Best exercise advice for toning and trimming belly fat

In my experience, A LOT of women are afraid of lifting heavy weights because they "don't wanna get bulky like a man." This drives a lot of trainers that I know bonkers - women cannot develop "man like" physiques by lifting heavy weights. The women that do - pro body builders etc, are taking "supplements" that increase their natural testosterone, which allows them to build an unnatural amount of muscle. For women that aren't "supplementing" their nutrition, it's impossible for you to "get a manly look." As counter-intuitive as is sounds, you will "tone up" by lifting heavy weights.

To re-enforce an earlier mentioned point, you cannot "spot reduce fat." Doing squats won't make you lose fat preferentially from your legs any more than doing curls will make you lose it from your arms. The only way to spot reduce is via surgery. You want to reduce the fat that is covering your muscle, and you also want to build muscle so that there is muscle to be seen once the fat is gone. If you've every seen pictures of people that have lost a lot of weight over a short period of time, but you think "why are they so saggy?" It's because they lose fat, but didn't build muscle (also, their skin lost some elasticity).

You need to dial in your nutrition (through trial and error, over time, and with consistency), build muscle, and train your abs both directly (various crunches, planks etc) and in-directly (compound movements: standing exercises like side lateral raises, overhead presses, rows etc).

Good Luck.

stefng33 wrote: »

Is it best to mix up my workouts say evey other day cardio versus strength training? Or should I stick to one regime for a few weeks and move on to the next?
I'm definitely learning so much! Thanks

You ask that question to 10 different people, you'll get 10 different answers. The good news, and bad news, is that there is no one right answer. A lot of things work. That's the good part. You'll have to find what works for you. That's through trial and error. That's the "bad" part. I don't know how heavy your dumbbells are, but my advice for getting the most out of them (with regard to your abs) is:
- train standing. Your abs keep you upright. By standing, and then holding the dumbbells, you abs have to work to keep you stable
- the abs are postural/stability muscles. If you have 2 dumbbells, stand with one in each hand, and perform bicep curls. Make not of the way your abs "feel/are working." Now drop one of the dumbbells and perform the same exercise with a single dumbbell. You should notice a different feeling. Again, this is assuming your dumbbells are moderately heavy. What happened is that by holding a single dumbbell, one side of your body became heavier than the other, so your abs had to engage more than usual in order to stabilize/keep your body from tipping over. Play around with this technique:

- - perform curls with 2 dumbbells while standing on one leg
- - perform curls with a single dumbbell in your right hand while standing on your right leg.
- - performs curls with a single dumbbell in your right hand while standing on your left leg

Each time you introduce a new kind of "instability," you should find that your abs start working differently. Try this one legged technique with overhead presses, or alternating overhead presses.

Personal preference, but I would stick with weight training, and keep cardio to a minimum. Again, that's not set in stone. What made sense for me was when I heard a body builder answer the question "how much cardio do you do?" She answered "very little. If I find that I'm having to do cardio in order to get my weight down, then something's wrong with my diet." Again, that worked for her, and I've applied it to myself, but you may find that you get better results doing cardio as well. If you have time for both, do both. If you only have time for one, I would choose weight training over cardio every time. Either way, you have to train with intensity. My rule of thumb is "if you're able to hold a conversation while you're exercising, you're not exercising properly." When asked, I tell friends to get down on the ground, and perform push ups while speaking the alphabet. You will get to a point that you have to stop either the pushups, or the alphabet, because one is taking away from your ability to perform the other. Give it a try. That's the kind of intensity that you should be trying to bring to your work outs.

That said, you also need days off for your body to recover. It's up to you and your schedule; my routine is 2 days weight training. One day rest. 2 days weight training. 2 days rest. I train my abs 7 days a week though. My ab routine takes 10 mins (at the most. Usually 6-8). Some feel you don't need to train abs that often. I feel that abs are like calves and forearms, they're endurance muscles that need to be worked often in order to get them to grow, because they're so used to working all of the time, unlike a bicep.