3lbs from goal and I don’t like my new body

As a generality, I agree with the recomposition idea sijomial posted a link about.

For the butt, find a glutes-focused but whole body lifting program, since you'll want to be lifting to accomplish recomposition. One place to look for/ask about programs is here:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you/p1

(The recomposition thread sijomial posted may get you there, too.)

As a possible bonus, there's some limited research hinting that for some women, strength exercise can reduce abdominal fat.

For the belly:

* You may need to lose more weight, hard to say, or at least lose more fat (which you can do at roughly constant body weight, slowly, via that recomposition process). Stomach fat, for many people, is the last to go.

* Check your posture, for two issues.

#1 - Often people have "anterior pelvic tilt" (holding the top of the pelvic bones forward of the bottom of the pelvic bones, loosely speaking . . . and IME it's more common among women who want their butt to look more prominent, because it pushes the butt out to the rear. Unfortunately, it also tips any remaining abdominal fat forward, makes it more protruding/dangle-y.

#2 - Many people these days are slumping forward, rounding their shoulders forward, and thrusting the chin forward. (The rude name for this is "nerd neck" because it can happen from too much time bent over our electronic devices.) The effect, in part, is to squish downward on any remaining abdominal fat, sort of squeezing it between ribcage and pelvis, so it sticks out more prominently.

Both of those things together have an even bigger "squish belly forward and outward" effect.

Check your mirror, and be honest (may need to use side photos). The crown of your head should be stacked over your neck, your neck mostly centered back-to-front over your spine/shoulders (small curve at the neck is OK), shoulders sitting squarely above pelvic bones, top of pelvic bones in line with bottom of pelvic bones, and you want to be drawn up to full height. (You can find photos of good posture on the web.) If anything is out of line, there are exercises to improve that. As a plus, correcting these problems also tends to make a person look more confident, and helps avoid various future back problems.

* Stay patient. There's a sense in which goal weight isn't just the end of a process, it's the start of another one that may happen over months to even a couple of years. The body, especially some flabby or loose skin areas, can kind of tighten up or redistribute a bit. It's unlikely to be a huge, dramatic effect, but it may be noticeable. I looked better a few months after reaching goal, and there were smaller gradual improvements into year 2, without even doing the recomposition thing.

* Give yourself time to adjust mentally, too. There's this weird thing where many/most of us have a sort of delayed perception of ourselves, see ourselves as we think of ourselves, which tends to be some past self. It's a sort of self-blindness. I know this sounds improbable, but I'm pretty confident it's true. It may even been a little more likely in people who tend to be self-critical of appearance, dunno.

Best wishes!

Chic_geek31 wrote: »

I lost 50lbs in a year. I’m close to my goal but I hate the way I look. My butt is flat and I still have a lot of stomach fat. My whole reason for dieting was to lose stomach fat. I have, but at the cost of losing my behind! I don’t know what to do now… BBL?!? lol

are you sure it's stomach fat and not loose skin?