Muscleheads: How to get rid of spare tires?

S

Skyler

Contributor
Veteran XV
I'm sure I can visit some kind of muscle website, but I figure there are enough muscle heads here that I can ask.

Let me give you a bit of background.. I'm 6'3", 21 (in May) years old, and weigh 222. 10 months ago I weighed 240 or so, and I've gradually lost a LOT of fat, but also put on a lot of extra muscle. My legs are humongous, and probably make me weigh my weight. However, I still have a spare tire or love handles, whichever you call them in my stomach area.

In an effort to lose it and possibly lose weight, I started doing about 100 crunches (Should I do more, less?) every morning when I wake up, and when I go to bed. My abs can feel it, but I already had well defined abs, they were just hidden beneath this flab I've got going.

If I had a camera, I would show you pictures to give you a better idea of what I look like, but you wouldn't want to see me anyway.

What do you suggest? Lots more crunches? Going to the gym? Any special diet plan or certain exercise, like riding a bike? Would enough crunches over time effectively eliminate my flab?

I'm not looking for a six-pack here or anything, just something that doesn't hang over my hips.
 
The reason I've lost so much weight is because I've begun to eat healthier, too, or eat less often. I could stick to a diet though, I'll eat almost anything.

Except AIDS brownies.
 
http://www.fatlosstips.com/

http://forums.menshealth.com/thread.jsp?forum=5&thread=38232

Fat loss is exclusively a function of diet; cardio can improve results if done on a moderate basis; weight training is not optional.

Congratulations on your progress so far. Progress will come in stages, and it's easy to incorporate these stage points slowly into your life:

- Accurate macronutrient and calorie breakdown
2.-> 100% clean foods
- Moderate cardiovascular exercise
2.-> high intensity interval training
- Fat loss oriented weight training
2.-> meltdown or turbulence training

blatant plug: #fitness on irc.dynamix.com
 
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Most tire sales will take them and recycle them.

I mean, eat healthy. Stay away from junk food as much as possible.

Also, only eat if your hungry. Most people these days eat because they are bored...litterally. I do it all the time. If you only eat when you need to, you end up converting everything into useful things...not fat.
 
Goof said:
Most tire sales will take them and recycle them.

I mean, eat healthy. Stay away from junk food as much as possible.

Also, only eat if your hungry. Most people these days eat because they are bored...litterally. I do it all the time. If you only eat when you need to, you end up converting everything into useful things...not fat.
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The eating right part is correct. However, the only eat if you're hungry park only works if you are sedentary. In many cases, if you only eat when you are hungry, and you live a very active life style, your body is already deprived and you could experience a drop in energy. The same applies to drinking. You should be drinking before you get thirsty. If you wait until you're thirsty, well.. it's too late and your body is already begging for water.
 
Sojourn said:
The eating right part is correct. However, the only eat if you're hungry park only works if you are sedentary. In many cases, if you only eat when you are hungry, and you live a very active life style, your body is already deprived and you could experience a drop in energy. The same applies to drinking. You should be drinking before you get thirsty. If you wait until you're thirsty, well.. it's too late and your body is already begging for water.
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Your body becomes more hungry the more you work. You food intake will automatically adjust to meet your needs.

The water thing is correct. Your body isn't very smart about how much water it needs. If you are doing physical activity...you will start to suffer effects of dehydration before you feel thirsty.
 
Fat loss is NOT local! Doing crunches excercizes muscle. Excersizing your muscles will increase their mass and strength (maximized through proper routines and attention). Increasing muscle mass will as a secondary effect expend more calories throughout the non-excersizing period, by virtue of having that much more matter to upkeep. The other side of the coin in weightloss is the expenditure of excess energy (that globe that you hide underneath your t-shirt) through high-energy expenditure activities- cardiovascular work. Do not neglect your diet (eat your vegetables!).

So, to distill the lesson into a practicable discipline:

1)Hit the gym and learn what you can about building muscle mass

2)Run, swim, bike, or macarena to sweat off those pounds.

3)They might call it rabbit food, but how many rabbits have you seen kick over from heart disease? ; )
 
Goof said:
Your body becomes more hungry the more you work. You food intake will automatically adjust to meet your needs.

The water thing is correct. Your body isn't very smart about how much water it needs. If you are doing physical activity...you will start to suffer effects of dehydration before you feel thirsty.
Click to expand...

What you term as hunger is what you feel when your stomach is empty and your acids are still being produced. Your body hunger and what you feel as hunger are not the same. Your body always needs energy, not just when you feel hungry.
 
That bike that I bought 2 months ago is going to be put to good use in the days to come! I'm too cheap for a gym :(

Since I am on the graveyard shift, I really only eat on my lunch break (4am), and don't eat again until 10 in the evening, or even if I feel like it, 4am. Sometimes 24 hour periods go by, and I'm not even hungry- and when I do eat, I can eat very little. It's like my stomach is shrinking.

I'm definitely going to ride my bike more, maybe get on a tredmill, or go swimming...Knowing me I'd just end up giving up :( Heh.
 
If you've already got well-defined abs under your flab (wish I could see mine like that...), you just need to to the diet/cardio thing to get rid of the fat. Crunches aren't going to burn fat off your abdomen.
 
I let my self go and was out of shape...used to play sports and have a physical job but now I sit on my ass all day at work. Anyway I'm 5'11" and went from 170 very cut and very toned to 188 of flab. So I've been dieting the last few weeks and been doing alittle execise 3-5 nights a week. I mainly try to stick with a low carb diet, eat chicken, salad, rice, steaks etc... most of the time but do mix in bread and pasta a couple times a week. I also will either eat a large lunch and a small dinner or snack or visa versa. Main thing is not eating to close to going to bed.

Excercise. I do 200-300 crunches, 100 pushups, and about 300 jumping jacks about 3-5 times a week. Once it starts getting warmer out I plan to start jogging and shit. I've already lost about 5-7lbs and can see an improvement. I do however tone very quickly, I'm blessed like that.
 
grokking said:
Fat loss is NOT local!
Click to expand...

You cannot "target" an area for fat loss. Sure, fat burns quicker from some areas and it just so happens that the gut and the fatback (around the kidneys) are some of the last places fat will show. You need to lose fat, however you do it, to lose the spare tire.
 
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