No Stupid Questions

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?

Your beer belly, is it hard or jiggly?

If it's a hard beer belly, that means you have lots of visceral fat, fat inside the rib cage. This is a strong indicator of metabolic syndrome.

The single best way to tackle that beer belly is to go low carb, this reduces your blood sugar, letting your insulin levels come down, allowing your body to actually function properly. The human body, really, really, really, really does not like visceral fat, and will remove it with urgency when allowed to.

If you like data, buying a continuous glucose monitor, then playing a game where you keep your glucose as flat as possible all day. The beautiful thing about this is you get instant feedback and know exactly how well your doing.

A absolutely great resource on doing this intervention is: https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb

This is the hormonal model of human metabolism, other people have mentioned calorie in calorie out CICO - which is technically correct, but practically unhelpful. Humans are amazing hormonal homeostasis machines, the hormones need to be functioning properly. You can eat 100 g of uranium, and have trillions of calories in your body, but you're not going to be able to use it. It's much better to get your hormones into balance and allow the body to self-correct and stay at optimal.

The great thing about going low carb, is you will lose that visceral fat, your blood pressure will improve, sleep will improve, pre-diabetes will improve, sexual function will improve... Basically everything, the metabolism touches every part of the body! Insulin is extremely important, getting it into control has massive benefits.

All of this! And you won't even be hungry! If you're doing low carb, you can eat as much as you want, as long as you keep your blood sugar down. BBQs steaks eggs bacon cheese, as much as you like at any time. Alcohol : avoid beers, if you must drink vodka or whiskey. -- all of this works because your body will be able to tell you when you're full. Have you ever eaten a steak, and it tastes absolutely delicious at the beginning, but the more you eat it the less and less delicious it tastes? That's how all foods should be. that's the human body self regulating. Sugar messes that system up!

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.

There's a really good video on this - https://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.

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.

130 lbs???

Beer belly?

Are you like 5'3"? Otherwise... What???

What you’re talking about would help, but not as much or as quickly as you’d like.

As others have said, changing your diet would help much more. Beer bellies are correctly called beer bellies because of all the carbs.

Don’t try to change too much at once. This is preventative, and not a major emergency, so you can be a bit kinder to yourself. At first, merely reduce your intake of unhealthy foods. Completely eliminate them later on. Wean yourself off things rather than trying to go cold turkey. Dieting is very much a mental game. When you get used to eating less unhealthy crap, there’s a good chance you’ll crave it less.

Don’t eat mindlessly out of habit or boredom; ask yourself if you’re genuinely hungry, and if there’s a healthier option available (and make sure there is. When you go grocery shopping, buy more healthy snacks to make up for the junk you’ll be buying less of).

You’re very smart for paying attention to this now. It’s much, much easier to adjust your diet now than it is to try and correct things once your weight has become a serious problem.

Lastly, I’m no expert. Search “diet plan for beginners” for more suggestions. Talking to your doctor wouldn’t hurt, either, especially if you’ve got a condition we’re not aware of.

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.

P.S also what everyone else said about diet is true... And both options, dietary changes and exercise will leave you feeling tired or lethargic until your body falls into line... So a lot of results come from mental discipline and committing to never missing a day or cheating yourself. Gotta hang in there and do your best to firgive and recover when you faulter.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. everyone stores fat differently. some in legs, some in stomach, etc.

but you cannot exercise away body fat. it's like 80/20 diet exercise

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.

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.