Need help to reach my goal!
 

Hello everyone! I'm 19 years old, I'll be 20 next month. I am 5"1, 124 pounds and I want to go from 30% of body fat to 20% by May! I'm a nice sized person, but my stomach is my problem! I was in ROTC in high school and I always worked out, so I had a somewhat flat stomach but since I graduated 2 years ago, I stopped working out and started gaining weight in my stomach area and now I'm just tired of it! I'm very self conscious and it shouldn't be this way. Can someone please help me!

P.S I loveeeee to eat! Which is another problem. And I don't want to lose my bottom or thighs.. Just my stomach..

Hi Mosely - welcome! Unfortunately, it's impossible to lose fat in a specific area. If you're using more calories than you're taking in, your body will burn fat from all over.

Someone on another thread made a great analogy. Picture a flooded one-story house - all the rooms are flooded. You can put the pump in the kitchen to pump the water out, but the water level is not going to drop any faster in the kitchen than in the living room.

Oh, how I wish that wasn't true!

You can, however, tone the muscles in your "problem" areas. And, if your body has stored most of the excess fat in your stomach, that's likely where most will be burned from. I mostly put weight on my hips and thighs. Measurement-wise, I've lost some girth everywhere, but mostly from my hips.

There's a great weekly motivation thread in the Motivation forum. It starts new every Monday. Post your goals for the week; then report back in about how you're doing - both your successes and failures.

I definitely figured that it was impossible to lose fat in only one area, but I really wish it wasn't true also! And I really do like that analogy!

It really does make sense when you say that wherever I seem to gain weight in, is where I'll most likely lose it first. I didn't ever think of it like that.

Yesterday I jogged a mile and walked another. Today I did the P90 X ab ripper which was 15 min and tomorrow I plan on going back to the beach to run and walk again. For breakfast i've been eating one nutri grain bar and some pineapples, for lunch yesterday i had a chicken sandwich and today i had a chicken salad. Hopefully I start to see results by next week!

Thank you so much for responding and for your motivation!

Good for you for getting started! It sounds trite, but a lot of people never get past good intentions. Keep it up!