Strengthening core and losing belly fat

Belly fat is usually the last thing to go. To get rid of it, you'll need to tighten up your logging and have patience.

Are you weighing your calorie intake with a food scale? If not, consider starting.

My suggestion is to adopt or try to adopt more realistic standards for your body. As an athlete it is important that you maintain sufficient available energy (i.e. eat enough) to be able to maintain performance. Food intake that is low relative to training can result in the female athlete triad (energy deficiency, menstrual disturbances, and bone loss). Most likely, to get the sort of super-flat stomach that the media promotes as the feminine ideal, you will have to restrict calories to the point that you no longer have sufficient energy to meet your needs--especially as an athlete. Focus on what your body can do, not whether you have a stomach that is concave.

If you have questions about how you can improve body composition safely as an athlete, speaking to a registered dietitian would be the safest route.

This is great link.. pretty much covers what you need to know in order to get a nice stomach..

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1161603/so-you-want-a-nice-stomach/p1

I have lost 89 pounds and my stomach is just getting flat now. You don't say how much you need to lose but for me it was the last place I lost. I don't know why it works that way but it seems to be a genetic thing. Don't lose hope.

It takes more than 75 days to lose belly fat. Are you at your goal weight yet? That's the first requirement, because you won't see a flat stomach if you aren't. There is a thread on MPF somewhere "So You Want a Nice Stomach?" You could do a search for it, or maybe someone will have a link.

OP: If you have a strong core (and it sounds like you already do), the only way to lose belly fat and to achieve visible abs is to simply lose more weight and fat.

You can try to avoid losing too much LBM (including muscle) while still on a deficit to lose weight (which should be mostly fat) by doing heavy compound lifting (doing DLs, SQTs, OHPs & BPs is enough) which wil maintain and strengthen your core along w/everything else. There is no need to do any ab isolation exercises if you just do this.

Most men being to show abs at around 15% BF, which become more prominent at 10% and defined around 5%. 5% is what most bodybuilder competitors shoot for but it is not sustainable because that's at the lower limit of the "essential" fat necessary to maintain good health and body function. So, 10% is probably the better target.

If you have not already done so, I suggest that you get your BF% measured now and at least every 3 months hereafter to monitor your progress.

The best methods for measuring BF% are DXA and hydrostatic testing. There are other methods, like the BodPod, calipers and bioelectric devices, but they are not as easy to administer (calipers in particular) or as reliable as DXA or hydrostatic (which also have a degree of error, just less than the others).

Good luck!

I can't find it now, but I read a great article once basically saying that people generally overestimate how much effort is required for an obese person to lose fat, but underestimate how much effort is required for a person at a healthy weight to become ripped. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that you've got to go easy on yourself - getting that flat belly can be really hard work and take a really long time.

OP there are replies to your other thread about this.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/40468563#Comment_40468563

lorrpb wrote: »

It takes more than 75 days to lose belly fat. Are you at your goal weight yet? That's the first requirement, because you won't see a flat stomach if you aren't. There is a thread on MPF somewhere "So You Want a Nice Stomach?" You could do a search for it, or maybe someone will have a link.

It really doesn't matter what goal weight is, since flat stomach doesn't really come into play until you're at the right body fat percentage, which is around 12 for guys and I think 22 for women.