How to get rid of the dreaded lower belly "pooch" - ladies??

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Lowering body fat percentage is the only thing that works.
Ways of doing this varies. Generally a combination of cardio+heavy lifting and clean eating at a moderate deficit (=nothing your grandmother wouldn't eat, as someone said before me) with lots of protein is the way I was taught to do that.

Different sorts of abs targeted exercises might help. Lots of people just do crunches, which don't target all the muscles. If you do things like reverse crunches (lift your legs in the air and lift your butt up), or those ones where you put your elbow towards the opposite knee and sideways bends to catch your obliques. I hope all that made sense. A good range of moves alongside whatever you already for exercise and continuing to eat well will help shift it!

I found post pregnancy DVD's useful as they tend to target that specific area. All the females on my dad's side are overweight, but my own mum was very slim.

Sadly she died young so I've no idea whether she would have naturally got bigger with age and I have an under active thyroid (from birth) which may affect my outcome regardless of genetics.

I've reached my initial goal and just trying to lose another four to finish Wii Fit (says I should be 9st 3). my face, neck arms and legs are slim but my biggest area is still around abdomen although it has shrunk loads from 48" to 34 " around the widest part. my top half also shrunk which I never measured to start with as I was only interested in losing my tummy but I do know my boobs were a 40 and are now a 34 also and waist 30" (from 38 ").

Dropping wheat helped too for me. Mines is much flatter though and clothes wise gone from 20-14... not quite in 12's cos of having to get trousers over tummy and most fasten there now instead of your actual waist higher up! so have to go up a size as I'm only 5ft 3 and half too I find petites tend to be a smaller fit.

I hate to tell you but I was over weight all through high school then in my early 20's will all the activity I ended up under weight at 91 lbs and still had a belly pooch a family friend used to say I had a French belly . . . . . . . I think that was meant to make me feel better but now you can imagine my belly pooch more like a duvet cover as I am now 213.8 lbs but I have lost 28 lbs and still going down at 57 I don't have much hope of getting rid of my belly pooch but will have a damn good try

Personally for me, I would much rather prefer a workout set like P90X. It's a physical product that consists of 13 dvds,nutrition guides and calendar. I like it because it's convenient and this is one of the few products where I've seen consistent results. I lost 30 pounds in 2 months. I could have lost more but I was a bit lazy. For those of you who are interested, I happen to know where you can get P90X at a deep discount of $65. Check out http://www.squidoo.com/where-can-i-buy-p90x that lens will direct you to the P90X for $65

Does anyone think that bike riding would help???

So first the disclaimer, you can't spot reduce, so lose fat and it will go slowly.

That said personally for me the lower belly was always an issue and I talked to my PT about it an he made me a programme that focused on reshaping the front wall of my stomach muscles (which were weak from bad posture), which included a lot of exercises that were actually focused on my pelvic floor muscles (which is hilarious and when I did them at the gym it looked like I was barely moving ) haha.

Anyway all I can see is my stomach is significantly flatter and my posture much better after about a month of these I started noticing real improvements and I can't wait till my next cut to see the real difference

My "pooch" has flattened dramatically in the last 4 days. I cut back significantly on refined sugar and wheat and added a probiotic supplement. Any time I do that, it reduces my belly bloat/pooch very quickly. May not work for all, but I think diet and genetics are the major factors. I've had 4 kids and I didn't get a pooch until after the 4th kid. And it wasn't the kids, it was me overindulging.

I wonder if pelvic floor exercises would help ?

Aerobic exercise (running, dancing, etc)
Reverse Crunches
Plank

I have this problem too. I have two kids ages 4 and almost 2. I've lost about 20 pounds since last summer. The crazy part is that I can wear a size 8 on my hips/legs, but they won't button over the pooch. So, I have to wear a 10 which is really a little big for my hips/thighs. SO ANNOYING!

Thanks for posting...hoping to get more information from reading all the responses!

Moderate calorie deficit (250-400), heavy lifting, and time.

^^^this

mine is going away, slowly but surely

This + 2 days moderate cardio and HIIT 2 days and remebering it isn't MAGIC... It doesn't just happen.. you work your *kitten* off for it !!!!!