Help!

I eat healthily- (not too carb heavy, plenty of protein and loads of veg etc), hardly drink, and do high intensity exercise (bootcamp style stuff) 3x1hr a week, with the odd ride thrown in at the moment. My job is pretty active too. Yet I still carry excess weight around my stomach.

Can anyone explain why this is, and offer decent advice as to the sort of training I should actually be doing? I thought high intensity exercise was meant to be the way forward but it doesn’t seem to be doing the trick…

Sit ups?

Eat less

More calories out than in will sort it. By a roadbike and ride it hard.

That all sounds fine in principle so a few more details are needed really.

How much abdominal fat are we talking about?
How lean are you elsewhere?
How has your body compesition changed, or not, over the years?
Is the fat on your tummy fairly firm and rounded , or what seems like a flatish stomach with a wobbly (sorry) layer on top?
Any problems with bloating after eating or digestion problems?

Just to get an idea what we’re taking about…

You can’t do any kind of exercise that specifically removes/burns fat from one specific region of your body. Exercise will burn off fat but it does so consistently over the whole body. Sit ups etc will give you a kick ass six pack but will only be visible once you have reduced your over all body fat.

I should say that I am no expert and have found this info out by joining a gym and having a personal trainer. While my gut is slowly starting to get smaller so are my legs and my arse etc.

Exercise will burn off fat but it does so consistently over the whole body

i think its more accurate to say the fat vanishes in the order of least obvious/important first.

and it does that just to spite you, you fat thighed woman, you pot-bellied man, you huge arsed……

i think its more accurate to say the fat vanishes in the order of least obvious/important first

Not always…

Anyone remember Big Train’s Fat Handed Tw’i’t?

Regardless… a 6 pack is made in the kitchen.

and do high intensity exercise (bootcamp style stuff) 3x1hr a week

The trouble with high intensity activity is its over pretty quickly, your knackered before you’ve actually done much energy burning exercise . Plenty of gentle excerise is better that getting all hot and sweaty. The reason bootcamps/ jazzercise / kick bolloxing or the next branded shouty jumpy fad exist is because its difficult to make a profit and sell memberships by advising people to go for a nice stroll.

with the odd ride thrown in

do a bit more of that – nice meandering road rides a better, riding off road is generally to short and sharp, thats why recreational (rather than competitive) mountain bikers tend towards the portly. Ride now while the days are long

i think its more accurate to say the fat vanishes in the order of least obvious/important first.

Would it be accurate to say that getting lower than 15% body fat will require some real work, get onto body building forums/web pages to see what they do as a guide.

Weigh yourself at the same time each week with the same amount of hydration.
Take body measurements including %body fat
Take front and back pics
Keep a diary of calorie intake and exercise (eg training peaks)

If you do this you should be able to see the impact (visually and measurement wise) of changes in calorie consumption, exercise and food types.

Good luck

Avoid starchy food like bread.

Keep losing fat from weights/cardio – it will shift.

Time – it won’t happen overnight.

riding off road is generally to short and sharp, thats why recreational (rather than competitive) mountain bikers tend towards the portly

Nothing to do with the cake stop and post ride beer?

IBS
Bloating
Dairy
Hydration

Or plain old genetics. As good as your parents genes allow…

Nothing to do with the cake stop and post ride beer?

No – its these newfangled 1 hour intensive nut-pummelling classes that are suddenly all the rage

Agree on MTB riding, I rode local woods 3 times a week always thought I was fit.. I then bought a road bike and rodethat 3 times a week instead, about the same amount of time as an average MTB ride but from my door instead of using the car meaning I could get about an additional hour in per ride.

Was 15st now 11 in a year.

Still eat tons but I’m now doing loads more road than I ever did MTB.

Low intensity exercise with high intensity bursts will burn fat.

So will a blowtorch? But that is a fact..

I have the same concern as the OP about stomach fat. It’s probably a mixture of internal body cavity fat and subcutaneous (under then skin) fat. If I stand up straight with a good posture my stomach is flat but anything less than that and it’s bulgy. My waist is still the same old 32″ though.

I guess you just have to accept that as you enter your forties and fifties you have less testosterone buzzing around your body and you’re less inclined to put on muscle bulk and more inclined to put on fat.

I have read that hydrogenated fats (marge and crap industrial food) have a tendency to settle inside the body cavity so I only eat butter and as much fresh food as possible.

Agreed also about road riding – after 20 years of mountain biking and sneering at roadies I got bored with the whole scene and bought a road bike. Now I’m seriously fit, having a hell of a lot of fun and able to do good hard rides straight from my door and come home clean. The attrition on transmission and brakes is almost zero too. I just wish I had done more road riding when I was doing competitive mountain biking because I’d have been a lot more successful at it!

Switch some high intensity to longer lower intensity. Some 50-80km road rides will probably do more good.

Though what do you mean by excess weight?

Not quite a 6 pack?
Serious 1 pack?
6 months gone?
Forgotten what it looks like?

Also consider why it matters to you? Is it worth it?

Might just be tough. I carry a pot, like hmanchester mentions ’round and firm’ I simply refuse to eat less. I certainly exercise enough. My arms and legs are very thin, the veins stick out on my limbs and you can’t pinch any fat. You can see my ribs, but the pot looks like I’ve swallowed a football. Fellow riders have taken the piss for decades.
My mum is the same, thin with a pot belly.

Doesn’t high intensity bypass fat burning?

If you want to burn fat you need to do more low intensity training. Buy a heartrate monitor, work out what your max heart rate is (eg when you’ve been doing the bootcamp stuff) and then exercise in a way that keeps your rate at between 60 and 70% of your max. If you go above that your body switches to burning carbs (sugar), which is why bootcamp will get you fit but won’t necessarily get rid of the fat. You need to exercise for 30mins at 60-70% for it to start to kick in, then another hour or so. This is why road cycling is so good, unless you’re Stravaing it (is it a verb now?), you’ll be doing a steady pace and your HR will be in the zone.

Get your head out of the trough

2nd the low intensity training. Sounds like your doing BMF style sessions, which are great for fitness, but do little to burn fat, in my experience.

If you’ve eaten/exercised the same way for a while you may need to implement a change to kick your body into burning fat. You’ll still need a calorie defecit to burn fat, something I struggle with when training lots, as I turn into a carb monster 🙂

Pootling about on a road bike in the “fat burning zone” looks bent as anything, it ruins the image of the sport.

We want to encourage people to take up cycling on the roads, not put them off. Seeing some overweight bloke in lycra nodding along is not going to encourage people to take up the sport whatsoever!

Go walking or mountain biking instead, then come back to road cycling when you’re lean and fast

Get your head out of the trough

…then put it back in.

Repeat.

Do 5 sets of 10 reps on alternate days.

Abs of steel in no time.

^^ What the kingisdead said. It’s not rocket science, but there are no quick-wins and no escaping the facts either.

This turned into a bit of a ramble, so skip to the bits in bold for the key message!

I’ve been doing BMF for a couple of years. It’s fantastic for kick-starting your exercise regime if, like me, you find it hard to motivate yourself to do anything on your own. Aim for 3 sessions a week, take the miss one and you miss out mentality, and I went from having done zero exercise for many years (literally unable to push a heavy door open my chest and arms hurt so much after the first beginners’ session) to training with the top group within a year. Lost around a stone, definitely less fat but also more muscle, so not bad.

Then I got a groin injury and was advised to cycle as an alternative way to keep active while giving it longer to recover. Found a local MTB group and my exercise pattern went from 3 x 45 mins per week to 2 x 2.5hr, lower intensity. OK, it eats into the busy schedule a bit more, but it’s more enjoyable, and I’ve lost another half stone, now at 11.5 stone which at 6′ and a historically slim build feels right.

I now need to get back into BMF to round it out. I’m aiming to do 2 rides and 2 BMF sessions a week, which I reckon should give a good balance, keeps it social (I was never that sure about the top classes, felt like they were verging on the extreme – running with someone 3 stone heavier than you on your back etc.) and gives a bit of headroom in case other commitments mean I have to miss the odd session.

Ideally I’d build some of that into a daily routine, e.g. 45 min cycle into work each way, but I’ve not yet figured out how to make the 25 mile commute into London work like that.

Apols to the OP, went a bit off topic!

The point is that I’ve discovered for myself what everyone else will tell you – short burst, high intensity (BMF) is good for cardiovascular fitness and perfect for a busy schedule, but you can’t get away from the fact that you need to exercise for longer duration at lower intensity if you want to burn fat.

Diet is a given – out vs. in, no escaping it.

TBH I don’t know to what extent you can control where the fat comes off and where it stays. Be healthy, and be happy with who you are.

Do 5 sets of 10 reps on alternate days.

On your off days do the reverse move… hang a joint of Jamon Iberico from the ceiling.

We want to encourage people to take up cycling on the roads, not put them off. Seeing some overweight bloke in lycra nodding along is not going to encourage people to take up the sport whatsoever!

I presume your joking but I think lean whippets in lycra making riding around look like a super human achievement does more to put people of cycling. Riding a bike is so fantastically easy, its foolish to make hard work out of it.

Diet is a given – out vs. in, no escaping it.

I have read a number of studies by top science authors that would dispute this.

Ooooh… ‘The Men that made us FAT’ is on the kev again tonight!

i thought we’d established ultimately calories out vs calories in still applies, but what those calories are made from will influence it greatly as well as the individuals metabolism and general individualness.

My understanding is that you can eat as much fat and protein as you want and will become waif like in no time.

Also, it has become apparent that exercise is counter productive as you need to eat more to do it.

I’m writing a diet paper called ‘Re-Vealed’ it’s not about eating veal, but becoming veal.

Lipo?

Lol the only time I had a 6 pack was when I did gymnastics when I was younger. Still there if I stretch, but more like a 4 pack these days. Especially as I’m not able to run ATM

“diet is king, workout is queen”, to quote my ripped Mr universe colleague.

To the OP – can you cycle to your “bootcamp” I ride 10mile each way to my BMF classes, really good blend of various types of exercise by the time I’m home.

Google – ‘BURN THE FAT, FEED THE MUSCLE’ by Tom Venuto. Its an ebook and it’s one of the best books about diet and training I’ve read. If you specifically search for the .pdf extension you might be able to find it free and read through it……..very good reviews and is working wonders for me.

This is going better than my thread!

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/losing-a-belly

Actually, where is Solo? Did he not give up his other log-in and is therefore banned again?

It’s not like him to let a diet thread get onto the second page without posting.

The book that Wilber linked to is available FOC if you google

‘BURN THE FAT, FEED THE MUSCLE’ pdf Tom Venuto

Try doing more sit ups on a regular basis. That will help my friend!

1. you can’t spot-lose fat from any given area of the body
2. situps are a poor exercise for strengthening abs; start with crunches