Losing Weight

[Terinox]

What's the best way to lose your love handles and the fat at your stomach. The rest of me is fine, just that damn stomach and love handles!!! Which exercises are BEST for these areas. I know that diet plays a big role, but ignore that for now, just the exercises. If it's specific cardio, aroebics, weight training, list them all.

Thnx
Terinox

[Sicilian30]

Well Ter, I have the same problem unfortunately there are exercises but I don't think they work very well. The only thing I did to make my love handles away and flatten my stomach believe it or not is cardio cardio and cardio. I didn't even do any ab exercises just cardio, you can't just burn fat in a specific area, you body has to release and burn it all over. Get on some xendrine or a fat burner eat well and cardio as much as 30 mintues 3 or 4 days a week. YOu will see. Oh and also lower your carbs.. that made the fat just fall off.

[THE BIG RED MACHINE]

Yep, gonna have to go with the other guys on the running! I mean, spot reduction will work, but only to a very small degree. It's almost pointless. And yeah, once you do start losing weight, it's going to come off everywhere, and for guys, the last place to come off are those love handles. That is the male body's main area for fat storage. Be thankful, women have to carry most of their body fat in the legs and ass, and it’s twice as hard for them to get rid of! Why not try a different approach. Get you shoulders, back, and legs so big, that your waist looks tiny! It's a sound theory.....right?

[njp]

for my cardio, I've been swimming a lot and that's a great cardio workout if you don't enjoy running.

[Sicilian30]

Well NJP, no one enjoys running, I hate it, but I do almost every single day. What I find helps me out alot is get you a portable CD or tape player make you some killer workout music and get to steppin. Days that I don't feel like running, I pop that Cd in my player and it fires me up to run. Also what helps is that I am thinking as I am running how good I look or will look the more I do this.
Don't even let me pass a chick up while running, out pokes the chest, arms flex and I am running 100 miles an hour (well think I am anyways). Oh well I guess I am just 100% male..
Big Red said something that is true when it comes to males, we tend to store fat around our mid section, that is just the way our bodies are built.

[Terinox]

I just recently had a big argument about fat with my brother. He is in his thirties, and he still has a stomach, but it's at least straight, unlike mine, which sticks out a bit. I weigh just about 180pounds, and we were talking about how hard it is to lose the fat now. He was getting really pissed off, which was weird, I don't know why...but he kept saying it's soo hard to lose the fat that it's going to be virtually impossible!!! He says he worked like an animal, just to get the stomach he has now, which isn't a six pack, just a normal flat stomach. I'm 19, and i've been working out for 2 years...now how long would it take to drop the weight down though? It can't be as hard as he says can it? I will be hitting cardio hard, or at least I'm gonna try. I was thinking about doing cardio every other day for about 45-60mins. Either bike or run or step machine. How well do these work, and how hard will it be???

Thnx
Terinox

[bex]

Simple you cannot spot reduce so keep the diet low in fat and increase the cardio......

[THE BIG RED MACHINE]

That hard gut that your brother is speaking of is just B/F that’s been there for a while, nothing more. Once you’ve held that fat for a while it tends to solidify more than just a little ponch. He’s right in a sense though. It is going to be a lot harder for him to get rid of that gut versus just a little flab. Take a look at someone, who’s started to loose some weight through diet or cardio and you’ll notice that the areas of fat that were once hard deposits are now starting to loosen up and become more Jell-O like. That’s because their body is actually starting to get rid of it. If a persons gut hasn’t gotten to that solidified state, then its that much easier to get rid of. If you can hack it, running will be the best of the three you described, then the step machine and lastly bike. Personally, unless you’re extremely obese, then the bike is really not going to do much for you. I’ve seen guys (myself included) who were just trying to lose that winter fat storage pedal their asses off, and hardly break a sweat. It just doesn’t burn enough calories compared to the other two. The stepper should only be used as an alternative to running if you’ve got knee, or lower back pain. Otherwise running is still king! Try your cardio for the time frames that you’ve suggested for a few weeks and as you get better at it, or you feel that it’s doing nothing for you either increase the intensity a little or the time. Either way will be effective for cardio vascular conditioning and/or fat loss. I’m not sure what your diet is like but playing around with that too will increase the benefit of the cardio. Bodybuilding isn’t an exact science, so there is no hard and fast rule to stand by. You are just going to have to experiment and see what works. Personally I wouldn’t recommend that you follow some sort of pre-contest regime. Remember the slower that it comes off, the easier that it is to keep it off. Crash dieting usually results in a quick return of whatever weight you’ve lost and then some. Hope this helps!