Fat Burning Question

[razorbacks12]

I used to be slightly overweight, chubby one might say. I made my new year's resolution to run 5 times a week, and I've actually stuck with it. I've run 4-5 times a week every week except spring break. My body's almost to where I want it, but I just have one problem. That little chub in my lower abdomen. I run about 3 miles a day, eat relatively healthy for someone my age (rarely get fast food, don't snack at all), and do ab workouts every now and then, not as much as I should probably. Will upping my ab workouts and doing them more often get rid of the lower belly fat, or should I do something else? Has anyone else had this problem?

Thanks

 

[anncoach]

They're most probably visceral fats. It's different from body fats where you can burn it off simply by exercising; while visceral fats are hard to get rid of no matter how frequent one works out

 

[PLB_old]

@ razorbacks: Ab workouts will most likely not help that much because spot reduction of fat is not possible. You need to reduce your overall body fat % in order to get rid of that layer of fat. This will take time and patience. If you've gotten this far with your current routine and you're now stuck, that means that you will need to either increase the amount of exercise that you do, make more positive changes to your diet, or ideally, both. My suggestion would be to start strength training 2-3 days per week (not ab workouts, but whole body workouts)

There are a couple of threads that might be helpful to you here:

http://training.fitness.com/weight-loss/training-fat-loss-51064.html

http://training.fitness.com/weight-loss/simple-badass-fat-loss-program-52270.html

Good luck!

 

[Albert Smith]

Please be patience. Fact is getting rid of fat in the midsection can be very difficult and frustrating for many people. The coveted "six pack" is never easily achieved as the body tends to burn fat from the midsection last. By combining a few dietary and exercise strategies you can lose fat from your midsection quickly.

Just read out all of my advice with care:

• Eat five or six smaller meals throughout the day to keep fat burning off of your trouble spots. "The Abs Diet" recommends three main meals, such as breakfast, lunch and dinner, with three snacks around them. Hunger pangs and food cravings are often headed off when you eat frequent, nutritious meals.

• Take in 30 percent protein, 40 percent carbohydrates and 30 percent fat at each meal or snack. I recommend this ratio as optimal for fat burning. A serving of carbs is that which would fit into your cupped palm. Dry fats like nuts and seeds make a serving that fills your hand, while one serving of oily wet fats is about the size of your thumb.

• Choose clean foods that are not easily stored as body fat. Lean sources of protein like turkey, fish and chicken are low in saturated fat and have a fat-burning effect on the body. Clean carbs include oatmeal, brown rice, whole grains and many fresh fruits. Healthy fats are olive oil, avocados, nuts and seeds and natural peanut butter. These foods will help you burn belly fat.

• Do resistance training workouts every other day. Weight training burns fat for up to 48 hours or more after your workout. If you lift weights on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, then you will be burning more calories all week long. Due to a unique effect on the body, weight training actually targets the midsection for fat burning.

• Follow your resistance training with 30 to 60 minutes of low-intensity cardiovascular exercise. Examples include walking on the treadmill, riding the exercise bike, jogging or swimming. Fact is, this is called "super cardio" because it burns body fat almost exclusively. I suggest that high-intensity cardio utilizes more metabolized muscle and carbohydrates for a net total of fewer calories burned from body fat.


Again, be patience. To me this is the most challenging than others. So it would take certain amount of time.