ADVICE please! active - 1300 cal diet - workout 5-6

annatribbett

Hello there!
My name is Anna. I am 31 and an athlete. I have been watching calories (eating good foods within my budgeted intake) and working out every morning (plus or minus 1 day). I have been gaining weight but losing body fat. I use a hand held body fat % pedometer to check in here and there. It says I am 14% body fat. 3 months ago I was at 19. I still have fat around my stomach and abs and hardly have any definition. Do you know how long this will take to have my abs visible? Also, I weight lift and do hiit workouts. I do arms/cardio, hiit, legs/cardio, hiit/abs and repeat with switching stuff up here and there.
I want abs!
Help!

AnvilHead

annatribbett wrote: »

Hello there!
My name is Anna. I am 31 and an athlete. I have been watching calories (eating good foods within my budgeted intake) and working out every morning (plus or minus 1 day). I have been gaining weight but losing body fat. I use a hand held body fat % pedometer to check in here and there. It says I am 14% body fat. 3 months ago I was at 19. I still have fat around my stomach and abs and hardly have any definition. Do you know how long this will take to have my abs visible? Also, I weight lift and do hiit workouts. I do arms/cardio, hiit, legs/cardio, hiit/abs and repeat with switching stuff up here and there.
I want abs!
Help!

If you have hardly any definition and still have fat around your stomach and abs, you are not 14% bodyfat. Handheld BIA (bioelectric impedance analysis) devices are notoriously inaccurate.

Having visible abs is a result of genetics plus a low body fat percentage. If you've been gaining weight, you've been gaining fat, no way around it. It's extremely rare (and even more rare without drugs) for somebody to gain pure muscle without any fat gain.

There's no telling how long it will take to have visible abs. As stated above, that will be a combination of your genetics and fat loss. You didn't state what your current height/weight was, but either a cut (calorie deficit) or a recomp (eating at/near maintenance calories), while engaged in a well designed strength program), would be the way to go - certainly not a bulk (calorie surplus/gaining weight), which is directly counter to your goals.

As an aside, who designed your lifting program? Is it a professionally designed routine, or one you threw together yourself? Based upon how you described it, it sounds less than optimal for your goals and leaves out several major bodyparts/muscle groups.

sardelsa

In addition to the above, if you are very lean with no abs it could also be the result of lack of muscle base. I was very lean at one point, almost underweight with very little ab definition. Once I build up enough muscle they were more visible even being heavier and with a higher bodyfat %.

What are your stats?

joeboland

annatribbett wrote: »

I do arms/cardio, hiit, legs/cardio, hiit/abs and repeat with switching stuff up here and there.

Could you elaborate?

Also, AnvilHead is totally right. According to BIA, I was 21% BF at my leanest, whereas callipers had me sitting at around 9%. I wouldn't trust BIA any more than comparing my physique in the mirror with Google search results.

Ari_Sch

I’m about the same as you 118 lbs 15% BMI and I weight lift, run, and play soccer. Abs are 50% kitchen, 30% genetics (also we are female so our bodies want to produce more fatty tissue around our lower belly by the uterus) and 20% strength training. I would suggest eating a higher caloric diet since you workout so much, 1300 is no where near enough and i would also suggest doing more abs exercises that include weight (ankle weights, yoga ball, weighted ball....ect). Hope this helps.

rheddmobile

If you are gaining weight on 1300 calories plus exercise, you are either very tiny or miscalculating. Tighten up your logging as a first step.

Silkysausage

I would cease to exist on 1300 and attempt to carry out your regime.