ADVICE please! active - 1300 cal diet - workout 5-6

annatribbett wrote: »

Hello there!
My name is Anna. I am 31 and an athlete. I have been watching calories (eating good foods within my budgeted intake) and working out every morning (plus or minus 1 day). I have been gaining weight but losing body fat. I use a hand held body fat % pedometer to check in here and there. It says I am 14% body fat. 3 months ago I was at 19. I still have fat around my stomach and abs and hardly have any definition. Do you know how long this will take to have my abs visible? Also, I weight lift and do hiit workouts. I do arms/cardio, hiit, legs/cardio, hiit/abs and repeat with switching stuff up here and there.
I want abs!
Help!

If you have hardly any definition and still have fat around your stomach and abs, you are not 14% bodyfat. Handheld BIA (bioelectric impedance analysis) devices are notoriously inaccurate.

Having visible abs is a result of genetics plus a low body fat percentage. If you've been gaining weight, you've been gaining fat, no way around it. It's extremely rare (and even more rare without drugs) for somebody to gain pure muscle without any fat gain.

There's no telling how long it will take to have visible abs. As stated above, that will be a combination of your genetics and fat loss. You didn't state what your current height/weight was, but either a cut (calorie deficit) or a recomp (eating at/near maintenance calories), while engaged in a well designed strength program), would be the way to go - certainly not a bulk (calorie surplus/gaining weight), which is directly counter to your goals.

As an aside, who designed your lifting program? Is it a professionally designed routine, or one you threw together yourself? Based upon how you described it, it sounds less than optimal for your goals and leaves out several major bodyparts/muscle groups.