Hi guys, newbie needing advice on flattening stomach

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Mat_N_Yorks
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Wed Dec 02, 2020 5:34 pm

Hi guys,

So, I'm new to the site, and would like some advice.

I'm trying to make myself more "marketable" on Online Dating, and I have a plan of action :)

I have a bit of a colloquial "beer belly" though, arms, legs, face etc is proportioned.

I am looking to get this flat, and firmer.

I have already very recently started the following:
Totally cutting snacks

Ensuring meals are sensible (including taking salad rather than sandwiches packed lunch to work)

Ensuring my evening meal is not later than 4 hours before bed (slower metabolism at night?)

I am looking to loose about 20lbs, and cutting out "the crap" will do it, as I lead a fairly busy life.

My main question is:

Can you recommend any simple and achievable exercises, I can do at home, to firm up my stomach area?
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Phoenix Arise
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Wed Dec 02, 2020 5:49 pm

A hard and fast rule of fitness is that spot-reducing fat doesn't work.
In simple terms, most people think that if they do a bunch of crunches, they'll get a six-pack because training the abs makes the fat there melt away.
That's not how this works, like at all.
Fat is only increased or decreased systemically, over your whole body. Your genetics then determine where it is placed (e.g. abdomen/ass/legs/etc). Women vary a lot in this kind of genetic distribution whereas men deposit fat in their abdomen much more uniformly.

So, training your abs won't make you leaner. It will train and therefore enlarge your abdominal muscles that are hidden underneath the fat but the only way to make them visible is to melt the fat over them and that can only be done through diet (and optionally cardio).

Keeping the above in mind, we must always remind ourselves that training isn't rocket science, the biggest issue is actually doing it, not what you do.
Since you said home, I guess you don't have access to weights, so I'd just recommend the following:
  • Planks
  • Hanging leg raises if you have a pullup bar (which you should have anyway)
  • ab roller (very cheap and very effective)
  • air bicycle
The above are all you need to build up your abdominal muscles a bit in the absence of heavy weights. You don't need variety, you need consistency.
Spend 15' doing the above every day and you're set.
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l0vebone
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Wed Dec 02, 2020 8:44 pm

Didn't read your post, only the title.

Eat once a day, you have 15 minutes to eat everything that you can. After that 15 minutes is up, you cannot eat until tomorrow. Only liquids like orange juice or water.

In a month, you should have a six pack
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Sisyphus
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Wed Dec 02, 2020 9:40 pm

l0vebone wrote:
Wed Dec 02, 2020 8:44 pm
Didn't read your post, only the title.

Eat once a day, you have 15 minutes to eat everything that you can. After that 15 minutes is up, you cannot eat until tomorrow. Only liquids like orange juice or water.

In a month, you should have a six pack
this is false. Eating once a day won't make you leaner. For the most part, it's about getting into a caloric deficit. There are other factors (endocrine system and genetics, which body fat distribution). Eating once a day/intermittent fasting will facilitate eating less, but it's not a necessary condition. Btw, drinking orange juice does break a fast, it has way too many calories and the same or less nutritional value than the solid fruit (which gives more saciety)
To achieve a six pack, you need to be 8-10% body fat, at 10-12% you will have a hint of a six pack. I assume you are 20-25%, so it should take 6 months minimum, 500kcal of deficit everyday. Doing excercise will increase your daily caloric use, although diet is way more important. You just need to be really really consistent and honest with yourself. What you don't measure, you can't improve. Weigh yourself in the scale and do a weekly average. Download myfitnesspal and log your food daily. If you are obsessive, use a scale to weigh your food, we are really good at bullshiting ourselves.
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Mat_N_Yorks
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Wed Dec 02, 2020 9:57 pm

... Yes, I thought the eating once a day, rather than 3 x spaced but measured and sensible might meals, have been counter intuitive (been reading up, a bit on metabolism, as I really want to meet my goal, and get a GF/LTR)

... My understanding is over fasting puts you into semi survival mode, and the slightest hint of food afterwards, your body tries to replenish reserves, and pile it back???

I'm going to stick to 3 meals a day, but be very fussy and careful... Its going to be a long road, and I'd rather go slowly and see results, than crash diet then rebound :)
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Mr Available
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Wed Dec 02, 2020 10:23 pm

I agree fat loss is about diet more so than exercises like crunches.

I'd also add at your age I would consider TRT. There's a lot of resources to go that route such as Jay Campbell's books.

Hopefully you got your testosterone levels checked in recent years to establish a baseline?
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Lostcause
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Wed Dec 02, 2020 10:32 pm

l0vebone wrote:
Wed Dec 02, 2020 8:44 pm
Didn't read your post, only the title.

Eat once a day, you have 15 minutes to eat everything that you can. After that 15 minutes is up, you cannot eat until tomorrow. Only liquids like orange juice or water.

In a month, you should have a six pack
Or anorexia.

In both cases - flat stomach.
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Radical
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Wed Dec 02, 2020 10:34 pm

l0vebone wrote:
Wed Dec 02, 2020 8:44 pm
Didn't read your post, only the title.

Eat once a day, you have 15 minutes to eat everything that you can. After that 15 minutes is up, you cannot eat until tomorrow. Only liquids like orange juice or water.

In a month, you should have a six pack
Leaving aside whether this method works/is sensible/is in anyway sustainable

You cant just promise a guy on an internet forum abs in 4weeks when you dont even know his baseline

Also 23 hr 45 min daily fasting is one of the more out there pieces of advice ive seen thrown at a newbie
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Mat_N_Yorks
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Wed Dec 02, 2020 10:38 pm

Nope I've never had that checked, just yearly U&Es, FBC, Glucose, Criatanine & LFT healthcheck bloods...

It's not a routine NHS test, and my GP would probably shoo me out the door if I asked for that
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Radical
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Wed Dec 02, 2020 10:48 pm

Mat_N_Yorks wrote:
Wed Dec 02, 2020 10:38 pm
Nope I've never had that checked, just yearly U&Es, FBC, Glucose, Criatanine & LFT healthcheck bloods...

It's not a routine NHS test, and my GP would probably shoo me out the door if I asked for that
Just google testerone level check UK. We do have some private health here. You might have to pay a little for it but so what if its something you want to know about and could greatly impact your life

Fuck the bog standard NHS GPs tbh. Take control of your health
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l0vebone
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Wed Dec 02, 2020 11:21 pm

Sisyphus wrote:
Wed Dec 02, 2020 9:40 pm
l0vebone wrote:
Wed Dec 02, 2020 8:44 pm
Didn't read your post, only the title.

Eat once a day, you have 15 minutes to eat everything that you can. After that 15 minutes is up, you cannot eat until tomorrow. Only liquids like orange juice or water.

In a month, you should have a six pack
this is false. Eating once a day won't make you leaner. For the most part, it's about getting into a caloric deficit. There are other factors (endocrine system and genetics, which body fat distribution). Eating once a day/intermittent fasting will facilitate eating less, but it's not a necessary condition. Btw, drinking orange juice does break a fast, it has way too many calories and the same or less nutritional value than the solid fruit (which gives more saciety)
To achieve a six pack, you need to be 8-10% body fat, at 10-12% you will have a hint of a six pack. I assume you are 20-25%, so it should take 6 months minimum, 500kcal of deficit everyday. Doing excercise will increase your daily caloric use, although diet is way more important. You just need to be really really consistent and honest with yourself. What you don't measure, you can't improve. Weigh yourself in the scale and do a weekly average. Download myfitnesspal and log your food daily. If you are obsessive, use a scale to weigh your food, we are really good at bullshiting ourselves.
Did you miss the part where I said he has 15 minutes to eat his one meal a day? It would be impossible for anyone to get anywhere near maintenance doing that. The reason I said he can drink OJ/milk/or have a strawberry shake or something, is because he's going to get into an extreme deficit.

As for the rest, slow cuts are just bro science. Gaining muscle and losing fat are two different things completely. When youre gaining muscle you can only gain so much at a time, so you want to have a very small surplus. When youre losing fat, you can go as hard as your mental wants to take you, doing extreme deficits.

"But wait, you will lose muscle!" No, you will lose an equal amount of muscle going fast, or going slow. The mechanisms of losing fat are different than gaining muscle. As long as youre working out you will retain the same amount of muscles. There is no reason to stretch a cut to 3 months when you can have the same results in 1.
Lostcause wrote:
Wed Dec 02, 2020 10:32 pm
l0vebone wrote:
Wed Dec 02, 2020 8:44 pm
Didn't read your post, only the title.

Eat once a day, you have 15 minutes to eat everything that you can. After that 15 minutes is up, you cannot eat until tomorrow. Only liquids like orange juice or water.

In a month, you should have a six pack
Or anorexia.

In both cases - flat stomach.
Pretty much. If I'm fat, I would much rather be anorexic and start with that as base then do a prolonged cut with a prolonged bulk. You would get results much quicker. 1 month cut + 4 months clean bulk then and repeat this cycle every 5-6 months.

Cutting -> youre able to do it as fast as you can handle,
Bulking -> is limited by your bodies genetics.

How much muscle your retain on a cut will be the same if you are doing extreme deficit or a prolonged 3 month+ cut.
This has been my experience watching tons of professional fighters do extreme cuts, theyve all retained their muscle and strength.

There was another jacked + ripped guy on here who echoed the same sentiment.

Long cuts are just torture and come from a position of ignorance. Why spend 3 months doing something you can do in 1 month, just so its a little bit easier? The only time I would recommend someone a long cut is if they don't have the mental game to tough it out for 1 month and would go back to binge eating as soon as the cut is over. Personally, I like instant results and have no problem forcing myself to do things that I don't like.
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l0vebone
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Wed Dec 02, 2020 11:26 pm

Radical wrote:
Wed Dec 02, 2020 10:34 pm
l0vebone wrote:
Wed Dec 02, 2020 8:44 pm
Didn't read your post, only the title.

Eat once a day, you have 15 minutes to eat everything that you can. After that 15 minutes is up, you cannot eat until tomorrow. Only liquids like orange juice or water.

In a month, you should have a six pack
Leaving aside whether this method works/is sensible/is in anyway sustainable

You cant just promise a guy on an internet forum abs in 4weeks when you dont even know his baseline

Also 23 hr 45 min daily fasting is one of the more out there pieces of advice ive seen thrown at a newbie
Being extremely low body fat is not sustainable for most people. Point is, you get to where you want (for most people ,this would take a month) then you get back to clean bulking (small surplus.)

Human's are literally evolved to go long periods of time without food. What's out there is our current diets. The diet im proposing was probably the status quo for the majority of our existence.


If anyone is interested, look at my log, I've uploaded a picture of where I'm at now (around 15% bf) I will show you my results in a month, at least a 5% bf drop.
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l0vebone
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Wed Dec 02, 2020 11:45 pm

Mat_N_Yorks wrote:
Wed Dec 02, 2020 9:57 pm
... My understanding is over fasting puts you into semi survival mode, and the slightest hint of food afterwards, your body tries to replenish reserves, and pile it back???
Nah this is false. It's all calories in, calories out. Eating a big meal might make you retain water or fill up your glycogen and you may temporarily think that you lost your results but in a days time you will see that youre exactly where you were before
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Radical
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Wed Dec 02, 2020 11:47 pm

Right....but if he is at like 30% bf the only thing getting him to abs in a month is liposuction
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Lostcause
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Wed Dec 02, 2020 11:50 pm

l0vebone wrote:
Wed Dec 02, 2020 11:21 pm
Pretty much. If I'm fat, I would much rather be anorexic and start with that as base then do a prolonged cut with a prolonged bulk. You would get results much quicker. 1 month cut + 4 months clean bulk then and repeat this cycle every 5-6 months.

Cutting -> youre able to do it as fast as you can handle,
Bulking -> is limited by your bodies genetics.

How much muscle your retain on a cut will be the same if you are doing extreme deficit or a prolonged 3 month+ cut.
This has been my experience watching tons of professional fighters do extreme cuts, theyve all retained their muscle and strength.

There was another jacked + ripped guy on here who echoed the same sentiment.

Long cuts are just torture and come from a position of ignorance. Why spend 3 months doing something you can do in 1 month, just so its a little bit easier? The only time I would recommend someone a long cut is if they don't have the mental game to tough it out for 1 month and would go back to binge eating as soon as the cut is over. Personally, I like instant results and have no problem forcing myself to do things that I don't like.
As a former borderline anorexic Person I would rather be fat and just cut down, but whatever grinds your gears I guess
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