I’m 20 years old. Weighing approx 13 stone. Fairly skinny build but recently I’ve been putting on a bit of belly fat from excess drinking and eating at the weekend.
My daily calorie intake was somewhat near 2000 and I’ve cut that to about 1000-1500 max.
I’m currently doing a 5km run in the gym daily and doing weights after and then going for a swim.
I also walk approximately 2/3 miles a day.
If I’m only burning somewhat 500-700 Calories a day and eating more than double that, how am I supposed to lose this belly fat as I find it hard to believe I can eat under 500 Calories a day?
Thanks
Written by
JimmyNeu
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Sounds like you're making good progress with your exercise, but the purpose of exercise is to give your body more options for using excess dietary energy (as opposed to just storing it as fat). It's not to just "burn off calories". Broadly speaking, your body will demand food such that calories-in = calories-out. That's why most people maintain a constant weight, albeit with an undesirably-high bodyfat ratio.
You have a big advantage in being 20 years old, so all you really need to do is knock the junk food on the head. You're probably consuming a lot more of this than you realise: it's not just kebabs and burgers, but all the processed rubbish that we accept as normal. White bread; pasta-n-sauce; breakfast cereals; frozen chips and pies and chicken whatnots. We buy this stuff without even really considering what's it's made of. Most of it is just cheap ingredients tarted up with flavourings and colours so it looks like food. It isn't.
Base your meals on veg, meat, eggs, and dairy (in roughly that order), and you can't go far wrong.
Oh, and you're eating far too little. Baseline energy burn for a 13-stone 20-year-old will be around the 1700-1800kCal mark. That's the energy you need just to sit in a chair all day. Eat less and your body will go into "shutdown mode", attempting to conserve as much as possible ...including your bodyfat.
If I maintain a healthy diet consisting of eating eggs for breakfast and then having meat for dinner will I still be able to lose this weight as I’m feeling that would still be too much food consumed compared to what I work out.
It's physically impossible to give your body less than it wants/needs. If you eat too little, it'll aggressively demand more, and you will comply ... eventually. The aim is to eat the energy you need in a form that your body is less likely to store as fat. Start with vegetables (not potatoes; vegetables) and add as much meat/eggs/dairy as you wish to complete the meal. Eat until you're full.
I realise this sounds counter-intuitive, but simply eating less won't work. The key is to eat less of the wrong things, and more of the right things. When you do this, your appetite will crank downwards of its own accord as your body "discovers" that you have some spare bodyfat that needs using up.
I agree with TheAwfulToad I’m afraid, it’s a question of just sticking with it and celebrating being fit and energised. You have said it yourself that excess abdominal fat is probably the result of the beer (which converts to sugar in the blood and will be stored as fat)
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I am only a few months short of being half a century older than you.
When I was cycling 15,000 miles a year (in my fifties) I thought I could eat anything and not put on weight - but it did not work.
I met a man who lost 4½ stone in 50 days - but that was dragging a sledge to the South Pole!
It seems that my belly fat is the last area to go - I think targeted exercise can give you muscle definition where you want it - but I think we have no control over which areas of fat burn off when.
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