Getting rid of middle age belly fat!

stevie63

This is an interesting video on the science of weight loss:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuIlsN32WaE

It explains why all calories are not equal (basically some calories in food just pass straight through us and we do nothing with them) and also shows what the body needs to convert fat in to in order to lose it. And the conclusion of it all is this simple way to lose weight (and primarily fat) is Eat Less, Move More.

simon_e

bompington wrote:

Simon E wrote:

it really depends on whether you want to learn anything or just waste time and pixels repeating rubbish

Wel, you've clearly won the argument there

Did you actually read the article?

birdie23

bompington wrote:

So anyway, I can only conclude that my overly formatted caim that "eating more calories than you consume is what makes people fat" was what people objected to.

It was more the arrrrggghhh and bold letters tbh.

You still grossly oversimplified it as has someone else since your most recent post.

Try living on a calorie deficit made up entirely of big macs and see how lean you can get (probably not very. Skinny, yes. Lean, no)

stevie63

birdie23 wrote:

bompington wrote:

So anyway, I can only conclude that my overly formatted caim that "eating more calories than you consume is what makes people fat" was what people objected to.

It was more the arrrrggghhh and bold letters tbh.

You still grossly oversimplified it as has someone else since your most recent post.

Try living on a calorie deficit made up entirely of big macs and see how lean you can get (probably not very. Skinny, yes. Lean, no)

I assume I'm the one who has over simplified, however have you actually watched the video which is based on sound principles of Bio-chemistry. In it the scientist (whose work on the subject is published in the BMJ see here: http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7257) shows why sugar is so readily accepted by our bodies so someone on a diet of Big Macs would still have a high percentage body fat. The Eat less part of it refers in particular to simple sugars. More importantly it shows how we get rid of Body fat and it isn't by burning it (that would violate the scientific principle of the conservation of mass). To lose 10kg of body fat 8.4kg of it has to leave our bodies as CO2. And guess what this is achieved by eating less (particularly of foods that cause weight gain) and moving more.

birdie23

stevie63 wrote:

birdie23 wrote:

bompington wrote:

So anyway, I can only conclude that my overly formatted caim that "eating more calories than you consume is what makes people fat" was what people objected to.

It was more the arrrrggghhh and bold letters tbh.

You still grossly oversimplified it as has someone else since your most recent post.

Try living on a calorie deficit made up entirely of big macs and see how lean you can get (probably not very. Skinny, yes. Lean, no)

I assume I'm the one who has over simplified, however have you actually watched the video which is based on sound principles of Bio-chemistry. In it the scientist (whose work on the subject is published in the BMJ see here: http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7257) shows why sugar is so readily accepted by our bodies so someone on a diet of Big Macs would still have a high percentage body fat. The Eat less part of it refers in particular to simple sugars. More importantly it shows how we get rid of Body fat and it isn't by burning it (that would violate the scientific principle of the conservation of mass). To lose 10kg of body fat 8.4kg of it has to leave our bodies as CO2. And guess what this is achieved by eating less (particularly of foods that cause weight gain) and moving more.

If you actually read my previous posts you'd know I agree with the video and have been making exactly those points in every post.

It was just the last line that was over simplifying it. "Eat less, move more." if you had put in brackets refined carbs and sugar then you wouldn't have been over simplifying

SalfordBoys

birdie23 wrote:

Rock bus wrote:

Food wise, I tend to have porridge for breakfast, then meal deal lunch ie sandwich, snack and lunch, dinner is normally some sort of homemade curry, bolognaise, chilli etc with rice or pasta and then maybe some kind of snack eg couple biscuits.

At weekends me and wife will share bottle wine on a Friday and Saturday or few beers or gin and tonics

Exercise wise I am currently playing 5 aside and running 5k twice a week.

So damn frustrating as it’s litera only my belly and most people would probably say I could do with putting weight on!

Too many carbs, too much sugar, not enough veg.

Carbs are NOT the issue, fat /notenough exercise is. I eat 500 or so grams per day of carbs.

Ctfu

birdie23

SalfordBoys wrote:

birdie23 wrote:

Rock bus wrote:

Food wise, I tend to have porridge for breakfast, then meal deal lunch ie sandwich, snack and lunch, dinner is normally some sort of homemade curry, bolognaise, chilli etc with rice or pasta and then maybe some kind of snack eg couple biscuits.

At weekends me and wife will share bottle wine on a Friday and Saturday or few beers or gin and tonics

Exercise wise I am currently playing 5 aside and running 5k twice a week.

So damn frustrating as it’s litera only my belly and most people would probably say I could do with putting weight on!

Too many carbs, too much sugar, not enough veg.

Carbs are NOT the issue, fat /notenough exercise is. I eat 500 or so grams per day of carbs.

Ctfu

Fat doesn't make you fat.

But what exercise are you doing to burn those 500g of carbs? What weight are you? What's your metabolism like? Do you get those carbs from a 'couple of biscuits' as a snack? This is just another post boiling a complex issue down to a simple statement, something my original post also did but that was simply based on what he said he was eating and the problem he said he was experiencing.

You should be fueling for your exercise, not exercising because you over-fuel your body.

I didn't know durianrider was from Salford either!

fat daddy

birdie23 wrote:

SalfordBoys wrote:

. I eat 500 or so grams per day of carbs.

Do you get those carbs from a 'couple of biscuits' as a snack?

500g of carbs is 2000kcal ..... that is some fooking great big biscuits

daniel_b

fat daddy wrote:

birdie23 wrote:

SalfordBoys wrote:

. I eat 500 or so grams per day of carbs.

Do you get those carbs from a 'couple of biscuits' as a snack?

500g of carbs is 2000kcal ..... that is some fooking great big biscuits

Couple of these bad boys eh.

birdie23

fat daddy wrote:

birdie23 wrote:

SalfordBoys wrote:

. I eat 500 or so grams per day of carbs.

Do you get those carbs from a 'couple of biscuits' as a snack?

500g of carbs is 2000kcal ..... that is some fooking great big biscuits

Depends what you call a couple... I always say I had a biscuit when I mean I had a whole pack!

daniel_b

birdie23 wrote:

fat daddy wrote:

birdie23 wrote:

SalfordBoys wrote:

. I eat 500 or so grams per day of carbs.

Do you get those carbs from a 'couple of biscuits' as a snack?

500g of carbs is 2000kcal ..... that is some fooking great big biscuits

Depends what you call a couple... I always say I had a biscuit when I mean I had a whole pack!

oh crap, I did that last night :oops:
Chocolate digestives - they should cut to the chase, and just make it one biscuit as per the Custard Cream above really.

I have hit a dangerous path recently - back on Trainerroad today, but I had a bit of a cold and had some time off the bike, and I find my eating habits go from bad to terrible, so am hoping this will kick things back on the right path.

diy

A lot of fit(ish) blokes (particularly office workers) will have a belly due to bad posture. While all the advice about diet is good, some core work can make a difference to how you stand. It can be made worse by shortening of the glutes and quads due to cycling without adequate stretching.

On the subject of heavy weight Gym users and bellies - this tends to point to HGH abuse and is pretty wide scale now. That and IGF-1 and even insulin - crazy fools, it seems steroids are old skool now

webboo

matthew018 wrote:

Simple Exercises to Reduce Belly Fat Fast:

1. Crunches:

Crunches are the highly effective exercise for reducing belly fat.

It engages the number one position when you are looking for weight loss exercises.

You can start by doing abs crunching exercises for the best result.

Follow the given steps to do crunches and flatten your tummy effectively:

Lie flat on a mat or a floor with your bending knees and keep your feet on the ground or you can also lift your legs off the floor at an angle of 90 degrees.
Now next you have to lift your hands and keep your hands crossed on your chest or place them behind your head.
Now breathe in deeply and as you do not lift your upper torso on the floor then you have to breathe out.
Again breathe in when you get back down and breathe out when you come up.
Do these steps for at least 10 times if you are a beginner.

2. Twist Crunches:

As you are well-known with regular crunches alter the basic crunches for having remarkable and fast results.

Twist crunches are just like regular crunches; here you need to make slight changes, lift the right shoulder towards left and keep the left torso on the ground.

Start doing with 10 times per set daily and try to do at least two to three sets of twist crunches regularly for reduce stomach fat.

Check out the steps for doing twist crunches:

You can modify the basic crunch to get an even more effective tummy exercise once you get used to the regular crunches.

For this, you have to lie down on the floor with your hands behind your head.

Now while keeping your feet on the floor, bend your knees as you usually do in crunches.

While keeping your left torso on the ground, lift your right shoulder towards the left.

Now keeping your right torso on the ground you have to lift your left shoulder towards the right.

For more information- weightloss-pill.net/exercises-to-burn-stomach-fat-fast

First post and it’s a classic exercise myth.

bompington

No, first post and it's blatant spam.

EDIT: but yes, it's a classic myth. About 2 calories per crunch, apparently, and that's the only impact they will have on belly fat.

DeVlaeminck

Simon E wrote:

birdie23 wrote:

Too many carbs, too much sugar, not enough veg.

This.

Yes I agree. I've lost a fair bit cutting out pasta, rice, chips, potatoes, bread etc and replacing them largely with veg. I'm not religious about it, if I'm out I'll eat what I fancy including cake at cafe stops and if my wife cooks say a curry I'll have rice and a naan with it but when I cook for myself I've been reasonably strict with my meals and snacks.

It helps that I'm not a foody so as well as piles of all kinds of veg I eat more fish, eggs, plain greek yoghurt than many would want to but I have lost a 1.5 stone and at 50 got close to what I consider race weight from my mid 30s.

I have also been drinking more than I have in years , not big sessions but a afew large glasses of wine or a couple of bottles of beer or cider a night, something I have cut down on just recently but more to give my liver a rest than lose weight! It'll be interesting if cutting down on deink means I lose a few more lbs.

pottssteve

I have exactly the same issue as the OP. I am 50 years old, 185cm tall and come in at around 76-77kg. I look slim but have a little belly that never goes away. A few years ago I was very ill and lost over 10kgs, but that little belly remained.

I think it's genetic, as my father had fat distribution in the same way, so my advice is to watch what you eat, stay healthy, excerise, and don't worry about it.

And blame your parents.

bobmcstuff

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Simon E wrote:

birdie23 wrote:

Too many carbs, too much sugar, not enough veg.

This.

Yes I agree. I've lost a fair bit cutting out pasta, rice, chips, potatoes, bread etc and replacing them largely with veg. I'm not religious about it, if I'm out I'll eat what I fancy including cake at cafe stops and if my wife cooks say a curry I'll have rice and a naan with it but when I cook for myself I've been reasonably strict with my meals and snacks.

It helps that I'm not a foody so as well as piles of all kinds of veg I eat more fish, eggs, plain greek yoghurt than many would want to but I have lost a 1.5 stone and at 50 got close to what I consider race weight from my mid 30s.

I have also been drinking more than I have in years , not big sessions but a afew large glasses of wine or a couple of bottles of beer or cider a night, something I have cut down on just recently but more to give my liver a rest than lose weight! It'll be interesting if cutting down on deink means I lose a few more lbs.

Isn't the bold bit essentially interchangeable with a calorie controlled diet?

I think a lot of people lose weight on a "low carb diet" when what they are effectively doing is reducing their calorie intake quite significantly (obviously if it works it works so keep going, but some people like to bang on about low carb like it's magic, not suggesting that's what you're doing mind).

Agree on the alcohol - if you look at the calories in beer it's pretty clear why cutting it out will help... 200-odd calories in a pint.

keef66

I wonder if low carb is psychologically easier than low calorie? If you demonise an entire food group it's simpler to avoid because you know what it looks like. Avoiding / reducing calories is trickier since they are in everything, and calorie counting everything you eat is tedious in the extreme. And obsession with reducing calories led us down the low fat everything (but with hidden added sugar to compensate) cul-de-sac

I suspect the healthier diet is lower carb, lower meat, higher fruit and veg, and proper portion control. And a bit of exercise.

And to the OPs question 2 years ago, belly fat may be the last to go, but it will eventually go.

bobmcstuff

keef66 wrote:

I wonder if low carb is psychologically easier than low calorie? If you demonise an entire food group it's simpler to avoid because you know what it looks like. Avoiding / reducing calories is trickier since they are in everything, and calorie counting everything you eat is tedious in the extreme. And obsession with reducing calories led us down the low fat everything (but with hidden added sugar to compensate) cul-de-sac

I suspect the healthier diet is lower carb, lower meat, higher fruit and veg, and proper portion control. And a bit of exercise.

And to the OPs question 2 years ago, belly fat may be the last to go, but it will eventually go.

Well - my argument was that they basically amount to the same thing, not necessarily that it's a bad idea.

I calorie count when I am trying to lose weight and I find this naturally results in a reduction in starchy carbs and an increase in veg, just because the veg is much less calorie dense so you feel fuller for the same calories, which makes the whole thing a lot easier. Calorie counting pushes me towards the type of diet you mention just because starchy carbs/sugars are very calorie dense so you find yourself eating hardly anything.

Obviously if you were an idiot you could still do calorie counting really badly and have 4 Mars bars and nothing else or something, and then you'd be starving.

I'm just against demonising one food group for unclear and scientifically unsound reasons - brown rice and oats for example are carbs, and a dogma which says you should eat less of those seems a bit dodgy to me.

I read an article recently about the current low carb/fetishisation of protein thing is just the latest fad, first we demonised fats for a while, then sugars, and it's just the next thing to move onto since the last ones didn't solve the obesity problem and people seem to need something to hate on. Random supporting article from Google (cos I can't remember where the one I was reading was from): http://clinical.diabetesjournals.org/content/22/4/155 and from the NHS https://www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/l ... work-well/ (which concludes that, surprise surprise, "eat less overall, and eat a healthy diet with plenty of vegetables and little sugar or refined grain." - processed grains rather than carbs in general - works best)

keef66

Yup, better to minimise simple, highly refined carbs which cause a rapid spike in blood glucose. Complex carbs are an important dietary component, providing slower release energy and sustenance for your intestinal microbes. Atkins / paleo diets seem unbalanced to me.

We're just trying to eat sensible amounts of as wide a variety of things as we can. Less meat, and more fish, wild / brown rice, seeds and nuts, raw vegetables.

DeVlaeminck

bobmcstuff wrote:

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Simon E wrote:

birdie23 wrote:

Too many carbs, too much sugar, not enough veg.

This.

Yes I agree. I've lost a fair bit cutting out pasta, rice, chips, potatoes, bread etc and replacing them largely with veg. I'm not religious about it, if I'm out I'll eat what I fancy including cake at cafe stops and if my wife cooks say a curry I'll have rice and a naan with it but when I cook for myself I've been reasonably strict with my meals and snacks.

It helps that I'm not a foody so as well as piles of all kinds of veg I eat more fish, eggs, plain greek yoghurt than many would want to but I have lost a 1.5 stone and at 50 got close to what I consider race weight from my mid 30s.

I have also been drinking more than I have in years , not big sessions but a afew large glasses of wine or a couple of bottles of beer or cider a night, something I have cut down on just recently but more to give my liver a rest than lose weight! It'll be interesting if cutting down on deink means I lose a few more lbs.

Isn't the bold bit essentially interchangeable with a calorie controlled diet?

Yes I agree it could be and it would be interesting if I'd actually tracked my calorie intake. What I did find though is that I found it far easier to aim to cut down on carbs than cut down on calories because I didn't feel hungry.

The volume I was eating was quite a bit - I was stacking veggies on the plate and eating plenty of eggs, cheese, cream etc so whether I was just full or whether fats and protein satiate hunger better hard to say. I'm talking in the past tense as I did fall off the wagon a bit over Xmas but I'm back on it now albeit in a more moderate form as I have reintroduced wholemeal bread, brown rice etc in moderate quantities.

ric/rstsport

healthier diets can be high carbohydrate. there's nothing intrinsically wrong with most carbohydrates. The issue is that we (that's we as the western world, rather than the people here, although it may well include us!) over eat too much of everything and that's what causes weight gain (fat mass).

Data from the Okinawan People show them to be some of the healthiest people on the planet with greatest longevity and lowest levels of metabolic diseases and their diet is about carbs to protein in a 10:1 ratio.

keef66

The Okinawan diet is different from the average Western diet in many other ways too. They eat far fewer calories than we do, and much of their carbohydrate is the complex, slow release kind from sweet potato. And lots of seaweed. And probably better genes...

ric/rstsport

keef66 wrote:

The Okinawan diet is different from the average Western diet in many other ways too. They eat far fewer calories than we do, and much of their carbohydrate is the complex, slow release kind from sweet potato. And lots of seaweed. And probably better genes...

it looks like they've ruled out genes as being a cause of longevity, because as soon as they started eating crap their mortality rate increased or their health got worse.

that's the point i'm making - you can't blame carbohydrates it's an issue of over eating (too many calories). you could say that the average western diet is bad because we tend to eat lots of food that are high in carbs, fats, salts, and simple sugars (but that doesn't sound good for soundbites!).

If you look at the Okinawan and other diets that are good there's a combination of low calories, and lots of natural, unprocessed foods in the main, often containing large amounts of carbs.

keef66

You're right that overeating is the main problem, and overeating the wrong things is a double whammy.

Low calories, and lots of natural, unprocessed foods and a high proportion of carbs doesn't make a Daily Mail headline though.

People make lazy food choices and then want to blame something / somebody when they get fat. And then they want quick and simple solutions rather than a lifetime of abstemious eating and preparing meals from fresh ingredients.

I think the increasing numbers of vegans can only be a good thing

ric/rstsport

yeah we're in agreement, albeit i'm a vegetarian. quite surprised how veganism, and plant-based has taken off this year! (luckily, i cover both when i do nutritional coaching as well).

Tyresome

A six pack is made in the kitchen, not the gym.

imposter2.0

Tyresome wrote:

A six pack is made in the kitchen, not the gym.

In terms of achieving the muscle definition itself (ie the 'sixpack') - that's completely incorrect. In any case, the thread is not about 'sixpacks'...

Pross

When I've gone on low fat diets - concentrating on eating lean meats (less than 3% fat), fruit and veg I'm always surprised at the actual quantity of food I can eat without going over 1200-1300 calories per day. I guess this is mainly as there are more than twice the amount of calories in a gram of fat than there are in a gram of carbs or protein plus a large part of fruit and veg (and meat to a slightly lesser extent) is water so you get more bulk for the same calories and the appearance of a larger meal. The other benefit I found is that the foods cause less of the bloating and IBS that I get with a lot of foods (and which doesn't help that appearance of having a large belly even if you are quite slim). I can normally lose around 10-12 pound in 3 weeks using that approach with the vast majority of it coming from body fat. Unfortunately I'm lazy and struggle to maintain the effort in preparing healthy food and lack the self-discipline to avoid the biscuits and crisps that are my big downfall and so find that I can't keep it going after 3 weeks.

At the moment I'm calorie counting to try to lose 2lb a week and aiming to shift just over a stone which means 1500 calories a day plus replacing anything I burn in exercise which is a good incentive to get out running as I find without using the above low fat, natural food approach the amount of food I can eat just doesn't feel enough.

bompington

Pross wrote:

When I've gone on low fat diets - concentrating on eating lean meats (less than 3% fat), fruit and veg I'm always surprised at the actual quantity of food I can eat without going over 1200-1300 calories per day.

Whether I'm on any kind of diet or not I'm always surprised by how little food 3000 calories is :oops: