Hi cupcake91,
Omg its not fair. I am also 5ft 2 (OK maybe 5ft 1 and a half to be exact) and I weigh similar at 128lbs. And I look MUCH fatter in the stomach than you do. :-(
My body is shaped like a disfigured apple (hence the username lol), I have NO hips, skinny legs, no bum whatsoever and then just this DISPROPORTIONATE flabby belly that just hangs and wobbles and sticks out. If I could just distribute the fat to all those other bits I'd be so happy.
In my opinion you actually look quite good already- But no worries I understand, I'm not gona start saying you're being stupid or that your problem isn't important because when it comes to the way we look, its more about what we see and more importantly how WE feel ourselves than what other people perceive.
So I am just gona share with you what I am doing myself, so that it might help you with yours...Might as well since we are both the same height and weight with slim legs and problematic tummies eh?
Sure you've heard it a million times before, but cardio really is the way to get rid of stubborn fat. The posters above were right in that they suggested swimming, as it provides you with a total body workout. However if you want to burn as much calories as you possibly can in probably a shorter space of time, then I think that running will probably be your best bet.
So at the moment I am running everyday at the gym for 30-60 minutes non stop at a time. This is HARD, I am not going to lie. But I am just hoping that I will get there in the end. Unfortunately I can't tell you of any success yet as I have only been solidly doing it for a week now, but I am pinning my hopes on it so that by New Year I look awesome for my holiday to Thailand.
OK so there are two different things that I have been advised by a number of personal trainers (I know 5 people who do that for a living so I am trusting that if they've all said the same, then its gotta be worth a shot)
1) Is to run or fast-jog at 10KPH pace for 30-45mins straight, no stopping, to burn body fat
2) Is to power walk at 6KPH and then sprint (for me with my short legs a sprint is 15KPH) on and off for about 20-30 minutes. Meaning you do intervals of power walk, then sprint, power walk, then sprint... throughout the whole time you're on the treadmill. And you can do 1min walk, 30 seconds sprint when you first start out, then crank it up so that you're doing 30secs off then 30 secs on as you go on. And as you get better at it it you can always reduce your resting time or increase your speed to keep it effective.
OR.....
3)You can just combine doing the two above in the one workout. For instance today I did 60 minutes on the treadmill like this: From 0-30mins I ran at 9/10KPH straight, then I power walked at 6KPH for 10 minutes, to let my heart rate back down again and catch myself. Then for another 15 minutes I did speed intervals as described above of 30secs on 30secs off. And then for the last 5 minutes I ran at 11KPH to the end.
Its best to do cardio on an empty stomach so that you are not merely burning off calories that you've already just put into your body. You want to be burning calories from FAT, not carbs. So I would suggest going first thing in the morning if you can hack getting up early enough. Have a strong, strong black coffee with no sugar 5-10 min before you start and this should give you a boost of energy to get you going.
Then within half hour of exercising you should always try to eat something really high in lean protein. Scrambled eggs of 3 egg whites and only the 1 yolk is brill, or you can check out a good protein shake to have afterwards.
Which brings me to my diet advice: Just keep the lean protein high and the fat low, and carbs should be ONLY 'good' or complex carbs like veggies (no potatoes though unfortunately) and pulses, porridge oats and brown, unrefined versions of bread and pasta. If you want to go all out you should avoid bread and dairy altogether, but if you must, have skimmed milk and brown, seeded bread only. Following a low GI diet will help. Basically low GI just means 'low glycaemic index' where the food releases energy into your body really slowly so that you feel satisfied for longer. You know how if you eat a chocolate bar, its heaven in the 30 seconds it takes you to scoff it- but then you feel hungry like half an hour later?...Well thats because its empty calories that will just make you fat (if you eat it all the time). If you choose like a baked sweet potato with tuna, you get a good 'low GI' food with the added benefit of the protein from the tuna.
The diet I would suggest is basically a body buider's type diet. Don't worry, its not going to bulk you up unless you hit the weights hard, and even then, we're women so we're never going to get huge without steroids, so not to fear.
But....finally the other thing we need to do to is weightlifting. This is for two reasons.
1)It will obviously help to tone and streamline your body a the excess fat comes off.
2)The basic biology of it is, is the more lean muscle mass you have on your body, the more calories you will burn off everyday when you are not even exercising.
So, aim to do some weights 2-3 times a week along with your running/swimming. You can just do a basic weightloss, all over body plan, using light weights and high to moderate reps. Don't be surprised if this starts to ADD weight after a while....Its not that you're getting fatter, it just that muscle actually weighs more than fat. All that you will be doing is SHIFTING fat to muscle, if that makes sense?
Anyway, sorry I have droned on but I wanted to really try and help and explain everything that I am trying in detail, so that it might help you too.
If you want more help on diet, just message me and I will send you the list I have been given.
If you would like to see what I actually look like though, Private message me and I will give you access to my picturetrail account. I think it might make you feel a bit better! lol!!!
Hugs,
Miss Apple ;-)
XXX
!