Frustrating

Kate8628

So here's my problem. I have been exercising and being good with food. I am losing inches, 5 all over so far which is great but my stomach is the same. Very flabby, I have had 3 children and the last one ruined all my stomach muscles but I would have thought it would get a little better?!! Also i have lost 1 stone. That was about 2 months ago I think and now stopped completly. I am not at a good weight for my bmi. Still at the very overweight line. I have changed workouts as I do regualy so my body is always getting a different workout but I am just a little disheartened. I really want to be at a healthy weight and get rid of my flabby belly. Any advice?
I am not going to stop because of this don't get me wrong but it's a little annoying.

JustSomeEm

How are you measuring your portions? The most accurate way to measure portions is with a food scale, so if you aren't doing that, maybe you could invest in one? I tend to eyeball portions which can mean that I'm getting hundreds more calories a day than I realize. When I have this problem, I whip out the food scale and get more accurate with measuring.

Also, some people are 'grazers' who will take just a bite of something as they move about their day. Those bites can also add up to hundreds of calories per day.

And are you accounting for any drinks with calories in them?

You've got this.

Kate8628

I don't drink anything with sugar in like fizzy drinks etc. Dont like them lucky enough but I do like the odd glass or 2 of wine! Suppose I better cut that put as well, boo hoo. I think I need to start weighing portions as I do eyeball a lot of the time. I stopped grazing when I started to watch what i was eating so don't think its that. I am upping my water intake from today. Maybe not drinking enough and i know my stomach will be the last to go but wow feels like forever. I have been the same weight for a while, that's frustrating.

cheryldumais

Yup, last place I lost weight was my stomach. Also be sure you are weighing and measuring all your food. I'm not sure if you are actually counting calories because you say you're "being good with food". Not sure what that means to you. If you are counting calories have you recalculated your limit since you lost? That number goes down as you lose. As for the skin issue which is sure to come up once you get down, be sure to give your skin time to catch up with the weight loss. I found after a year and a half there is quite a difference but it takes a long time.

Sharon_C

For most people the last place they lose is in the stomach and they are at a very low BF% when the stomach does eventually go. Some people can't ever get rid of the stomach.

For me, I don't want to get that low so I accept my flabby stomach as it is and work on other areas.

My daughter is very low BF and she still has a pooch.

You may have to embrace the pooch

lemurcat2

Are you counting calories?

I lose weight from the stomach last too, it's a bummer.

leggup

We can't pick where we lose weight from first or last. FYI you don't have to mix up your workouts. If your stomach muscles were destroyed, make sure you're getting a good core workout so that as you lose you maintain what muscle you have.

I lose weight from my hips last. Stomach is second to last. Chest is first

LiLee2018

Just keep going. You can't spot lose weight. If we could do that, we'd all be walking around with flat tummies.
Just keep doing what you're doing and your body will eventually lose the weight in your stomach as well.
You could always start doing core and ab workouts to help the muscles in the area. It won't make the stomach fat disappear faster, but toning up will help your overall look.

I also lose in my stomach last and while I've lost a lot of it, I still have a lot more to lose in that area. You just have to be patient and not give up. It will come off with continued healthy living

NovemberSkye

If you have diastasis recti (muscle separation caused by pregnancy), then getting rid of the pooch will be so so so hard. The best thing to do is see a PT and get some specific exercises to help close the separation and repair the muscles. Also, if you actually have damaged muscles from pregnancy, standard ab exercises can make it worse, so best to check with doc/PT.

AnnPT77

Kate8628 wrote: »

So here's my problem. I have been exercising and being good with food. I am losing inches, 5 all over so far which is great but my stomach is the same. Very flabby, I have had 3 children and the last one ruined all my stomach muscles but I would have thought it would get a little better?!! Also i have lost 1 stone. That was about 2 months ago I think and now stopped completly. I am not at a good weight for my bmi. Still at the very overweight line. I have changed workouts as I do regualy so my body is always getting a different workout but I am just a little disheartened. I really want to be at a healthy weight and get rid of my flabby belly. Any advice?
I am not going to stop because of this don't get me wrong but it's a little annoying.

It's not necessary to change workouts a lot, unless you get bored with what you're doing and want to change. The popular idea that you need to "confuse your body" by switching things, in order to lose weight, is false: A myth. (I think it comes mostly from online trainers and organizations like Beachbody telling us to do new things so they can sell us different exercise programs and equipment).

As you get lighter in weight, the same exercise will burn slightly fewer calories, if it's something that involves moving your bodyweight through space, because moving a smaller body is less work. That's about it, in terms of exercise and weight loss.

In order to keep increasing fitness, it's important to keep challenging yourself, making things just a little harder by going longer, more intensely, with more resistance, or more often. This doesn't mean changing the type of workout, it just means changing how long, how often, or how intensely you do that workout. When you increase the work done in one of those ways, you will burn more calories than doing the exercise for less time, less frequently or less intensely.

For most common exercises, the amount by which you get more efficient (in a physics sense) as you get fitter is really minor, with virtually no effect on calorie burn (at consistent body size). It just feels easier, and your heart rate monitor may say you burned fewer calories (but the latter is just because heart rate monitors are not very good at adjusting their estimates accurately, in those scenarios).

In one way, switching exercises frequently may make it harder to lose weight: We log both our eating and exercise, then watch our weight loss results, and adjust intake to keep losing at a sensibly moderate rate. But it's hard to accurate adjust for any possible errors in exercise calorie estimates when you keep switching the exercise type all the time - it makes the data noisier. This shouldn't be a huge factor, but it's a needless complication.

It's good to make sure you do some cardiovascular exercise, and some strength exercise, for fitness. Having some of each in one's routine is good, in that sense. It's also good to work on things like balance and flexibility, which might lead one to adjust one's routine over time, for fitness reasons. But constantly switching exercise randomly doesn't help either weight loss or fitness, typically.

Elite athletes didn't get there by switching exercises willy-nilly all the time. They got to their fitness level by having a sensible, planned program of fitness development, with a focus on the capabilities needed by their main sport(s). The same general approach, though with less time commitment, tends to be sensible for us regular people, too: A sensible program of balanced activities, with progressive challenge.

You can figure out what's going on with your body, and get weight loss going again. People above have mostly given good advice: Pin down your intake more precisely, as a start. You may lose last (or near last) from your stomach, but if you still have fat to lose, some will come from there.

Hang in there, and best wishes!