Limitations on waist

SModa61
SModa61 Posts: 3,099 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hey all! I am wondering if anyone has insights into any obsticals that I can circumnavigate.

For background, I am almost 60 and have lost 30ish pounds, from september 2020 to february 2021. This morning's weight was 122.6 and my all time high in 2001 was 168.8. I have been establishing daily exercise that is mostly walking or running, max 7 miles, min 3 miles and indoor biking or spinning as a replacement. I am thrilled to be forming a habit or expectation of exercise and tweak my exercise choices from that baseline.

As for my waist, I know when I was young and at a comparable weight, my waist was 26". Currently it is 28" and briefly 2 months ago I saw 27". Now, if I do a stomach vacuum and measure, I can see that 27" number. What do you think my realistic expectations should be and what is it physically that holds me back from being able to pull in to that old 26" number? Does this imply that I have visceral fat? I feel that the vacuum must represent the current limitation of my muscles and the best number I should hope for is that 27" and only if I get back to including regular core strengthening exercises.

Any thoughts?
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Replies

  • SModa61
    SModa61 Posts: 3,099 Member
    Hey @speakeasy76 Thank you for your reply and thanks for making me think further.

    First, I don't think I have to have my old size waist. I think I am just trying to understand what choices I have and if I even have a choice. And yes, I am talking in my 20's. I am not sure that I have any documented measurements for myself between then and now.

    Why do I care about my waist? Yes, I am about 10 years post menopausal and my bust has shrunk, and my hips are not huge ATM. I am becoming slightly more rectangular, which is not my first choice. As for sizing, most clothing expects that slightly smaller waist to hip ratio. So while I am not looking for a smaller size, I would just like my hips and waist to fit the same size. Additionally, yes I fear the Meno-pot thickening in the middle. I feel like that shouts my age even more than my COVID gray hair I have embraced.

    I also have had two kids, 1 c-section, 2 other abdominal surgeries, and elephant skin from the pregnancies. You want a vision? Picture that doing a stomach vacuum. It's nothing I would ever do in public.

    I think I was expecting a response with something like "with menopause you will be holding onto additional visceral fat which limits how far one's muscles can retract" (note that I have no idea if that is true. that is just an example) or some other statement that might offer insights.

    Thanks again for your reply. I agree that I need to add back in my pre-pandemic, but erratic strength training.
  • icemom011
    icemom011 Posts: 999 Member
    I'm seeing similar tendency, my stomach sticking out like it never did when i was young. I'm 49, two kids. I'm physically fit, athletic built, low body fat, but my gut is more prominent than i would like it to be. Go figure... I don't do any specific stomach exercises, like crunches. I used to in my young years, so probably muscles in that area are lacking and that's the reason for it. I don't have any extra skin there, just it's not flat anymore...
  • SModa61
    SModa61 Posts: 3,099 Member
    icemom011 wrote: »
    I'm seeing similar tendency, my stomach sticking out like it never did when i was young. I'm 49, two kids. I'm physically fit, athletic built, low body fat, but my gut is more prominent than i would like it to be. Go figure... I don't do any specific stomach exercises, like crunches. I used to in my young years, so probably muscles in that area are lacking and that's the reason for it. I don't have any extra skin there, just it's not flat anymore...

    Interesting. I will say there are different stomach shapes. I recall when young, my 115 lb 5'6" sister had 3" smaller waist yet a small pooch, while I was shorter, heavier but flatter. I may have been flat from the side, but from head on, the difference in waist circumference was obvious.

    On another note that may help you. Once I lost the weight this year, my waist was frustratingly hovering at 30" which was not that different from when I weighed 30 lbs more. The planks I was doing did not tighten it further. Then in January, I did start some situps and the like, which might have made a differnce, but my recollection was that I was not seeingn anything. Then I heard about the stomach vacuums. Within days, my waist dropped 2". Not sure which contributed, but it was literally inches in days. At one point, I did get to 27". Right now, none of that is really in my life (yes, shame on me) and I am back to 28". My point is that you might see changes with just a little ab focused work. I recall hearing years ago that abs can be highly responsive. Probably because they can also get so slack that tightening can make a quick difference.
  • MaltedTea
    MaltedTea Posts: 6,286 Member
    Hi UAC Twin 😉 In addition to the insights above, I'd remind you of the potential hormonal impacts of menopause on the body. This can't be gauged here so a clinical convo with a gyno, endocrinologist or nutritionist who is able to get blood work done could be interesting.

    But perhaps less cardio and more strength training (with a focus on core work and mobility) could be equally as interesting.
  • L1zardQueen
    L1zardQueen Posts: 8,753 Member
    The more you work a muscle the bigger it gets. I would stay away from ab work and focus on everything else.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,377 Member
    L1zardQueen wrote: »
    The more you work a muscle the bigger it gets. I would stay away from ab work and focus on everything else.

    Too simple a conceptual model, I think. Body parts can get more compact with muscle work, or bigger, with different strategies, or at different stages of physical development.

    So, *which* ab work matters, I think.

    I suspect weighted side bends may make my waist measurement bigger. Don't care, doin' 'em anyway. 🤣

  • MikePfirrman
    MikePfirrman Posts: 3,307 Member
    edited May 2021
    I know when I tend to concentrate only on cardio (though I do mostly the rowing machine which has some elements of strength to it), my stomach gets larger. Only when I really start hitting heavier weights does my stomach shrink enough to make me happy, relative to the rest of my body.

    Weight goes to my stomach first and then my face. I lose it in that same reverse order but it takes a lot of watching everything I eat and lifting to make it happen.

    There is a point where working abs a lot can build them. I'm 196 and 5 foot 10 and can flex and see a six pack, but yet I have a 35 inch waist. I'm roughly 22% or so BF right now. In order to have a 32 inch waist, I really need to lean out to around 15% BF.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Most people don't seem to do ab work with low reps high weight in order to get a muscle belly.
    Besides for most genetics the ab muscles don't respond that way to workouts - though one could attempt to do that I'm sure.
  • raetzpl
    raetzpl Posts: 9 Member
    I've been enjoying adding the Power Abs for Moms program into my fitness routine to help target the mom tummy that I have lingering, maybe something like that would be fun for you to try? https://powerabs.shop/collections/featured-programs/products/powerabs-for-moms

    The reality is our bodies change shapes over the years and especially after having kids. Not true for everyone, but definitely true for most.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,957 Member
    I have two really old pairs of trousers that I really loved in the past. Then gained weight. When I'd lost it, and was lighter than when I bought them they didn't fit. Fat and muscle distribution probably played a role, but also my pelvis bone didn't fit anymore. And I never had kids.
  • SModa61
    SModa61 Posts: 3,099 Member
    i owe you all an apology for my silence. I did read all your posts and I appreciate the thoughtful responses. Not sure how this thread got away from me.

    @yirara interesting observations about your own body changes

    @OnceAndFutureAthlete Indeed I am the same height I was before, and if you bagged my head, my overall shape would not give away my age. I definitely know the thickening you are talking about and that is likely some of what I fear for the future.

    @raetzpl Thanks for the link. I will be checking it out

    @Maltedtea @L1zardQueen @AnnPT77 @mikepfirrman @heybales Thanks for sharing your observations and advice. You have all given me things to think about.

    Now to figure things out! :)
  • kenyonhaff
    kenyonhaff Posts: 1,377 Member
    Aging is a thing...and the body of a woman changes over time. Exercise can do a lot to moderate it, but there's really only so much one can do in the face of time marching on.

    I don't mean give up. But expecting your body to react the way today that it did at 23 is a fool's errand.

    There's a reason a mature woman needs clothing that shapes and compliment.
  • SModa61
    SModa61 Posts: 3,099 Member
    So jumping back to my original post for just a moment. We are all in 100% agreement that age is a factor in body shape. I know my height and related aspects are not an issue......yet.

    So within that scenario of age, is it likely muscular change contributing or could it be visceral fat that due to its volume then limits muscular response? Those are the two premises that I am playing with.

    Am I upset about my waist? Nope. Never thought I would see my current weight or measurements again. So I guess I am being greedy and/or curious about my limitations. If it is a visceral fat thing, then maybe I will try and learn more on that subject. If it is a muscle thing, you all have given me lots of pointers above.

    Some day I would love to do a body composition scan, again mostly out of curiousity.

    Lastly, someone recently posted a link to this: https://www.weareageist.com/profile/joan-macdonald-74-journey-to-strength-and-fitness/

    Front page is so inspiring. Need to find more down time to really give it all a read. I want to "grow up" to be her. (I'm approaching 60 now).

  • MaltedTea
    MaltedTea Posts: 6,286 Member
    ^^ so I'm glad you mentioned the body composition scan. Because comparing two, within a given space of time, would be the only way to gauge differences in body fat, muscle, etc.

    Even then you'd have to make sure you're using the same method each time. And even then it would have to be the same machine and EVEN THEN there are ranges of accuracy...even a Dexa isn't a perfect measurement tool, for example.

    And even then 😂 because you're so physically active @SModa61, there's an interplay between the two.
  • SModa61
    SModa61 Posts: 3,099 Member
    ^^ @MaltedTea I love you calling me physically active. Since arriving up north again, life has bumped my physical activity. Hope to be remedying that soon before too much damage is done. I did notie that my VO2 max has dropped in these few weeks.

    Also, added note, three days ago I woke up to a uniquely low weight. I decided to take my waist measurement for giggles. Was 26.75. Just now, 28. Mixed emotions on the weight. I don't want to become a scarecrow and that is where exercise with weight training needs to come into play.
  • SModa61
    SModa61 Posts: 3,099 Member
    edited May 2021
    I do find shapewear as an interesting history. I suspect that some of the girdle usage (not recent but think 1950's or such) was not for asthetics but for back pain/issues. I recall years ago when I was a physical therapist for pinched back nerves causing leg issues and his comment was how it was important that I form my own natural girdle of muscles to protect my back. Interesting choice of words. Anyhow, I have taken that advice to heart (not perfectly) and leg issues are now rare, though I am likely 15+ years older now.
  • MaltedTea
    MaltedTea Posts: 6,286 Member
    Trend over time vs. a point in time, my UAC Twin.
  • Anthem76
    Anthem76 Posts: 81 Member
    Lowered estrogen is the culprit behind a thickening waist after menopause.
    https://www.startribune.com/mayo-clinic-study-finds-explanation-for-postmenopausal-belly-fat/205701571/#:~:text=Scientists have long known that,cells to store more fat.

    That said, I think there are three solutions here.

    1. Exercises that target firming up the area
    2. Acceptance of your changing shape, along with love and appreciation for your body and what it has done/does for you.
    3. Dressing in a way that makes you feel good about what you have. I make this last point as a person who has always been rectangular through the waist....even as a svelte teenage athlete. I make the most of what I have by wearing clothing that highlights my back/shoulders and long slender legs. I look silly in belted clothes (and so avoid them) and instead favor dresses, empire waistlines, v-necks, and low rise pants. Blazers (with a little pinch at the waist) over a cami work great. Of course style is a very individual thing...but these are things that I think work well for my body type.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,377 Member
    SModa61 wrote: »
    I do find shapewear as an interesting history. I suspect that some of the girdle usage (not recent but think 1950's or such) was not for asthetics but for back pain/issues. I recall years ago when I was a physical therapist for pinched back nerves causing leg issues and his comment was how it was important that I form my own natural girdle of muscles to protect my back. Interesting choice of words. Anyhow, I have taken that advice to heart (not perfectly) and leg issues are now rare, though I am likely 15+ years older now.

    If that's true, it's certainly not how women talked about it.

    IME girdle-wearing for dress-up was pretty universal. I wore one, in my early teens, which is about when they started dropping out of style, with the advent of pantyhose. If you wore hose (virtually every woman did, at least for dress-up), they required a garter belt or girdle to attach to, to keep them up. Garter belts are a fussy, annoying kind of thing, and don't provide any shapewear effects.

    I think girdles were more common, though maybe a higher fraction of the garter belt option for everyday wear. We were required to wear dresses/skirts to school, and there's a point - I think usually early teens - where girls started shaving their legs, wearing hose, no longer knee socks or tights. (Yes, oddly, thicker tights were a common thing that I wore as a child, but for some reason pantyhose weren't the commonest thing until later. The first ones came out in 1959 - I looked it up - but they didn't outsell hose until around 1970.)
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,377 Member
    SModa61 wrote: »
    So jumping back to my original post for just a moment. We are all in 100% agreement that age is a factor in body shape. I know my height and related aspects are not an issue......yet.

    Actually, I'm not sure I do agree, at least not that age per se is universally a massive factor in body shape, in the age range I think we're talking about here.

    Some things that are more common with age, but aren't aging per se, may be meaningful. (Childbirth is one - I'm childless, so not much informed about that.)

    I know women in their 50s-70s who've been fitness oriented for decades (including one Olympic gold medalist whom I won't name), and a couple of women who lost weight and got very serious about fitness a bit later in life after a decade(s) of a more average lifestyle. I don't know what they personally looked like in their 20s, but they have body shapes that I think many 20-somethings wouldn't mind having. (More superficial wrinkles than a 20-something, and a few other differences, especially once 60+, but talking overall body shape here.)

    It's not necessarily that they were pursuing a particular body shape, but it was an outcome of their lifestyle choices certainly.

    So within that scenario of age, is it likely muscular change contributing or could it be visceral fat that due to its volume then limits muscular response? Those are the two premises that I am playing with.

    I'm not sure it's that simple. Those are not completely isolated things.

    Yes, there are some research findings that menopause affects body composition, particularly abdominal fat; and suggesting that estrogen levels are part of that picture. But body composition also affects estrogen levels pre- and post-menopausally, as does exercise (different exercise modes possibly in different ways).

    Before menopause, ovaries are our major estrogen producers. After menopause, our body still produces estrogen, most significantly from fat cells and adrenals. (I learned about this as a consequence of breast cancer treatment for hormone-fed tumors.) Clearly, weight loss affects fat cells, and that can affect estrogen levels. (Obesity is believed to contribute to incidence of hormone-fed cancers in women, speculated to be via estrogen levels, I believe.) Exercise can affect circulating estrogen levels, too, either increasing or decreasing it, it seems, depending on the exercise type.

    There's lots of research around this set of interlinked topics, but the study linked below brings together various interesting tidbits:

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6619462/

    It's focused around osteoporotic changes specifically, but the discussion touches in interesting ways on the other aspects (body composition, exercise type, circulating estrogen levels, etc.) and their interrelationships. I'm not suggesting that the study is beyond critique, more suggesting that the background information that's taken as accepted is perhaps relevant to our current discussion here.
    Am I upset about my waist? Nope. Never thought I would see my current weight or measurements again. So I guess I am being greedy and/or curious about my limitations. If it is a visceral fat thing, then maybe I will try and learn more on that subject. If it is a muscle thing, you all have given me lots of pointers above.

    Some day I would love to do a body composition scan, again mostly out of curiousity.

    Lastly, someone recently posted a link to this: https://www.weareageist.com/profile/joan-macdonald-74-journey-to-strength-and-fitness/

    Front page is so inspiring. Need to find more down time to really give it all a read. I want to "grow up" to be her. (I'm approaching 60 now).

    I respect and admire what Joan's accomplished, but I have to admit a feel a little eye-roll-y about whether her daughter is using mom as an influencer to promote daughter's career as a trainer. IME, there are women around us of similar age accomplishing things like this. Not common, sure, but she's not a full-on unique sparkly unicorn, either.

    Ernestine Shepard started late, Madonna Buder (more an accomplished athlete than a "look nice" person) started late, and there are more . . . and that's just semi-celebs, not regular women who've done similar things without fanfare. Unusual, yes. Not impossible.
  • 33gail33
    33gail33 Posts: 1,155 Member
    Hormonal changes after menopause influence fat distribution, so I would say that yes you are dealing with an increase in abdominal visceral fat compared to what you may have had at the same weight at a younger age.
    Not sure how much we can influence that, but I would imagine that weight training would be one way to balance it out visually.
  • SModa61
    SModa61 Posts: 3,099 Member
    @anthem76 Thanks for the recs. In general, I am pleased with where I am at. What I probably need are some glute work that would help balance things out. Yes, I am curious if I should expect to be able to improve my waist just like I were wondering if I could improve a deadlift. Trying to understand the older me. But thank you

    @annPT77 I do wonder if part of my girdle perspective is due to my mother. She has always had back issues (born with mild spina bifida) and I somewhat remember a girdle on her when I was younger. As she is now 84, back is in constant pain for her and sadly, I do not recall her ever being willing to strengthen those muscles that would support her back. I too remember the days of dresses at school. That changed in 5th grade for me. Up until then, no pants were allowed on a female. And I remember the drama involved with my mother when I wanted to shave my legs. Times have changed!! In the car ride yesterday (yes, passenger seat :P ), I came across this article. Kinda of fun read on the history. https://www.thelist.com/153746/the-complicated-history-of-corsets/

    Thanks also for your insights and link. I'll have to give reading it a go, but not today (have to help hubby clean the boat :( ). Thank you for the additional names for inspiration, this "Joan" is just the first "public" individual I have seen. I'm sure that you could also give her a run for the money. It is just really nice to visually see accomplishments. Maybe you should start a blog. :)

    @33gail33 I appreciate getting to discuss these ideas with you all.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,377 Member
    @SModa61, if you like that sort of thing, you might see whether your library has Rick Rickman & Donna Wares' photo/essay book "The Wonder Years: Portraits of Athletes Who Never Slow Down", or can get it for you via interlibrary loan. Rickman was the official photographer for the US National Senior Games, and the book features photos of many senior athletes, textual profiles of some. Good stuff.

    There are some photos on Rick Rickman Photography's site, but they're hard to navigate to, and near-impossible to link. This link *might* work:

    https://www.rickrickman.com/gallery.html?gallery=The+Wonder+Years&folio=Portfolio#/0

    . . . if it does, then there's a grid at the bottom of the first photo that will show a thumbnail navigation band if you click on it, and if you click on the photo itself it will bring up the next one of this small sample set; or, they may auto-slide-show. Maybe. 😆

    Great photos, IMO, but annoying web site. The essays about individual athletes are worth looking for the book, if interested and it's not too difficult for you to find.

    Every masters rowing event I go to has (literal!) boatloads of fit folks our age, and beyond. I assume other masters competitions in non-revenue sports would be similar (marathon, triathlon, track & field, lifting, etc., though I don't know). In rowing, and some other sports, "masters" just means older (post-collegiate and beyond) people who compete, not excellent professional athletes who've past their peak (as we may think of in masters golf, for example).

    I wouldn't consider doing a blog, because (1) when it comes to masters athletes generally in the spectrum of sports I know about, I'm a duffer in fitness and performance; and (2) fit old people may be unusual (or more likely, unnoticed) in our everyday life, but they're not Unusual unusual, overall. US Masters Nationals in rowing, for example, typically has over a couple of thousand competitors, some rowing in multiple events that are tightly scheduled, only a few minutes apart, over 3-4 days, morning to evening. (Each athlete may row in multiple events.) The participant numbers skew younger, but there are races for folks into their 80s and sometimes beyond, and the competitors in their 40s-70s are pretty numerous. (Yes, I have rowed in masters nationals, earlier in my rowing history. My boats washed out in their first heats. It's competitive!)
  • SModa61
    SModa61 Posts: 3,099 Member
    @annpt77 I just ordered the last copy off of amazon. I'll have it this Thursday. Thank you for the recommendation. That's amazing to here that there are so many atheletes in the upper age catagories.

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