Edit: I don’t drink alcohol, it’s just the best way to describe it. From comments I’ll be going on a low carb diet, thank you all.
Explanation: male, 38, 130 pounds. Skinny, low muscle mass but have a beer keg belly.
My day is 7am wake up. Get kids to school. Work until 5. Get kids from school. Cook, shower and then I’m exhausted AF.
I’m semi fit? I’m a mechanic professionally and spring til summer I mountain bike regularly. So my calves are monsters.
But would like… basic at home sit ups. Push ups etc like on a Saturday, would that help at all?
by experience, no. You need to stop drinking beer so often, and you need to eat less. Exercise is still a plus, but you need to sync your activity with your meals. I still eat whatever I want but in less quantities in general.
I do not drink any alcohol at all.
Apologies for assuming. Sugar is the number one culprit for a “beer belly”, so you find more than enough in beer.
Sugar and bread i down like it’s going out of style
No. You need to adjust your diet and cut you caloric intake. Burning calories with exercise can give you some wiggle room but won’t do anything by itself. You could skip exercise entirely and still make progress with a good diet. I would suggest intermittent fasting. Everyone I know who’s had success dieting has done so with that method.
Yep. Weight is lost through diet, sport might help but can also make you hungry. The main benefit of exercise is better health through increased fitness.
People should compare how much calories exercising burnes per hour compared to the simple act of e.g. switching sugary drinks for water. Especially when you aren’t fit to begin with, meaning you won’t for example be able to run for hours each week.
Intermittent fasting definitely is a good method. But it varies for everyone. Imo it helps to start with changing what you groceries you buy. At least to me the further away from the plate you implement caloric reduction the easier it is.
Yeah that’s a good point and something I follow as well but didn’t think about earlier. If you don’t have it around you can’t eat it.
No. I’m currently in the process of losing my beer belly.
It’s going really well, here’s what I do:- only drink water, nothing with alcohol, calories or sweeteners
- no snacks or sweets
- whey shake for breakfast, small lunch (sandwich) and a normal-sized supper.
- walk 30 miles per week, generally stay physically active, commute by bicycle.
The good thing is that it works without counting calories or weighing myself.
The bad thing is that I’m hungry half the day, but I figure that’s my body burning fat, so I even kinda enjoy it.
I expect my belly to be gone by midsummer. A few situps won’t change much, there’s a FUCKTON of calories stored in a beer belly.
It’s a big ole barrel full of fuel and you need to burn it all, even though your body doesn’t want to.Abs are made in the kitchen, not the gym. Gym is for strength.
Source: I’m related to a competitive body builder.
It really depends on your metabolism. There is no right answer here. Some people can get rid of a beer belly with minimal effort and others will have to really work at it. Your best bet is changing diet, not drinking, and more regular focussed exercise.
Yup, weight management is 95% diet and 5% exercise. A single snickers bar takes a 12 minute mile of jogging to burn off; Our bodies are incredibly energy efficient. So if you’re looking to lose weight, it’s better to just skip the snickers bar altogether.
Building muscle can raise your basal metabolic rate, (because you burn more calories to maintain that extra muscle) but even that is negligible when you consider how many calories you can consume without even realizing it.
Exercise won’t change much.
What you need to do is eat less calories than you burn — so eat a little less, and you will lose weight.
Working out isn’t the primary path to losing weight, though it is of course a big part of staying healthy.
You burn quite a lot of calories in a day just from being alive. The additional calories you’d burn from a brisk 20 minute walk might about to one cookie. It’s far easier to just not eat the cookie.
…but I like cookies.
OP’s stated goal is to lose weight and I’m just commenting on that basis. I like cookies too.
In real life I’m hardly a proponent of skipping life’s rich pleasures. But if weight loss is the goal, a little restraint is a hell of a lot more practical than a lot of exercise.
I’d happily walk a bubch if that means being able to eat more cookies
That’s perfectly okay as long as the ratio of 20 minutes per cookie is understood.
OP has a goal to lose weight though, not just stand still. And with the busy schedule they described, 40 minutes of exercise is hard to fit in, whereas not eating 2 cookies takes no time, and if anything puts time back in your day.
That’s interesting. I’d guess my career keeps me “fairly” fit then? I average 8,000 steps per shift, and sometimes I do “reps” with ratches and other word nonsense. (Mechanic)
This is all good info though, I had 0 knowledge about anything when asking my original question. I didn’t know there were even multiple types of fat on your body.
Doubtful. Exercise doesn’t contribute to weight loss nearly as much as people want to believe.
Your body gets used to exercise pretty quick.
If you’re not willing to significantly change your diet the exercise isn’t going to do squat.
exercise isn’t going to do squat
What if you do squats?
You’ll have sore legs
And build muscle in your legs, which will in turn burn more calories.
More information if your interested: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyqKj7LwU2RulAjHczohbx5OyJQ8TaFM0
You don’t have to work out at all. Just eat clean and don’t drink. It helps if you use a calorie tracker, so you know what you’re taking in numerically.
Yeah, I’m going tks tart tracking calories and carbs. I shouldn’t have to adjust my diet too much. Probably cut down on breads the most. I love bread. And I love cheese
In did keto for a while and also started strength training.
I did really well and went from about 270 to 184. I’ve since gone back up because i stopped everything sure to reasons.
I’m not here to recommend keto though. (Not against it but damn is it expensive!)
Why i bring it up is that i had to look at the nutrition label on everything
Doing that for more than a year really helped me notice how many calories are in things, and that theres can be surprising differences between different brands of the same thing.
Some beef jerky could be 2 or 3 times the calorie counts of others just because of extra ingredients(it’s almost always extra sugar) even when its the same serving size/package
Just start looking at the options you are considering purchasing and you can make better choices without even using a calculator, you learn then which brands of which things are better for you and that will help without even changing what you are eating.
Kind of a nice nice way to ease into changing your diet if you don’t actually start with changing the things you eat, just the versions of them
You should also use a calorie calculator to see what your maintenance caloric intake is. I.e. how many calories your body burns a day with your average routine. Then it’s just a matter of eating less than that to lose weight or more than that to gain weight.
Edit: just wanted to say that cutting/reducing carbohydrate intake is definitely a good idea like you mentioned.
if you stick to your workouts and train to failure, your muscles will grow.
however to eliminate fat, you don’t exercise. you eat less. when you are eating below caloric maintenance, your body makes up the difference in fat. you can’t control where the fat comes from. you just have to maintain that for a long time and it’ll go away. everyone stores fat differently. some in legs, some in stomach, etc.
but you cannot exercise away body fat. it’s like 80/20 diet exercise
Personal anecdote here: I run 40km/week so that I don’t have to be so picky with my diet. I’m offsetting about 2,400cal from my weekly intake.
That said, I need to be careful sometimes because my appetite can surge and I can easily break even and even surpass being in a deficit. Its just a matter of being aware of how much I’m eating in general and adapting to appetite changes.
That said, when I want a pizza I’m gonna smash that pizza down my gullet lol
I run a half marathon 1-2 times a month, and the costco poutine (2000+ calories) really hits different when it’s guilt free
Not to mention alcohol. It’s called a beer belly for a reason.
A closer look at physical activity and metabolism
You can’t easily control the speed of your basal metabolic rate, but you can control how many calories you burn through physical activity. The more active you are, the more calories you burn. In fact, some people who seem to have a fast metabolism are probably just more active — and maybe fidget more — than others.
To burn more calories, the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommends the following:
Aerobic activity. As a general goal, aim for at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity every day. If you want to lose weight, maintain weight loss or meet specific fitness goals, you may need to exercise more.
Moderate aerobic exercise includes activities such as brisk walking, biking, swimming and mowing the lawn.
Vigorous aerobic exercise includes activities such as running, heavy yardwork and aerobic dancing.
Strength training. Do strength training exercises for all major muscle groups at least two times a week. Strength training can include use of weight machines, your own body weight, heavy bags, resistance tubing or resistance paddles in the water, or activities such as rock climbing.
No magic bullet
Don’t look to dietary supplements for help in burning calories or losing weight. Products that claim to speed up metabolism usually don’t live up to their claims. Some may cause bad side effects.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/weight-loss/in-depth/metabolism/art-20046508
The only thing that helps lose weight is something that makes you not want to eat. ADHD meds do that for instance. Those “miracle” drugs that cost half a salary do that. You can’t chow down on fastfood and lose weight a the same time
lol i don’t eat fast food :(
You have to cut down carbs (rice, breads, ramen, pasta, noodles) and alcohol. If you want to go even further, cut down sugar and milk.
Nope.
Diet. Not exercise.
Nope, diet and exercise.
dudes a mechanic im sure OP gets plenty of strength training from that. could use another cardio activity tho when mountain biking isnt an option
So to actually be helpful and answer op’s actual question.
Any physical activity will help to an extent.
What will help more for weight loss is counting calories and expending more than you consume.
But if you want to have any kind of actual muscle tone you need to do resistance training, wrenching alone isn’t enough.
If op is cool being skinny/ low muscle tone, then diet and cardio will do it. If op wants muscle tone then they should lift weights or do some resistance training like calisthenics.
I think you meant:
Yes
If you stop drinking beer and get a better diet.
Not unless you stop drinking beer, no.
I think the conventional wisom is diet is more important than exercise in losing weight, although I think most people would recommend working out once a week regardless if you would lose weight or not, basically any working out would be positive if you aren’t at all, it couldn’t hurt to do sit ups and push ups and see where that takes you.
you don’t even have to work out.
you can get there simply with diet.
that said, dieting doesn’t target where the fat comes from.
Core strength training (like sit ups, push ups, etc,) will help with muscle definition, and that can improve the appearance, but if you break down how much say, a pound of body fat is in excercise vs how much that pound is in hambergers… well. restricting calories will always be more effective for weight loss.
has your doctor said you need to lose weight? 130 pounds sounds not-overweight.
I know OP posted a specific question, but don’t forget that working out is incredibly good for your physical and mental health. You’ll feel stronger and more mentally resilient, and you can get rid of a surprising number of body pains.
You’ll also increase your energy levels, as counterintuitive as that seems.
CICO
Calories in <<< calories out
You can lose your beer belly sitting on a sofa all day doing nothing, just as long as you’re intaking less calories than you burn.
Are you 5’3"? I don’t mean that to be offensive I am genuinely asking. I haven’t weighed anywhere near 130 since I was maybe 12?
Do you want a six pack or do you just want the belly bulge to go away?
Every little bit helps. Generally speaking if you can work a few push ups and sit ups into your daily routine it will likely have more effect than doing an hour long dedicated work out once a week.
Start out with 10 sit ups every morning right when you wake up and do 10 every night before you hop in bed. Add more as you get comfortable or do them periodically throughout the day.
This guy sits up.
I had the class record for most sit ups in 60 seconds at one point in my life lol. I think it was 43. I probably couldn’t do 43 sit ups in an hour at this point in my life… I should probably start working out again lol
Are you 5’3"? I don’t mean that to be offensive I am genuinely asking. I haven’t weighed anywhere near 130 since I was maybe 12?
I’m also stuck on this guy’s weight and him saying that it includes a beer belly. Not to be judgemental, it’s just fascinating to hear the details about different body types. I’m on the taller side and am just a few pounds shy of double OPs weight.
I am 5’7"
I have always been really skinny and have had a really high metabolism
I cannot fathom being 130 pounds again. I’ve been over 200 for so long I can’t even imagine how much more nimble you must be lol.
Well hey congrats on the metabolism. I know it can be inconvenient how much you gotta eat n all that, but trust me it beats the alternative. My brother is a massive stoner and he eats like an elephant, but he’s always skinny as twig. I eat like half of what he eats and I’m a hefty slab of meat.
idk, ive gotten made fun of my whole life for being skinny. this also prevents me from gaining muscle mass you know. like…if want to buy a watch, i have to get the smallest watch possible for my wrists. and im not too nimble anymore. almost 40 so my joints are all breaking haha.
Maybe it’s time to start smoking some pot. Jk jk.
Don’t tell me 40 is when the joints start breaking. That’s right around the corner for me.
Nah it’s a joke. I stay as physical as I can. My brother surfs and plays baseball hear round in Hawaii and he is ripped. I just mountain bike in the bin snow season here. Maybe I just need to find time to exercise or something. But my joints can’t take skateboarding anymore
