where the problem lies, but I guess I was hoping for some miracle cure, or some great tip!  I will be cutting down on the alcohol now I am finished, so I will let you know how effective that works out to be!

[jenky]

Size 10 with a few size 12 bits sounds perfect to me! Don't beat yourself up about it......

[neena1]

Hi
I completely have the same problem as you - im eating fruits, vegs and have shrunk everywhere apart from the belly. I undestand your frustration - i have being following yogalates dvd which has helped me slightly.
Hope this helps.