Am I doing this right?

Everend

Hello all, Im new here as well as being new to being diet conscious. I am 5'10 and currently weigh 166 pounds. Now I am fairly active being a stay at home Dad. However I have noticed recently I am starting to get a little soft around the middle and im not getting any younger (37). I recently started using MFP, and Im currently doing 1940 calories a day. I am also running 4.5 miles 3 days a week and doing calisthenics every day. Im really trying to get that body I've always wanted.

My question is the following: Obviously, I'm not overweight but my goal is to reduce the fat percentage on my body. Am I going about this the right way? Im very sore...lol...and hungry...Is it important for me to hit that 1940 intake everyday? With the excersise Im up around 2600 a day and I havent been eating that much, is this bad?

GauchoMark

at the end of the day, your calories remaining on mfp should be zero.

You can set this up a couple different ways, but the one I think is the easiest and most accurate is to set your activity at sedentary. When you exercise, log the exercise and it will give you more calories to eat.

The other way is to try to choose an activity level that best describes your current situation and don't log exercise unless you do something extraordinarily out of the norm.


The other two things, hunger and soft belly:
Well, you are probably going to be a little hungry for a week or so - you are cutting calories, after all. However, you can be LESS hungry depending on the foods you choose to eat. Go for bulk and protein and it will help. Example is a nice big salad with lots of veggies on it and a big piece of grilled chicken or fish on top. Any nuts, cheese, dressing, croutons, etc. are going to add calories, but not a lot of "filling". The only thing is that the nuts (in moderation) would give you a little bit of oil and slow your digestive system and also help in getting the nutrients out of the veggies.

The soft belly thing - first you need to do some strength training on your abs. Leg lifts, planks, cable crunches, incline crunches, hyperextensions, weighted side bends, etc. You need to get the muscles themselves in shape. However, chances are, you probably need to loose a little weight as well to get them to show.

GauchoMark

by the way, all the cardio you are doing is great, but the strength training is what will give you the results you want. The cardio just buys you more calories and trains your body to process oxygen more efficiently. The strength training will give you the looks.

If you can't get into a gym, look into plyometrics. They will serve you much better than calisthenics. You are really trying to build muscles which means strength training and/or building fast twitch muscle fibers.

Everend

Thanks for the help. I have been doing strength training in the form of crunches, plank, curls, press, squats, ect...

I have always relied on my job for my excersise as I have been doing construction for 15 years. But, now as a stay at home Dad I have become alot less active. I guess Im just looking for advice and ideas from people who have more experience at this.

Everend

Bump for more input...