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What’s Your Belly Type? 4 Problems, 4 Solutions
So you have a belly. What type of belly do you have? Before you can figure out what you need to do about your belly, you need to figure out what your problem is.
1. POOCHY BELLY: You don’t have good posture. How many skinny girls have you seen walking around with their belly hanging out? People would look SO much thinner if they just stood up tall and held their stomach in tight. Lazy posture makes our stomach pooch out, making us look even heavier than we are. The more we practice good posture, the easier it gets to maintain it. To see if posture is affecting your physique, walk up to the mirror, turn sideways (without looking at the mirror) and maintain your normal posture. Then stand up straight and tighten your tummy. If you see a big difference in the way your stomach looks, then you probably need to work on strengthening your abdominal muscles.
2. POT BELLY: You eat too much. I’m not talking about calories here, I’m talking about portions. If you eat gynormous portions (which is basically the amount of food you get anywhere you go), that food has to go somewhere. If all those meals stay in your gut for three days (typical digestion time), then think about ALL the food you have eaten in 3 days -no wonder your stomach sticks out. Since your body only can use so much food at one time, reduce portion sizes to the size of your fist. You can eat more often, but try not to eat so much at one single sitting.
3. FAT BELLY: You eat too many calories. If you can “pinch and inch” or more, you are likely just eating too many calories. If you eat more calories than you burn, that food is stored where your body likes to store it. Unfortunately, we can’t choose this. Some people store fat on their hips and thighs, while others store it around their midsection (like me!). The only way to lose this fat is to reduce caloric intake and increase caloric expenditure. You certainly can do crunches, and other abdominal work, to improve core strength and posture, but doing abs will not get rid of the fat.
4. WEAK BELLY: Your abdominal muscles are weak. If you find it’s work to suck your tummy in or to do a crunch, most likely you need to strengthen those muscles. By strengthening your abs, you are able to support your core and hold your stomach in with ease. The stronger and tighter your stomach muscles are, the smaller and flatter your tummy will look. Think of strong stomach muscles as a brand new girdle. The stronger and tighter the “girdle” the smaller you will look all the way around!
Although one of the above issues may cause you more problems than another, working on all 4 of these issues can give you ultimate results.
Steve’s Killer Ab Workout
Are you full of FAT or full of CRAP!?
There are several reasons we can feel fat and disgusting – some of us feel fat because we truly have more body fat than we should, but then there are many times we feel fat because we’ve simply eaten too much.
Think of it this way, when you eat a huge meal, it has to go somewhere. We’d like to think we could burn it off, but after we absorb the nutrients from the meal, we still have plenty of waste to deal with. The colon can hold 5-10lbs of waste in every foot of large intestine. That’s a LOT of weight.
Not only is it a lot of additional weight, but if the diameter of the colon is about the size of our wrists, you can imagine how that would make your pants tighter too. So the more you eat, the heavier and thicker you will feel. Then your full tummy makes it nearly impossible to maintain a flat tummy no matter how hard you squeeze your abs tight.
If you have the habit of eating large meals all the time, eventually you stop even trying to hold your stomach in and you just begin let it hang out all the time. While your tummy pooches out from being full, you’re storing more body fat from the excess calories you are eating too. The double whammy leaves you feeling fatter AND getting fatter.
If you didn’t have enough motivation to eat smaller meals before, this information should give you the motivationyiu need to keep your portions down now. You’ll find it’s easier to hold your stomach nice and flat, and you’ll begin to lose all the Body fat you stored from overdoing it in the past.
Eating too much can:
1. Make you sleepy.
2. Cause weight gain.
3. Make it difficult to hold your stomach flat.
4. Stretch abdominal muscles loose.
5. Take so much energy to aid in digestion that you are not as alert or sharp.
The Fat Burning Zone Lies
I just received a facebook message question about their “target heart rate”. I believe this is one of the most deceiving fitness principles so I’m going to attempt to explain exactly what the “target heart rate” is and the truth (more like a lie) behind the “fat burning zone”.
Learning Your Maximum Heart Rate
You may have heard the term, Maximum Heart Rate, but most people have no clue what that is. We see stickers on treadmills saying “65% of your maximum heat rate”, but that’s basically a foreign language to most people. Here’s the answer: your maximum heart rate is always 220 minus your age.
My Maximum Heart Rate is: 220 – my age (_____) = ___________
The Fat-Burning Zone
The quote unquote Fat Burning Zone is 65-75% of your maximum heart rate. This is the zone where your body burns a higher percentage of calories from fat. This is where I start getting mad and here’s why. Stay with me. We need to work through this math so you can follow me here. Trust me – it will be worth it! Read the rest of this entry
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Complacency Kills
This cartoon by Randy Glasbergen says it all! Why is it we convince ourselves that exercise is an option. Do we really have such a low of self-worth that we like being lazy and complacent over being dead?! Maybe the problem is we’ve gotten used to mediocrity and settled on having less than we want. Maybe not looking as good, not feeling as good or not being as healthy as we would like is OK. NO! IT’S NOT OK!
Maybe you just haven’t had your ‘wake-up call’ or maybe you aren’t quite uncomfortable enough and need to put on another 10lbs until you’re REALLY sick of yourself! I’VE been there!! I think, “exactly how crappy do I have to feel to get my butt in gear?! And when was not being happy with myself OK?” HOW RIDICULOUS AND STUPID OF ME!!
Obesity continues to climb the charts. Just this week our local headlines read “15 years ago Florida’s obesity rate was 49.1%. Now the state waddles in at a gut busting 62.6%”. Maybe the headline should have read “OBESITY KILLS: Only 37.4% of Floridians are safe from the epidemic”.
What is wrong with America? I think it’s pretty simple. We’ve taken this whole freedom and rights thing to an extreme. We’ve become greedy, self-indulging, rebelling and selfish beings who don’t want to practice self-control in any area of our lives. We want to have our cake and eat it too. Well, so do I – but in the end, I’m just left with is icing on my face and fat on my hips…and I don’t even remember what it tasted like! (meaning it’s not worth it!) Read the rest of this entry
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The Secret to Nixing Saddlebags
Sure, saddlebags are a great addition to a motorcycle, but not to women’s hips. The annoying pocket of fat is neither attractive nor useful in my opinion – and it’s top on the list when it comes to problem areas. In an attempt to nix the fat, women make a variety of mistakes resulting in a lot of hard work for little reward.
The first mistake women make is attempting to target weight loss in one area with exercise. Women often only train body parts they think need the most help. For instance, women rely on machines, like the inner and outer thigh machine, to get rid of their saddlebags. Unfortunately, target weight loss doesn’t work. Without losing fat, this can actually build the muscles under our saddlebags making them even more pronounced.
Each person stores body fat in different areas. The only way to lose that fat in your problem area is to Read the rest of this entry
Do I Look Fat in These Jeans?
Truth or Lie? What would you rather hear?
“Do I look fat in these jeans?” Maybe our husbands should say “Yes, you do”. Maybe it would be exactly what we need to hear to actually do something about it. If we are asking him if we look fat, we likely FEEL fat. Why isn’t that enough to send us running to the gym? We don’t need more enablers, we need more supporters – people to hold us accountable and push us to greatness, not support us to settle. The truth hurts sometimes, but it’s necessary for growth. I vote for truth, even if it hurts. Living a lie hurts more.
I’d have to question the honesty of the person who told Jessica Simpson she looked good in the infamous “Mom Jeans” in her 2009 tabloid loving performance. Poor thing got butchered for how she looked in this outfit, which is a shame because she’s a beautiful girl and I believe the outfit made her look a lot heavier than she really was.
I can’t count the number of times I hear someone say “You’re looking great. Keep it up” even after someone hasn’t lost a pound while on a new diet and exercise program. This kind of lie is detrimental and it wastes valuable time. This person doesn’t need to hear “you’re doing great”, they need to hear the truth, which still can be delivered in a positive supportive manor. Read the rest of this entry
You CAN be Fat AND Fit, but why?
Yes, you heard right! I said you can be FAT and FIT. Seems like an oxymoron, but the reality is you don’t have to be 10% body fat to be “fit”. Truth be told, there are some super unhealthy fit “looking” people. Many doctors would even consider many people very healthy that the fitness industry would label “fat”.
I remember when my sister (right) did her body composition on our InBody machine. It said she didn’tneed to lose any fat. She was like, “clearly, I’m fat. I don’t understand.” I explained that the machine was saying she was a healthy teenager, not a fitness competitor. She wanted to be leaner but the machine said she was perfect when it came to her health. We sometimes focus so much on how we look, we really forget about all the rest.
When most people join a gym or start working out, they normally are wanting to lose weight. Honestly, most people are more upset about how their jeans fit than what their blood pressure is. America is so focused on looks, other life-saving benefits end up taking a backseat to what you see in the mirror. However, you don’t have to be skinny to be fit – and when people start working out, they start getting fit even if they don’t see it in the mirror or on a scale yet.
Look at UFC Fighter “Big Country” Roy Nelson (left).
He looks like he sits on the couch and drinks beer all day, but that boy has some serious power and endurance – and could outlast me any day. Of course, he’d probably benefit from losing a few pounds himself, but I bet he has an athlete’s heart and would surprise you in the gym.
Sure, carrying body fat around isn’t good for you, but if you are working out every day, you are likely pretty healthy. We have plenty of members who workout like crazy people and could outrun me any day, but they just eat too many calories. They may even eat healthy, but they just aren’t focused on weight loss or they aren’t ready to make that next step.
BUT WHY?
Here’s my big BUT (not my big BUTT!): If you are going to put all that time and energy into working out and sculpting awesome muscle under that layer of body fat, WHY hide it?!
Carrying around that layer of body fat is like detailing your HOT and SEXY exotic sports car and putting a cover on it! What a waste! If you’ve been working out, but you still are carrying too much fat, you probably have some amazing lines underneath that bumpy frumpy fat. Don’t you want all that hard work to show?
Of course Big Country’s goals are not to be a fitness model, and his focus is TOTally different than most of America’s, but for the average person – we want to BE fit and LOOK as fit as we feel. I don’t think Big Country has all that much to prove. And if you don’t like it, he’ll kick your butt anyway. haha 
OK, so if you say no, I don’t care about how I look – I understand. Not EVERYone is as vain as me. Not everyone works out for the same reason, BUT if you’ve been training hard and complaining about your love handles, you probably know in your heart you should be working on your diet as hard as you’ve been working on your training.
It’s TIME for CHANGE!
Let’s turn it up! Hit the grocery store this weekend and get all the yummy healthy foods you need to take your diet to the next level. Try cutting back your calories for just 4-6 weeks and see what your body will do! I bet you surprise yourself!!
Look at Julie! This was her before and after from boot camp. Look what your body can do in just 6 weeks. It’s a small commitment for a HUGE reward! GET-R-DONE!
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