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?
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.
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.Have you been tracking your weight to confirm it’s working? Are you eating on a consistent schedule? I don’t think you should be hungry if you are. The reason why being hungry concerns me is that being hungry all the time can mean your body is in a starvation mode rather than a fasting or fat burning mode. Instead of burning fat, your body slows down and weakens your other bodily functions to conserve energy and survive a famine rather than look a little sexier.
I used to be hungry upon waking up until remote work in 2020 let me casually skip breakfast. I woke up later and started waiting for lunch. I haven’t regularly eaten it since then despite going back to an office. I rarely feel hungry in the morning unless I have something late (later than my general noon-8pm eating timeframe) and generally sugary (immediate blood sugar spike, leading to higher fat storage and followed by a blood sugar drop). If your body knows when your next meal is, it should be able to hold off on the hungry feeling until then.
I’m tracking progress by trying on various old pants that have stopped fitting me one after another in the past, and the waistline is shrinking fast.
I eat on a regular schedule, but I’m also at a big caloric deficit. There’s no way to do that without getting hungry.
“Starvation mode” is a myth, by the way. Or rather, your body enters it whenever you’re losing weight. But it can’t sustain its weight when you stay active and eating little.
Don’t worry, as long as I can ride my bicycle for hours on end, concentrate at my job, and stay healthy, I know I’m doing fine. I’ll reconsider my approach when I’m starting to feel weak, or getting brain fog.
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.
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.
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
130 lbs???
Beer belly?
Are you like 5’3"? Otherwise… What???
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.
yeah i want to gain weight.
I was chronically skinny until I started smoking weed.
I smoked when I was 18/19. Got food poisoning once when I was smoking and now when I smell weed I get really nauseous lol. It’s super fun /s
Try Edibles!
Is that why you’re such a dumb motherfucker? You should try another strain bro
Very normal, extremely hinged behaviour you’re demonstrating. Clearly not someone who gets over emotional and then makes poor decisions as a result.
There is nothing irrational in the ancestral art of dueling. Someone have to stand up for accountability on the internet otherwise idiots like you start talking shit.
Sooo are you free this week-end? I could fly to toronto and from there I’d have a good base to invade the USA
For reference 159 pounds would be where you start to cross into an ‘unhealthy’ BMI. However, while BMI is a good gauge for normal/sedintary people, it isn’t a great measure if you’re quite muscular. So I would try to stay under 160 unless you’ve been building miserable consistently for 1-2 years. And even then, if you are trying to optimize health, no need to go much over, even 160 being swole. However if your primary goal is not health but strength, you’ll need to be ‘obese’. Which is still healthier than being thin and out of shape, but not ‘optimal’ for long term health. The reason I say this is, everyone has an opinion on what’s best, but it really depends on what you’re trying to optimize for.
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.
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
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.
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.
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 targets is to reduce sugary drinks / and evening snacking / beer. It’ll make your wallet feel better too
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.
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.
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.
Edit: for example, you could jog for almost an hour to burn approx 460 calories. Or you could just not eat 1 cinnamon swirl krispy kreme. Ate two at the family BBQ? You just gave your body enough fuel to light jog for 2 hours. A large vanilla milkshake has enough fuel to keep you jogging for an hour and a half. Stop overeating first or gym weightloss is useless.
Do strict keto, the majority of a beer belly is water which bonds with fat at a 3:1 ratio so when you’re burning fat as your primary fuel you’ll piss half of it out in the first month without any change in physical activity.
A beer belly, despite the name, is not exactly from beer. A beer belly isn’t specifically from the caloric spikes associated with heavy beer drinking (where a certain amount of alcohol for a certain inebriation is accompanied by a massive intake of simple carbs compared to liquor). It’s due in part by genetics. It’s called visceral fat, meaning it’s intertwined with your torso’s organs and muscles. The concern here, particularly when beer-bellied people are heavy enough to show notable fat between their knees, elbows, and faces, is there’s likely fat/cholestoral buildup in the circulatory system. The beer belly is a heart attack predictor (but please understand overall weight is part of that indicator, not just location of fat). Some people are prone to adding fat relatively evenly across their body while some are prone to a beer belly. This variance in fat distribution is why skin-pinch based BMI tests are not accurate for health (testing arm skin misses beer bellies) and why weight/height BMI charts aren’t either (can categorize distributed-fat risks a little too closely to beer bellied fat).
As for a solution, I support low-carb diets as you’ve indicated you’ll try. They come with risks and peculiarities. As someone with sizable forearms and calves but about 40lbs of beer belly, keto has worked great for weight loss. The consequence of not being careful with eating (counting carbs but not calories to types of fat) is my cholestoral is still high when I do keto stints.
As you consider a low carb diet, I want to point out some misconceptions for keto, since that’s mostly what you’ll find. Atkins and Weight Watchers are close to keto. Paleo has a similar major component by prohibiting simple processed grain (white flour) but isn’t the same otherwise. It’s not a high protein diet - eat a normal amount. It’s not a high fat diet - higher than the sugar industry-funded diet studies blaming fats will recommend, but still a normal amount. It does push you to choose better fats (nuts, avocado) rather than bad fats (bacon, butter) but fats fare a little better as a snack than proteins.
A major misconception is that fats make you fat and dietary cholestoral gives you coronary cholestoral. Both are indirectly related by directly false. Your belly is not stuffed with butter and cashew oil. It’s stuffed with human fat. Fat is a category, not a particular substance. Your body has to convert food into body fat. When you eat lots of sugars or simple carbs (which quickly turn into sugar in your stomach), your body is happy to waste energy converting the other food into body fat because you’re rapidly adding energy (sugar) to your blood. While sugar highs aren’t exactly real, sugar crashes absolutely are. It’s why a big pasta meal can leave you hungry in an hour. So what if you stop eating sugar and simple carbs? You can’t put walnuts in your bloodstream. Your body has to take that fat and convert it into body fat, and then that body fat gets converted into blood sugar. It’s a lengthy process that costs a lot of energy. It takes a week of dedication to make it work. When you get ketosis in full swing, your body will fuel itself with body fat as it takes time to convert dietary fat into body fat for later. Similarly for dietary cholestoral, you can’t take egg yolks and coat your arteries. Your personal cholestoral is produced by your body and is related more to total dietary calorie intake, dietary proportion of saturated fats, and genetic disposition for fat distribution.
Personally, a major benefit from keto is simply being able to confidently turn down all sugar and simple carbs. Beer, cake, cookies, sugary drinks, chips, bread, ice cream, and candy. I can easily convince myself that a little treat won’t hurt in a non-keto month but I have poor self control. A little becomes a lot. Part of that is because I’m “cleaning up” carby foods I abstained form during a keto month. But on keto? It’s an easy rule to follow since I’m as happy with cheddar as I am with ice cream. While I’ll come off for a few months to a year, the monthly keto cycles make my weight chart look like a slinky going down stairs.
Great writeup!
my cholestoral is still high when I do keto stints.
bad fats (bacon, butter)
If you don’t mind me asking, how long are your keto sessions, and which part of your cholesterol is high? Just LDL?
For my most successful keto run, it was 6 months of picking one weekend per month to party on beer and simple carbs (supposed to focus on whole grains monthly). I had places to go, foods to experience. But I went from 235 to 195. Using a whole weekend to carb up all the wrong ways ties into me using this diet somewhat carelessly but still effectively. Carbing smartly would smooth out the weight loss but, instead, my chart looks like a slinky falling down stairs. After I hit the bottom for my big day, I gained about half back in the following year. I’d like to get a 3+ month run started in a few weeks. I started Jan 1 but work trips tripped me up, sending me to places where it was impossible to go carb free.
From what I remember, the bad cholesterol was high and good was average. My blood pressure reduced somewhat over that 6 months, although the dramatic weight loss also promoted more physical activity. I didn’t really add exercise, but I was able to do all the random daily stuff for longer before overheating.
You should also use a James Smith 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.
