Submitted 2 days ago by SolidShake@lemmy.world to [deleted]
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?
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.
I’d happily walk a bubch if that means being able to eat more 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.
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.
More information if your interested: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyqKj7LwU2RulAjHczohbx…
No. I’m currently in the process of losing my beer belly.
It’s going really well, here’s what I do:
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. There’s a FUCKTON of calories stored in a beer belly. A few situps won’t change much.
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
I think you meant:
Yes
If you stop drinking beer and get a better diet.
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.
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.
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.
Abs are made in the kitchen, not the gym. Gym is for strength.
Source: I’m related to a competitive body builder.
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 chasing 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.
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.
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.
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.
Not unless you stop drinking beer, no.
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.
130 lbs???
Beer belly?
Are you like 5’3"? Otherwise… What???
They might have visceral fat. it’s that hard belly. it’s from high carb, usually heavy drinkers. they could be skinny and look 4 or 5 months pregnant.
After other comments that might be it. Though I’ve been sober for over a decade now (never had a problem with drinking, just not my thing and lost friend and family to it so I don’t do it)
I’m 5’3 and a hair under 130 and don’t have a beer gut. I don’t know how accurate is but my scale says I’m around 15-16% body fat. I lift weights but I can’t imagine I have more muscle mass than someone working as a mechanic and cycling. OPs numbers don’t add up to me either.
They are 3’5’’
Like a true hobbit should be.
I’m 5’7". Very high metabolism
Just commenting here so you see it,
130 pounds is pretty low for a man your height. Considering you’ve never really worked out, do some body weight workouts on YouTube, or but some dumbbells and do the same. Start with 20 pounds and but heavier as you need.
You lose weight with diet, not exercise, but that’s not what you need.
Anything helps, of course. Anything is so much better than nothing.
You are skinnyfat, yes? You don’t want to lose weight, you want to add lean mass. Weights are what do that best. Ideally you would want to lift heavy at least thrice a week if you are trying to shape up.
I can only lift once a week lately (lady, mid 50s) but do yoga 4x/week too. It’s maintaining me reasonably lean.
I have been where you are (single working parent) and what I did back then was wake up at 5am and run, because that was the only time of day nobody needed anything from me, and running is nearly free, just shoes. It sucked, but the days I ran I did feel better later on, it was worth it overall I think. If there is any way you can wake up a half hour earlier and do something vigorous, and then add weight training once a week I think you will get good improvement. Just maybe not as much mass as you ideally want.
Going from doing nothing to something one day a week will have dramatic effects. But didn’t expect it to happen overnight or to have the same effect as going 3 or 4 times a week. Even just doing however many pushups you can once per day is a very good way to start condition yourself so you can handle and enjoy getting into a gym eventually. Sit ups are pretty trash. Six packs are made in the kitchen is a common adage for a reason. If you can’t work your core any other way I’d suggest planks over sit ups though. If you can, get a pull-up bar and power blocks. I would strongly recommend intending to get to a gym eventually though. From personal experience having a home gym was a bit of self sabotage
Cook, shower and then I’m exhausted AF.
This probably because you don’t exercise. Exercise gives you energy and is an excellent anti depressant. Starting is always the hardest part but you’ll have more energy the rest of the day.
And more than anything, or even what you’re doing stick with it. Results take time. You’ll have days you think it’s doing nothing, you’ll miss days and think what’s the point of starting again, you’ll be disappointed with rate of progression and that’s always the biggest test.
It really depends on your metabolism. There is no right answer here. Some people can get rid of a beet 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.
The fact that you describe yourself as skinny and low weight suggests that this is not about calories. Do you have a high carb diet? That tends to cause fat to collect in the midsection. If you’ve ever seen starving children in Africa, you may have noticed that a lot of them have a similar stomach bulge, despite being clearly malnourished. It’s from their diet that’s high in grains.
I have never tracked my diet but I will definitely start doing that. However I do eat a lot of white meats, salads, yogurt is my favorite. I also eat 2 meals a day (lunch and dinner) with something like a energy bar in the morning.
However! I do enjoy bread of all kinds as well as pastas. But I maybe eat that once a week?
But I will most definitely check it out and get some kind of tracker and go on a low carb diet. Wouldn’t hurt.
You’ve gotten a lot of advice on here, but I don’t think I’ve seen this…are you able to “suck in your gut” if you try hard and it improves how it looks? If so, it might not even be visceral fat, but just poor muscle tone in your abdominal area. If this is it, then core strength exercises are the way to go. Practice sucking in that gut more and more until it becomes the default, and strengthen your abs and obliques.
I can suck it in, yes. And obviously it gets smaller the less bloated I am too (I’m lactose intolerant but live in WI and cheese is life)
Is there any chance that you have dysmorphia, not a gut? 130 at 5’7" for a guy sounds pretty thin, even if out of shape, and the description of your diet sounds like you are certainly eating to maintain only 130, not a metabolism thing. Husband is 5’9 and said he was skinny at 145, I am same height and was skinny at 125, like really very slender. So we are close to your height and think you probably want more lean mass not less fat.
I do stand by the previous advice, something vigorous in the morning and heavy weights as often as possible. There are a couple of things you have to prioritize so they will happen. Exercise is one of them. Besides the 5am runs, I have done 9pm gym sessions, 5:30 am jazzercise, find the time and don’t let go of it. Once it’s a habit you will feel better on a workout day than an off day.
But you may have to eat more, not less, and lift to get the result you want.
The human body is absurdly efficient. Fat weight is tackled by reducing calorie intake (using whatever tactic works for you). Exercise only makes a small difference by comparison.
Exercise can burn a ton of calories, but in order to be able to do that level of exercise you have to be reasonably fit. For someone who doesn’t have a ton of stamina, I agree that diet is much more effective.
Exercise in someone not particularly fit is also likely to trigger a stress response and their appetite will overcompensate. Exercise is good but for fat loss is pointless unless eating is well under control.
Humans are horribly, miserably energy efficient.
Seriously we evolved as exhaustion predators: pick an animal and just keep walking after it until it drops, then eat it. That’s our whole schtick. We are the goddamn terminator.
Just being alive and breathing uses up about 1500-2000 calories a day.
An absolute bastard of a workout will use up maybe 100 on top of that, which makes up for like a spoonful of peanut butter.
As such, you can’t practically lose weight via exercise alone. You need to bring calories-in down to less than calories-out.
The tricky part is doing it in a controlled and sustainable manner so you don’t just say fuck it and scarf down two whole pizzas for lunch in a week’s time because you’re hangry and don’t care any more.
An absolute bastard of a workout will use up maybe 100 on top of that
An hour run burns like 600
At my weight (175 pounds) going 10k over an hour puts me at about this amount of calories. That’s 6.2 miles. I am in no way fit enough to be able to go that kind of distance, forget about the pace, which is sad to admit.
At a 15 minute mile, I would burn 120 calories/mile.
That’s not to say that you can’t burn significant calories exercising, it’s just that your average couch potato won’t be able to out of the gate. It’s far easier for me to reduce my intake by 120 calories/day than it jog a mile a day on average. Ideally you would do a bit of both.
When I say exhausted I mean I’ve been active from 7am until around 8pm non stop. I just don’t have energy to go to a gym or something and I’d rather just wind down.
And I do a lot of cycling. I know it’s not “ultra mega workout” but I am active and when I mountain bike I can maintain my heart rate pretty well. I noticed my calves getting meatier and my stamina was pretty good at the end of the season.
So id like to think I’m fairly active… but a lot less when I was younger (drumming, skating, snowboarding, biking. Every day. 365)
Sounds like you have a pretty active lifestyle. If losing weight is the goal id definitely start with food Easiest is to reduce sugary drinks / and evening snacking / beer. It’ll make your wallet feel better too
I agree with the comment saying that 130lbs doesn’t sound overweight, unless you’re 5’0 or under. Does your belly look obviously big to you in photos, or has anyone else ever mentioned it? Your perspective when you look down at your belly will make it look larger to you, so it might only be you that sees your belly as too big.
Keep in mind as well that in any photos of men you see who are body building, they have often dehydrated themselves to make their muscles stand out more. If you’re properly hydrated you’re never going to look like that, even if you exercise every day.
But strengthening your core muscles is really good for your back, so it’s probably not a bad idea to do sit ups and push ups.
Alternative: Teach kids to cook, on the premise of being a good dad. THEN kids cook ALL the meals!
Yeah! I made your life easier!
sorry for hijacking, i am also interested in the subject, commenting here to hopefully get some info. i’m 174cm / 84kg. i wear medium clothes, but my beer muscle shows up, it’s quite big. even through a sweater.
i don’t exercise (i work in it, from home mostly), but also, i barely eat. today i had 3 coffees (no sugar, little milk), some leftover stir fry (veggies, chicken, mie noodles) and an apple, and that’s common. i don’t eat sweets or junk food.
i cook almost every day, usually curries & rice, stir fry, pizza/pasta, soups and stews, but i rarely eat myself. i switch daily between chicken/pork/seafood/tofu/legumes for protein, but there’s always rice or pasta or bread.
i drink a couple beers in a week (on average), i drink very little water throughout the day, maybe half a liter.
i sleep very little too, about 5h on average (less during the week, more on weekends).
where should i start? what’s the most blatant issue on my list? i know, all, but… what would be the first?
You should go to your doctor so they’ll run some tests. It could be something medical and not just your diet and exercise. Plus you’ll get a baseline to compare later.
Write down what you actually eat in a day and look up roughly how many calories it is in total. You can search ‘chicken calories’ and there are websites that will tell you how many in say 100g of chicken breast or thigh. You can use those sites to look up calories for each food item. Sometimes we don’t realize how much we actually eat. Or It could be a gland or hormonal problem which again needs medical attention.
If you’re eating high carb, you can be building visceral fat. beer is just fermented bread. If you’ve been eating high carb, cut down to 100g of carbs per day or less. For me just cutting out the rice and making sure I had some sauce, salsa, etc to make sure the dish isn’t dry worked for me. I tried to stay closer to 50g of carbs per day, but unless you want to be a robot and eat the same dishes for 6 to 12 months, use it more as a guide line than a hard rule.
Since your lowering your carbs, you can raise your protein and fat to feel full. No rice, bread, pasta will make your plate looks sad and empty. Fill it with veggies. I always sautee my veggies.
As you lower your visceral fat, you’ll sleep better, which lowers your stress, which lowers your accumulation of visceral fat, which makes you sleep better, in a positive feed back loop which will give you energy and you can start taking walks. Which adds more positive feed back…
TL;DR go to your doc. Eat more protein and veg. very little rice, pasta, bread. Try it for a month and see if you feel better
i did have some blood tests back in december. everything was within parameters for someone my age & gender.
i’ll try the calories / carbs counting. based on how much i eat, i should be able to add it all up at the end of the day. i remember 10-15 years ago i dropped the sugar from my coffee and also stopped eating bread for a few weeks, and i dropped a few kg. i do eat veggies, it’s not just protein with rice. my kids love a salad with olive oil and lemon juice, and my stir fries and curries also have plenty of them. but noted!
thanks a lot for the tips!
The most blatant issue is not exercising. You don’t have to do anything drastic but adding an evening walk to your routine and changing nothing else would be really beneficial for you. If you added a few hours of walking per week and dropped the beer completely that would definitely tip the scales in your favour and you would see the weight dropping.
I would expect those two changes would benefit your sleep too
thanks! i commute once or twice per week to the office, and that’s some train, some walking. i average 5k steps per day, but with 10k when I go to the office. yesterday i did just under 1k.
i did check in with a specialist regarding my sleeping issues. it’s… complicated, but i’m working on it, part medication, part cpap machine :)
There’s a really good video on this - www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSSkDos2hzo
Adding a little exercise to your life is rarely a bad thing, but to shift fat diet change is the big one.
Here’s one that will have a steady impact - drink an extra glass of water with each meal (helps you feel full for longer), and invest in an apple corer (for easy apple snacks) - aim for an apple a day. It’s helping me slowly lose body fat by reducing caloric intake.
Green apple with peanut butter is a snack of choice already haha. Not every day though.
Trying to do a set amount of exercise games in VR helped me get more fit. I’m not good at sticking with something but pretty great at playing the same sections of a video game telling me what movements to do everyday.
Just having things to do/try as exercise everyday was more fun/rewarding for my brain… But I had to make sure they were exercise too.
Then I’d do more as I got healthier, and eventually I attached weights to my wrists and legs.
But if you’re a mechanic you might want to ease into it, because of your back.
kava@lemmy.world 2 days ago
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.
but you cannot exercise away body fat. it’s like 80/20 diet exercise
AstralPath@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
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
bjorney@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
I run a half marathon 1-2 times a month, and the costco poutine (2000+ calories) really hits different when it’s guilt free
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
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.
www.mayoclinic.org/…/art-20046508
Maalus@lemmy.world 2 days ago
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
Nomad@infosec.pub 1 day ago
Not to mention alcohol. It’s called a beer belly for a reason.