Visible 6-pack as a woman

Options
kennydrawr
kennydrawr Posts: 1
in Fitness and Exercise
Hey all! First post here. I'm a 27 year old woman with a goal of a visible 6-pack. I'm not sure what my bf% is but here are my other stats:

5'4"
116 lbs
27" waist
30" hips

I've had a hard time with bf% calculators online because I don't have a very good hip:waist ratio and I think that skews it. I would like to find out for sure sometime, but in the mean time...

HOW THE EFF DO I ACHIEVE THIS? Should I focus on eating completely clean? Should I adjust my macros to less fat and sugar than normally allowed? My thing is, I do a lot of biking, running, hiking, just about every day. I tend to burn so many calories that I need to eat 2,300+ just to break even. I don't want to lose any more weight, so I am trying to eat at maintenance, but I'm generally under just about every day.

The amounts of food I would have to eat to break even is ridiculous if it is all stuff like veggies, lean meats, and what not. So I end up eating more carbs and fat (bread, rice, peanut butter, usually) just to get my calories in. I've got good strong abs, I can feel them under about an inch layer of fat. I can't cut back calories anymore because I can't afford to lose any muscle, I need that ****.

I'm just an active person with a taste for healthy food, I'm far from a fitness expert. I kinda have no idea what I'm doing, but I want to. Any tips on this would be appreciated, thanks.

Replies

  • audrast
    audrast Posts: 74 Member
    Options
    You would have to decrease your body fat percentage but you can keep your weight if you focus on strength training over cardio-fat loss. Gain muscle and lose fat.

    ETA: A fit % of body fat for women is around 21-24%. An "athletic" amount of % body fat goes from about 15-20%
  • kgeyser
    kgeyser Posts: 22,505 Member
    Options
    This link is helpful. For your stats, I would recommend a much smaller deficit than TDEE-20%. 5 or 10% should be enough to burn off the fat while still retaining your muscle and allowing you to maintain your activity level.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1161603-so-you-want-a-nice-stomach

Categories