*Before starting let me just say I know you can't spot reduce.*

With that being said...when you have a large amount of your fat in your belly area is it worth it to do ab exercises or is it better to wait until you lean out?

I ask because I've heard a lot of mixed reviews. I've heard people say it is pointless to do abs with large amounts of belly fat because until it drops there is really no point in working that area.

Then you have videos like 30 Day Shred and they do ab workouts and the before/after pics of people who had belly fat seemed to have lost some while doing it. Now that could be from the whole video or because of the ab section. I'm not sure.

I'm curious as to what Steve and the others on here think.

Mmm. For me, I don't do ab building - I don't care about bigger abs and I have too much belly fat for them to show anyway. But even if I didn't have hte belly fat, I'm already pretty thick built, I don't want thicker abs.

I personally think 30 day shred is a) a kind of crappy workout, I hate it and b) panders to what people want, which means they put in ab exercises because if they don't, people will go "BUT WHAT ABOUT MY BELLY". Oh and C) 30 Day Shred as done by most people is basically a 25 minute cardio workout, with little rest periods they call "abs" in between. Most people will get a nice amount of fat loss by adding 25 minutes of cardio 5x a week. And you see that reflected in the before/after shots.

You can't spot reduce. you already said you know. So. I mean. You can't spot reduce?

I *do* however do core strengthening stuff, because a strong core aids pretty much everything. But that's not the same as deliberately building up the muscles in your stomach - you can gain strength without gaining muscle size.

Soooooooooo

It depends?

If you try to put on some muscle in your abs, it might be possible to gain a little size there even in a deficit, via newbie gains. And the UPside to adding muscle (Anywhere) is that it makes the fat look less ...fat. Size wise you might be bigger, but the fat looks smoother because its stretched over a bigger harder base. But, most women don't want to look thicker through the middle. I certainly don't.

But a stronger back (and stomach but I think people are weaker in their back most of the time) will help you with posture, pretty much any sport or exercise you want to do ever, etc. So I think its a good idea to do stuff. But not with an eye that it will in any way make your belly look smaller.

(PS some people lose belly fat first. Mean horrible people that we should shun and not be friends with. But you know. They exist. Don't look at other people's B/A pictures and assume yours will look the same if you do the same workouts.)