Revisiting the middle age "middle" bulge

Parent Cafe
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<p>One word for men and women…SPANX</p>

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<p>What is SPANX?</p>

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<p>Spanx are not for me - can’t stand the tightness of any clothing!</p>

<p>Starting my Livestrong again today to help monitor the composition of the food I’m eating. </p>

<p>My weight isn’t really different, I can still fit my clothes just fine. But the “look” in the mirror is different - bloated and flabbyish in the middle - I know the culprit is too much “special” indulging of carbs - be it a bagel on the road trip in the car, the snacks while playing board games with the kids or just cooking a little more (and eating a little more) of the foods the kids like (with one extra kid home for the summer). </p>

<p>So today’s plan: Livestrong, breakfast/lunch packed for work, eat better, eat less and exercise a little more. And stay away from the cake that will be at the retirement reception I have to attend for a faculty member. :)</p>

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<p>Dieting alone is not the answer, this is a fact…exercise with paying attention to food intake will work, nothing wrong with eating so-called bad foods, as long as it is not everyday…the only weight loss for those who buy into Jenny’s ,Weight Watchers, South beach, et al is in your WALLET. ;)</p>

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<p>^^^ I mostly agree with that. I have never subscriped to paying anything to lose weight/get more fit (besides a gym fee), but I also do know many people who swear by WW to help them keep on track and have had good results - but so far, that is not for me.</p>

<p>And I firmly believe that “dieting” is not even what I want to do - it’s more lifestyle eating, which I believe I had a good handle on, but just let slip a little too frequent as of late. So it’s get back up on the pony and get back on the trail again!</p>

<p>I also wanted to mention that I REALLY like the tip above to shop the perimeter of the grocery store more than the middle aisles - wow, that makes perfect sense!</p>

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<p>I can stay away from cake, no problem, but not from donuts. But then I am not hungry and never gain from them, kind of opposite. Certain food seems to kill appetite.
I gain only on all inclusive resort (every year), food there is beyond anything I can have at home, desert is simply undescribable, I never even try to stay away, it would be way too stressful. I noticed that I do not gain at all at home, no matter what I eat. We primarily shop at Costco, fix very little, eat meat about 2 - 3 times / month, we kind of do not like to spend too much time on cooking/eating, but I love to exercise, this might make a diff., i have my favorites that I actually look forward to do on a daily basis. I have tried other stuff, did not work out and I did not push myself as I strongly believe that you can stick only to actvities that you love and actually to food items that you love also. If you do not like celery, it will not be part of your diet on a permanent basis, there is no reason to push it, just find what you love.</p>

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<p>I think the problem with the tummy bulge is that the proportion of effort needed to get rid of it goes way up after menopause. You have to decide how much you care because i honestly think it takes monumental effort and lifestyle changes to get rid of it. I would settle for a little less of it.</p>

<p>I posted this on the Weight Loss for Dummies thread but I’ll post it here too because it really does help. When I was in PT for a back injury recently, I was given an exercise to do that I found really targeted those love handles. It is a side plank. Do some of these. You may not look any different, especially if you are not dieting, but it will remind you that there ARE muscles under there somewhere.</p>

<p>[Google</a> Image Result for <a href=“http://blog.sixpackatsixty.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/side-plank.preview.jpg[/url]”>http://blog.sixpackatsixty.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/side-plank.preview.jpg](<a href=“http://www.google.com/imgres?q=side+plank+exercise&hl=en&client=safari&sa=X&rls=en&biw=1258&bih=618&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=A_v9_MGCGyElpM:&imgrefurl=http://blog.sixpackatsixty.com/2011/05/20/abs-and-core-exercises-%25E2%2580%2593-beyond-the-basic-plank/&docid=ccZzqllKpUX_YM&imgurl=http://blog.sixpackatsixty.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/side-plank.preview.jpg&w=300&h=300&ei=s73pT_yMMIiw0AHVopGzDQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=896&sig=117517560484449714352&page=1&tbnh=122&tbnw=118&start=0&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0,i:107&tx=69&ty=62]Google”>http://www.google.com/imgres?q=side+plank+exercise&hl=en&client=safari&sa=X&rls=en&biw=1258&bih=618&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=A_v9_MGCGyElpM:&imgrefurl=http://blog.sixpackatsixty.com/2011/05/20/abs-and-core-exercises-%25E2%2580%2593-beyond-the-basic-plank/&docid=ccZzqllKpUX_YM&imgurl=http://blog.sixpackatsixty.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/side-plank.preview.jpg&w=300&h=300&ei=s73pT_yMMIiw0AHVopGzDQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=896&sig=117517560484449714352&page=1&tbnh=122&tbnw=118&start=0&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0,i:107&tx=69&ty=62)</a></p>

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<p>I’m a snacker so it was very important for me to find snacks that aren’t too terrible. I find that fruit ice pops and even fudge ice pops are very satisfying and between 60 and 80 calories.</p>

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<p>Frozen grapes & blueberries are good too.</p>

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<p>Coloradomom – hope your friend is doing well. Same thing just happened to me – pretty freakin’ scary.</p>

<p>I have lost 60 lbs in the past 14 months – good thing, as I probably would not have survived the heart attack otherwise. Have had a “tummy” since I was ten years old, even when I was not overweight. My goal in losing weight was to get healthy and to not get bogged down with the myriad health problems my mom has faced. I was never a size 8 and never will be. I just want to improve my odds. ;)</p>

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<p>When I was in my 20’s I could lose weight by exercise alone, but no longer! </p>

<p>I totally agree with idad that there are foods that just can’t come into the house. When the boys are home I buy cookies for them and I always end up eating too many of them. If I cook more carby foods I try to cook things I don’t like. I could cook vats of mac and cheese and never be tempted, but garlic bread is a whole different story.</p>

<p>I also think if you feel you can’t live without some bad item in your diet you have to decide exactly how much you can allow yourself and then be very good about it. So that might be half a cheesecake slice no more than once a month, or one small chocolate every day, but you have to stick to that amount that you have planned into your overall eating plan.</p>

<p>The good thing about summer (and spring and fall) is that I use the grill several times a week. The bad thing is that my neighborhood thinks it’s an excuse for a party. I’ve really had to make sure that I drink lots of water at those darn parties, or the alcohol makes me gain weight.</p>

<p>I think core exercises will help tone and firm you up, but you still have to lose the weight.</p>

<p>I never shop those center aisles either.</p>

<p>I thought this was enlightening too, we are very bad at estimating serving sizes: <a href=“http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/the-well-quiz-supersize-soft-drinks/[/url]”>http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/the-well-quiz-supersize-soft-drinks/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Roast garlic in the oven and squeeze it on bread. You don’t need butter.</p>

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<p>Today’s tight-clinging women’s top fashions don’t help the morale as both of us here wage Battle of the Bulge.</p>

<p>Some days, I dress quirkily and put on a tailored man’s lightweight silk-backed vest (from a 3-piece summer suit) to top off my summer jeans/t-shirt. If the vest buttons a certain way down the front, it masks the bulge. V-bottom is better than straight-cut across the bottom of the vest. </p>

<p>Sometimes I just need a day’s visual relief from the whole endeavor. It helps.</p>

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<p>I wish I hated sweets as much as I dislike the smell of butter. Everybody has something that we sometime should have to satisfy our taste.<br>
I just ate the whole avocado. Somebody mentined to me that they “allow” themselves a slice of avocado once in awhile because of high calories. I cannot even imagine myself eating just a slice of avocado and leave the rest for somebody else, no way! It was yummy!! Probably 1000 calories, I do not care.<br>
BTW, the tummy bulge is trictly a funtion of weight in my case and not a function of age. All my weight goes to my stomach, this is my unfortunate genetics, oh well, at least by b–t is OK, cannot have all the body parts in perfect shape,…just kidding, very far from perfect, but rollerblading has a very positive effect on b–t if anybody is interested. On the other side, it might have to do with couple decades of rollerblading, so maybe few times will not make much diff.</p>

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<p>OP, I can understand. I used to be size 2,4,6 up until I was 30. Then I gained a lot of weight due to stress related to death in my family. I have since managed to go down to size 8. But in the last six months, due to lack of sleep, lots of travelling for my job, I put on pounds. But I think the summer is the best time to loose these pounds. Paying attention to carbs again and being walking and swimming with my hubby.
For the tummy, I do Kegel exercises when I’m driving or sitting down.</p>

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<p>Couple of comments, though I see this thread has become more about eating. </p>

<ol>
<li><p>No such thing as spot reducing. If you do core exercises, you strengthen your core. That may increase muscle there but it won’t make fat there go away. </p></li>
<li><p>As you age, it seems the distribution of fat within your body changes. This isn’t very well understood yet. One change is that you gather fat inside, meaning visceral fat, more easily. This fat can be inside the muscle or around organs. The fat inside muscle, like under the abs, is why people can say they’re not fat - can still see ridges - and yet be really fat: you have fat under muscle that’s pushing out the muscle like a balloon. </p></li>
<li><p>When you have fat that won’t go away - like nearly every person - that means your body composition would need to change more. You may need to generate more muscle, often more core strength. Not because fat changes to muscle - it doesn’t - but because you would be losing fat elsewhere, like visceral fat, and that process will eventually expose whatever is left to reduction. In other words, though not understood well at all yet, your body doesn’t simply draw from fat but processes which fat to draw. You can’t decide how that works. The really good news is that getting rid of visceral fat is probably much more important for health. Especially fat around organs. That fat may actually have some sort of biochemical link to the organ. We’re seeing this is a problem with fat around the heart. Again, something we don’t yet understand.</p></li>
<li><p>You put on x pounds and expect to unwind those pounds and get back to where you were. Won’t happen. Some other process has occurred in your body, particularly as you’ve aged. You may lose exactly x and look different. You may find you lose x pounds, look thinner but still have bulges. Good news is you’ve likely lost visceral fat so you belly hugs your core more closely.</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>Core exercises actually do help with tummy bulge if the tummy bulge is due to or exacerbated by lax muscles or poor posture, which is the case for some people – particularly women who have been pregnant.</p>

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<p>Lergnom,
Awesome post!</p>

<p>And yes, I think core exercises help because they obviously strengthen your core which helps with all of your exercise. When you exercise you boos your metabolism so that you are not just burning those calories that show on the treadmill. You are boosting the burn all day.</p>

<p>I agree, though, that you cannot spot reduce. Believe me, I’ve tried!</p>

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<p>Weight does seem to accumulate around the middle for most people as they age. It seems that our legs become thinner as the weight gravitates towards the middle - I know lots of older men with skinny, skinny legs and round bellies. </p>

<p>Anyway, the best way to fight it, in my humble opinion, is with lots of different core exercises. That means not just sit ups or whatever, but a combination of teasers, planks, crunches, and other exercises that work the upper abs, lower abs, lats, etc. Pilates and yoga are both very good for this - I do an hour long Pilates workout 3 or 4 times a week, then an hour of cardio on the other days. I also watch my weight and eat lots of fruits and vegetables. I’m not super skinny - 5’7", and about 130 pounds, but my stomach is flat and I have very strong abs. Another benefit of strong abs - these muscles help support the back when lifting and doing other activities, which can help prevent a back injury.</p>

<p>I wish I could convince everyone to give Pilates a try - it will transform your body. I can’t say enough about it - I have a better figure now than I did at age 30.</p>

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<p>Just measured my calf and thigh - 16 inches and 21 inches respectively. The thick calves seem to run in my family but maybe tennis and running have resulted in very strong leg muscles. My upper body is less muscular.</p>