Belly fat

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SingingSingleTracker wrote: »

BamaRunningGirl wrote: »

I am down to the weight I want to be, but I still have a lot of belly fat. I know you can't spot reduce. Doing weights and plenty of cardio with a healthy diet. So am I just stuck with this forever???

There are three kinds if you include the RF (back fat). You may have made it down to what you thought was a good overall body weight goal you had chosen to get to, but it sounds like you still have some fat to shed. I would suggest - if you are not already - bumping up your weight lifting/body weight exercises. You can still lose inches and maintain close to your current weight if you keep aggressive and shedding that remaining fat. It always seems to be the last to go, but might give you the opportunity to reset your goals if you are already lifting and think you have reached your ideal weight.

Thanks for this. I am 2 pounds from my goal which I arbitrarily picked 3 years ago without using any of the "ideal" weight calculators. And yes, the belly fat is disturbing. My plan now is to try to shed a few more pounds more slowly than I have been and work on more strength/weight lifting. Hope this can work for OP as well.

BamaRunningGirl wrote: »

I am down to 135 at 5 ft 4, my ribs are starting to show. Just not sure if I should try to lose any more.

As a point of reference for your weight and weight, my wife is 5'3" and has found that for her, her ideal body weight settles in at 105-112 (as do excellent cholesterol numbers). Pretty sure at 135 and your height of 5'4", unless you are really muscular or are overly chesty, that continuing to drop will shed that remaining belly fat. I would imagine that down in the 115 - 125 area most of that belly fat you describe would be gone. I'm not suggesting you need to or even have to do this, but was simply suggesting that if there is still belly fat, a bit more shedding should take care of it. The same goes for men (I can attest to that). There certainly is no shortage of discussions on ribs showing on these forums. Example here. 5'3" and 5'4" women threads exist as well. Example here.

If you Google images of women 5'4" and 115, 120, 125, 130, 135 pounds you'll get plenty of visuals of how your belly compares to others your size for those various weights. Then you can decide what to do.

Again, I advocate lifting 2 or 3 times a week or using body weight exercises to help maintain the muscle you have while you try and shed those final pounds. The main thing is:

A - Be happy with your look and how you feel.
B - Eat enough of your balanced macros to fuel your running (I assume you run based on your profile name), and your recovery.

I think the body for runners and cyclists - once you've lost the excess weight - settles in pretty well to its own ideal weight pretty well simply from all of the training/running/cycling we do. If we are too light, we don't perform well. If we are too heavy, we don't perform as well. If we are in that narrow "ideal" range, we run and cycle much better.