Hi everyone, I'm new here. I'm 19 years old, 5'11, and I weigh 150lbs. I look skinny, but I have an unwanted belly. Not that bad, but I need it to go. I don't feel comfortable going swimming because of it. I started doing crunches last night. I did 70 last night, and today I did 140 (70 more for today). I'm going to continue to do 70 3x a day to hopefully get some improvement. Am I doing the right thing to lose my belly? I'm not worried about my eating habits because they are not bad, trust me. If the 70 crunches 3x a day is the right treatment, how long should I do them for til I can notice real improvement? If not, what should I do? Oh and I am doing the regular crunches... Lay on the back, legs up in the air and move foward and backward...nothing fancy. If you guys need to see a pic of my belly let me know and i'll get a camera and snap a pic so you guys can give me the right advice. Thanks a lot!
19 year old needs help
- Thread starter IStandAlone90
- Start date
I started in pretty much the same boat as you a few months back. I'm a smaller framed guy at 5'3 and just under 130 lb, but started off wanting to lose some belly fat without really losing any weight. I started off doing crunches/sit-ups at home and found this forum and quickly learned there's much more to tightening up your core than just doing boring old crunches. Add in some squats (even if you don't have weights, bodyweight squats are better than nothing!), if you've got anything you can use as a pull up bar, knee raises will help, along with chinnies. Hopefully wesrman can come along and link you to some good videos, like he usually does
Building up muscle will help too, then focus on losing that bit of belly fat so you look more toned in the long run. Cardio will really help you drop that unwanted belly fat
So I should keep doing my crunches + squats? I'm not sure what squats are but i'll look them up. Do they work on the belly? And I don't care if I lose weight or not, I just don't want the belly! Oh, and I'm not too sure what cardio is. What cardio exercises should I do? Basically I want someone to tell me, "here are the exercises, do these "x" times a day for "x" months, or w/e... you know?
Spot reduction (the ability to lose fat from a particular place by targeting it with exercise) is a myth. If you want visible abs, no amount of crunching, squatting, or leaping tall buildings in a single bound will do you any good if your muscles are covered in a layer of fat as a result of poor nutrition.
Your diet may be "good" by whatever arbitrary measure you've come up with or been given but it is not objectively good in that if it were you wouldn't have this problem. Tell us when, what and how much you ate every day for the last 3-7 days and I'm sure someone will be able to point out areas in which you can improve.
That said, this thread is worthless without pics because of the whole 5'11" and 150 lbs thing.
Your diet may be "good" by whatever arbitrary measure you've come up with or been given but it is not objectively good in that if it were you wouldn't have this problem. Tell us when, what and how much you ate every day for the last 3-7 days and I'm sure someone will be able to point out areas in which you can improve.
That said, this thread is worthless without pics because of the whole 5'11" and 150 lbs thing.
Every day for breakfast I eat 2 cinnamon poptarts. Lunch and dinner vary. I've started eating blueberry muffins every now and then for lunch. I used to eat a half of a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. Dinner is my big meal. Sometimes i'll eat 2 scrambled eggs and sometimes i'll go out to eat with family or they will bring me back food. And I'm guessing the "this thread is worthless without pics" was a joke? I'd like to go back to what I said earlier about see'ing if someone could give me an exercise routine to get my belly fat gone! Thank you all!
I expected as much. Your diet, it's terrible. This is what "good" looks like for most people.
Your deluded attitude about it - much worse. Once again, spot reduction is a myth. You're about as likely to succeed at what you are trying to do as you would be yelling "Shazam!" and expecting to turn into Captain Marvel.
No. 150 lbs and 5'11" is probably "skinny fat", but it's hard to tell without seeing what you look like. There was a very small chance you did in fact have a healthy diet and were lean enough for ab definition (under 10%'ish bodyfat) but lack it due to having the core development of an infant. In which case how you are going about it is still wrong. You'd be far better off starting on a decent beginner's strength training template like "Westside for Skinny bastards" or "Starting Strength", or alternatively picking up a good book on bodyweight training like "Never Gymless".
Either way, however, given what we just learned about your eating habits, or rather lack of care thereof, the most effective change by far will be to fix your diet. Abs are made in the kitchen, etc.
Thank you for your reply. I like the term skinny fat cause that's basically what it is. When we go out to eat and I'm not that hungry i'll get something small and the waiter will comment, "no wonder you're so skinny", etc... My parents know that it's not the case. I can pull off being a skinny dude out in public, but I won't take my shirt off. For the diet I don't know too much about foods as you can tell, but I just assumed it was ok because of how little amount of food it looked like i was eating. I'd like to mention I am lac-toast-n-tolerant (probably spelled that wrong), but I am allergic to milk and I'm a picky eat. First thing that comes to mind when I type picky was fish... ew... Now I'm going to make an appointment with my gastrointerologist (stomach doctor) in a few days and see if he can recommend a good nutritionist. I'd like to see the nutritionist like once a month to tell me what to eat... like make a schedule and then change it up the next month, but still healthy... is that how nutritionists work? would the nutritionist know about how i should exercise or is that calculus to them? thanks again.
Well? Anyone?
I was embarrassed to take my shirt off when I was 160+ lb, you're much taller than me and weigh less than I did, I wouldn't worry what people think
I used to be a picky eater too, but I've gotten a lot better over the years. What are other foods you won't/can't eat? Focus is right, you won't get very far without having a proper diet. I'm not an expert, and have only been at this for a few months now, but I've definitely noticed a difference since I've started eating better
I used to be a picky eater too, but I've gotten a lot better over the years. What are other foods you won't/can't eat? Focus is right, you won't get very far without having a proper diet. I'm not an expert, and have only been at this for a few months now, but I've definitely noticed a difference since I've started eating better
Well, I still want to know what you guys think about the nutritionist... good idea? For the foods I wont/cant eat... umm... I'm allergic to milk so there goes a lot... I won't eat fish. Name some healthy foods to eat and i'll tell you guys if I can and will eat it. How long til I notice difference once I start dieting? I might even run 1/2 mile 3 days a week...