losing stomach fat

LPJM1710

My aim is to have a flat stomach and I have no problem losing weight per say. I can notice a difference in the layer of fat around my stomach. However one of my cousins who is a spinning instructor tells me 'at our age being too slim can be unhealthy'. Her concerns concern me in that I wonder what she is referring to? I have been criticised for looking gaunt yet I train hard am aware am building muscle definition. I know of a guy who owns a gym who is in his late thirties, very fit, weighs in at 87 kilos and is 6'8". I'm 6'4 almost twice his age and my weight fluctuates between 95 and 98 Kilo's. I am aware too that I still need to be more vigilant with my sugar intake but wondering too, whether I have to reduce my weight to his to get the desired flat stomach affect. Or can I maintain my weight and have a flat stomach.

As an example of my fitness level once a Month during the weekends I do Yoga, once a week I play tennis, four days a week I indoor climb and do twenty minutes of plyometrics, twice a week I do gymnastics that includes learning to climb a rope. In-between I cycle and sometimes go for a swim.

Getting to my ideal diet and calories goal is what I am uncertain of and could do with help with?

mumblemagic

If you're worried about whether or not you should be losing weight "at your age", check with the doctor.

As to how to lose weight, it looks like you're already very active (very inspiring BTW), so diet is probably your key option. Assuming the doctor is happy for you to lose weight, you just need to pop in your height, weight, activity level, and target weight loss rate into the calculator and follow whatever it says. You may need to tweak it up or down if you are losing quicker or slower than you want to.

Activity level is a tricky one. You have two options:
1. enter sedentary and log all your exercise separately using either MFP or another fitness tracking app linked to MFP (I use a combination of fitbit and endomondo). In this case you eat part or all of your exercise calories back.
or 2. set it to highly active and not log exercise, tweak as necessary if you're not losing at the rate you want to.

Have a read of this thread:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1080242/a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants/p1

ETA: When you are logging food make sure you weigh everything in grams on a digital scale for accuracy, and only use cups / spoons for liquids. Remember to log drinks too - sodas can have lots of calories in.

When I started, I ate normally and logged everything for a couple of weeks to see what was filling up my calorie allowance and where I could cut down / switch to make it easier.