Getting rid of that belly bulge
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free skin care · Fri Jun 02, 2006 9:56 am

I have a bit of a belly bulge leftover from winter -- my jeans are a little tough to snap. For some reason this is the hardest area to lose weight from!

Can anyone tell me about successful ways to improve the belly region... I heard once that crunches won't help eliminate any fat there.

free skin care · Fri Jun 02, 2006 10:09 pm

There are a lot of yoga moves that help to trim belly fat: triangle, boat, twists, up dog, cobra, and a couple I cant remember the actuals names of! They're similar to plank, and moves you would do in pilates-- laying on your belly and lifting your torso up, then lifting your legs up, or doing both simultaneously. These are also very tonifying for the lower back which is essential for having a nice toned belly.

free skin care · Sat Jun 03, 2006 5:36 am

Pilates also works. There is a move in Pilates called "the hundreds" that shapes and flattens the stomach quite well.

free skin care · Sat Jun 03, 2006 6:57 am

I have found callanetics to be harder than yoga and pilates (and I've been doing advanced pilates on and off for over five years now). I've done three hours of callanetics and my abs have gotten stronger from it! Before it, I would religiously do abs of steel or other random pilates or ab programs and found callanetics to be the most unforgiving and all around hardest. I have only done the original Callanetics "10 years younger in 10 hours" (meaning you have to do it 10 seperate times and you'll see noticeable difference). Its not an hour either, its more like 45 minutes. I won the Super Callanetics on ebay the other day and it just arrived yesterday. Its an hour and a half long so I'm not going to attempt it until I've done the original a few more times. These exercise are unlike anything I've done before and you can really feel and see the results. I highly recommend Callanetics!

free skin care · Sat Jun 03, 2006 8:50 am

Callanetics is great, but there is little upper body work.. If you get the 10 in 10, it about a 50 minute workout, if you skip thru all the pictures ect.. It's worth watching it all, once at least.. There is also an AM/PM tape, if you want to divide it up.. I have most all the tapes except the Super, and I have the book.. It looks so easy, but it's not...LOL {PhoebesMeow, don't be at all surprised if you can't get thru the Super.. I know many, many women on another board, who have a hard time of getting thru it after 50 plus hours...}

Also, have you heard of Core Secrets? It's Gunner Paterson's program using weights and the fitness ball.. That is a great workout and it does work.. Plus it's a total body workout... It's all based on the ball, so you're always using your core {tummy}.. Great results!

Those are my 2 favorites, of all my many, many programs...LOL

free skin care · Sat Jun 03, 2006 2:57 pm

I agree, the callanetics sucks for arm work, only having the one exercise, the upper arm tightener. I lift weights and do a lot of pushups with my other workouts to compensate.

I'm Kiki wrote:

PhoebesMeow, don't be at all surprised if you can't get thru the Super.. I know many, many women on another board, who have a hard time of getting thru it after 50 plus hours...

I know, I've heard its tough by reading the reviews on it. Can I ask, what other board are you referring to? I don't know of any good exercise boards and would like to find one.
Btw, I have two of the core secrets workouts, the 20 minute one and the core secrets accelerated core training. I've only done the 20 minute one and wasn't too impressed with it. My ball really sucks though, I have to get a new one, I think that was my issue. Then again I'm never impressed with 20 minute workouts. Too short in my opinion. I'll have to give the hour long one a shot.

free skin care · Sat Jun 03, 2006 4:28 pm

PhoebesMeow, you'll have a PM...

free skin care · Sat Jun 03, 2006 5:58 pm

Pilates is really good, also the corny 8 min ab workout video from the 70's. Laughing

free skin care · Sat Jun 03, 2006 6:32 pm

I love the 8 minute ab series. The other ones (the butt, legs, and arms) are really no good but the ab one is pretty solid. And believe it or not, it was made in 1994! With his beetlejuice outfit you'd swear it was made in the 80s!

free skin care · Mon Jun 05, 2006 11:29 pm

Diet? Try have sweet potatoes + raw carrots and tomatoes for bfast for a week. U will see a difference Smile

free skin care · Tue Jun 06, 2006 6:15 am

Wein wrote:

Diet? Try have sweet potatoes + raw carrots and tomatoes for bfast for a week. U will see a difference Smile

Whoa, how does this help lose belly bulge? It sounds so particular theres must be a reason your recommend it?

free skin care · Tue Jun 06, 2006 6:59 am

Don't eat a lot of starchy things.

Do Pilates. I've done many exercise routines and nothing works on my waist like a 20+ minutes Pilates tape at least 5 times per week at least for me. (and don't let people tell you that 20 minutes doesn't work, the first time I tried Pilates I did a 20 minute tape for 4-6 times per week. My waist went down 1.5 inches in 6 week and my heart rate at the end of the routine decreased significantly).

free skin care · Tue Jun 06, 2006 7:18 am

Does anyone know where you can find the callanetics 10 years younger in 10 hours tape/dvd? I'm having a hard time finding it anywhere. Even Amazon is out. This sounds great and I really want to try it out!

free skin care · Tue Jun 06, 2006 7:42 am

I'm not surprised Amazon is sold out...LOL Try half.com and ebay, I got some of mine from there..

free skin care · Tue Jun 06, 2006 8:29 am

TAMgirl99 wrote:

Does anyone know where you can find the callanetics 10 years younger in 10 hours tape/dvd? I'm having a hard time finding it anywhere. Even Amazon is out. This sounds great and I really want to try it out!

I think the dvd may be a waste of money since its such a significant difference in price than the vhs and its not chaptered. Its exactly the same as putting in the vhs only of course, you don't have to rewind. Plus the lowest price right now on half.com for the vhs is $3.50.
http://product.half.ebay.com/Callanetics_W0QQtgZinfoQQprZ3064511 Make sure you get Super Callanetics also if you REALLY want a challange. I did it for the first time the other day and can honestly say its the first time in a LONG time my stomach muscles where SHAKING! I do a lot of ab work too, Super Callanetics is the best.

free skin care · Tue Jun 06, 2006 8:55 am

Thanks again PhoebesMeow!

free skin care · Tue Jun 06, 2006 8:59 am

It's good to work on your abs, but you can have toned abs and still have belly fat. I think the original question from Janis was on how to trim belly fat, and to do that you need to do fat burning exericse, not just ab work.

I also would like to note that harder workouts doesn't necessairly mean better workouts, especially if you're unaccustomed to exercise!

free skin care · Tue Jun 06, 2006 9:17 am

violetanne wrote:

It's good to work on your abs, but you can have toned abs and still have belly fat. I think the original question from Janis was on how to trim belly fat, and to do that you need to do fat burning exericse, not just ab work.

I completely agree! If you don't have a good diet and add in regular cardio then all the toning in the world won't do much. You'll have great abs but they'll be hidden by tummy fat.

free skin care · Tue Jun 06, 2006 11:07 am

I agree that diet is the most important thing to get rid of fat but I know from experience doing massive cardio that if you are within about 10 pounds of your ideal weight only toning exercises will get you where you want.

free skin care · Tue Jun 06, 2006 11:41 am

[quote="TAMgirl99"
I completely agree! If you don't have a good diet and add in regular cardio then all the toning in the world won't do much. You'll have great abs but they'll be hidden by tummy fat.[/quote]

Totally agreed with you!! My yoga teacher always says "Everybody has 6 packs, you just have to find them and let them come out!!!"

free skin care · Tue Jun 06, 2006 9:02 pm

My bulge I think could probably be eliminated through diet along with some moderate working out (currently my only exercise is walking). I'm just confused about what foods I should try to avoid. Someone here said starchy foods... am I going to have to go on one of those dumb carb-free diets? Rolling Eyes

free skin care · Wed Jun 07, 2006 7:01 am

Janis wrote:

Someone here said starchy foods... am I going to have to go on one of those dumb carb-free diets? Rolling Eyes

Don't ever go carb-free! Your body needs carbs. Just make sure they are the good kind, like whole wheat. There's some good sites out there is you just do a search on "good carbs". There are also a lot of books out there as well. Good luck!

free skin care · Wed Jun 07, 2006 7:08 am

Not carb free but good carb. I am prediabetic. When I eat sugar and white flour I have blood sugar problems. Also I have lost weight on low fat diets but they made me sick in terms of blood sugar. also because of my shape low fat diets made me look like a lollipop on a stick. My legs lost muscle. Every study even those not so hot on low carb shows low carb diets up muscle % while low fat diets result in muscle loss. It depends on youe metabolism but sugar, high fructose corn syrup, transfats, and white flour are things that everybody should avoid. I eat lots of berries and 2T of flaxmeal evry day (these have lots of good carbs). I twice fell of this diet and blood sugar and blood pressure both went way up. By the way there are plenty of good fats that raise HDL (e.g. fish, many nut oils and olive oil). My diet includes a lot of these and my wrinkles really went away after a year on this diet without any topical products. I do eat almost no packages products just flax breads.

Find what's best for you but avoiding the unholy 4 (transfats, sugar, high fructose corn syrup and white flour) is good for everybody. That doesn't mean not eating a pastry at your fav restaurant just avoiding these 4 things in your daily diet.

free skin care · Wed Jun 07, 2006 7:25 am

I agree with TAMgirl99 and sharky! It's all about diet and exercise with a good combination of cardio and weights.

And don't give up the carbs! They give you mental and physcial energy. Low carb diets are almost impossible to maintain and the initial weight loss is from water. Not worth it. Just clean up what you eat and stay away from processed, refined and saturated and trans fat while including plenty of lean protein, fruits, veggies, healthy fats (olive oil, nuts) and good carbs (brown rice, 100% whole wheat bread, yams, potatos, 100% whole wheat pasta, oatmeal, barley, millet etc.)

I personally live by trying to eat 6 mini-meals a day, every 3 hours or so. Each meal contains a little protein (like 3oz chicken or tuna) and I eat at least 3 servings of fruit and 5-8 servings of veggies a day. I also try and include a handful of nuts somewhere or tablespoon of olive oil (such as on a salad).

I personally think any diet that excludes carbs or fruits and carrots is stupid. We've been eating them for hundreds of years without the problems we have today. As sharky said, it is the recent, VERY processed foods with High fructose corn syrup, trans fats and rice stripped of it's nutrients that add so many empty, damaging calories to people's diet the obvious result is weight gain and associated problems.

Sorry--I'll stop my rant. We had a pendometer challenge at my work for a month, and to we're announcing the winners at lunch over pizza. Question

The world is making less sense to me everyday! Rolling Eyes

free skin care · Wed Jun 07, 2006 7:37 am

I can't suggest enough reading a The South Beach Diet. Its NOT low carb is GOOD carb and even if you read it with no intention of going on the diet, you'll pick up LOTS of nutritional info you probably never knew. For example, did you know that you should always get the LONG cooking oatmeal or brown rice versus the quick cooking stuff? Quick cooking food makes the carb worse and raises your blood sugar faster versus the long cooking version. I'm not sure of the details but stuff like that is explained in the book (plus there's lots of great recipes). The South Beach Diet is not a fad at all, I bought all the books and learned so much (well there's really only one with info, the rest are mostly recipes). Also I don't know if this is entirely true or not but the diet advertising helping you lose belly fat first. Says it right there on the cover. But other than that, its definitely filled with sound advice and knowledge.
And yes, the only thing I didn't like was how he says not to eat fruit the first two weeks, but that's just the first two weeks, everything else in there I agreed with.

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