Midriff!

Charliegirl1974

Can anyone help please? I am a UK size 8, usually sitting at just under 9 stone, vegetarian, and I don’t have a sweet tooth. I do, however, drink alcohol but not every day! But I’m definitely cutting back on that, as from now... I also eat nuts everyday for protein...maybe they’re too fattening. My midriff is growing and it’s like I have a band round of extra flesh...I hate it! I do lots of exercise, maybe not enough though. Daily fast walking, Zumba, TRX, Pilates, Hiit, weights...I’m 43....could this be the dreaded mid life midriff crisis people bang on about?! Going away in June and want to be tight, with a neat waist and flat stomach. All my friends say there’s nothing wrong with me, I’m a size 8! But they haven’t seen my love handles! Ok, I’m not fat, but there’s definitely room for improvement and I don’t want go on about it to them. Any suggestions? X

bribucks

Calorie counting.

Simply being vegetarian and not eating sweets isn’t enough if you aren’t actually tracking your food. You can eat “healthy” and still eat way too much, and that will cause you to gain weight.

Plug your stats into my fitness pal. And follow what it tells you. Measuring/weighing is especially helpful when you’re first starting out.

There is nothing wrong with nuts. They’re good for you. That being said, they are calorie-dense which is why you need to measure and track. If you are eyeballing it and you think you are eating one ounce, but you actually ate 3 ounces, that’s a difference of about 320 calories. Nuts are easy to mindlessly snack on, so be mindful! (As a rough estimate, 1 ounce of nuts = about 28 peanuts, or 17 cashews, or 22 almonds. Which really isn’t much at all.)

mom23mangos

Nuts are also a very poor source of protein for the amount of calories they have. You should be looking for protein sources that give you approximately 1g protein/10 calories. I know as a vegetarian your options are a bit more limited, but lentils, tofu, seitan, etc. should be your primary protein sources I would think.

bribucks

Also if you are strictly vegetarian not vegan, dairy and eggs are great sources of protein! Before I had to cut dairy, my favorites were Light & Fit greek yogurt (80 calories, 12g protein) and Cheese Heads light string cheese (50 calories, 7g protein).

FormerlyWallyAmadeus

I hear you. My body looks good, except for that "belt" of what I'll kindly call fluff around my middle. The only time I've actually been able to get that tight, trim look was when my bodyfat was under 18%. That required me to do one hour of cardio daily, work out with heavy weights, and reduce my fat intake to no more than 20 grams a day.

I'm not suggesting that you need to do this, but I do think bodyfat % is a metric that makes a difference when it comes to having that tight core.

VictoriaTuel

I have the same stats as you (but am in my twenties), but have you always stored fat in your midriff? I feel like most people will have one area that clings on to fat at all cost (mine is my thighs personally), but I might ask your doctor if you've randomly started to accumulate fat in a new location.

I'm also a vegetation, and nuts have a suuuper high calorie to volume ratio. For protein I eat Greek yogurt, eggs, beans, tofu, tempeh, lentils, cheese, edamame, mushrooms, spinach, and mung beans to name a few. I think all of these have higher protein to calorie ratios and lower calorie to volume ratios, so they might be helpful if you're trying to cut calories and keep up your protein intake. I definitely agree with @bribucks that you should count calories and measure portions (even if you don't do it long term) for at least a week to get a more accurate idea of how many calories you consume per day. Estimating is often very misleading.

Charliegirl1974

Thanks guys, really helpful and I think probably it’s what I already know but wasn’t doing it!
I’m gonna lay off the nuts. I will definitely eat more protein too! I love all the suggested foods, so there’s no problem there.
I think if I’m honest I have a tendency to get bored doing the food tracking, simply because I eat meals which have tonnes of constituent parts. Like my salads for instance, they’ll maybe have 10 ingredients, so I’ll have to measure each out, then take a proportion eaten, etc etc...then I get fed up! But I will, because as you say, guesstimates can mislead! I am also guilty of undereating when it comes to food intake versus exercise, and I’m also guilty of just picking. The rest of my family aren’t veggie so I tend to forget about myself when cooking so just stuff a carb down my neck, which isn’t good....
RIGHT. Time to pay better attention! Thanks, everyone. X