will cycling and swiming help to get rid of my big fat tummy?

[BrokenBananaTantrum]

Or am I better off doing something else? I can only manage half an hour of either each night. I am five stone overweight so finding it hard. I have managed to lose a stone and a half just dieting but none has gone off my waist.
I've not exercised in a long time and need some advice
Thanks

[AlfalfaMum]

I have found pilates really good for my tummy, you will have slightly sore muscles the day after the first few classes but that just shows it's working I'm convinced I saw an improvement in my love-handles after the first class.
Pilates is amazing for toning up, it doesn't help lose weight though, so you should keep up the aerobic exercise, too. Half an hour each night sounds really good, well done!
I've been slowly doing the Couch to 5 K running program for the last few months.. when I say slowly, I've been doing it since the end of March and I'm on week 4 :o nonetheless, I'm happy with that and I'm definitely getting fit and that's amazing for me.

[Joby1970]

As long as you are eating less & moving more - your tummy will get less. A few seesions of Cardio a week (so swimming & cycling) along with at least one resistance session (weights) will help. re a DVD I can recommend Jillian Micheals 30 Day Shred.

[Joby1970]

NB you cannot spot reduce parts of your body (unfortunately)

[BrokenBananaTantrum]

Thanks. Might get a dvd too. I'm going to stick with the cycling and swimming each night for now until my overall fitness improves. Got a long way to go but I'm determined to stick at it.

[foreverondiet]

No.... but cutting out sugar and refined carbs will - try south beach diet, claims that following it will mean loosing stomach and that way of eating has reduced my stomach.

But cycling and swimming great exercise - I've just done a triathlon, so have run, swum and cycled, and can't recommend it enough... start with the swimming and cycling and add some running once you are a bit fitter and you can do one too!!!

30 day shred great for abs.

[Orangesarenottheonlyfruit]

Ditto on the triathlon. It is fabulous exercise and masses of fun.

I have lost 4 stone since having DD2 and trained for a tri, I exercised 6 times a week, did some major sessions and my arms are pretty toned and my legs are great. BUT my tummy is STILL as flabby as blamanche!!!
The only thing that has made a difference to my stomach is boring core pilates style exercises twice a day.

So do the cardio for the weight loss and the pilates for toning the muscles underneath!

[Orangesarenottheonlyfruit]

Good to here about the shred, foreveronadiet, am about to do that now have done the tri!

[foreverondiet]

oranges - combo of shred and diet with no processed food or sugar or refined carbs etc and you'll have a 6 pack too (actually no 6 pack yet but do have definition, and totally flat stomach) BUT if I go back to eating carbs esp sugar just get bloated again including flabby stomach. Pilates sounds good too.

I did sprint distance, wasn't brave enough for olympic one (& don't have the time!) but hope to do olympic one next summer.

[wildstrawberryplace]

In addition to the points already made, there are some "cheats" that you can employ to help with fat loss.

DH has been reading The 4 hour body by Tim Ferriss. It's basically a collection of self experimentations followed by him and people following his blog, to achieve maximum fat loss safely.

DH has followed a couple of the tips and has lost so much fat, despite not being actually overweight to start off with. One of the major tips is swimming, preferably in cold water. Also cold showers. Apparently there is some biological mechanism which encourages the body to burn off brown fat when it is exposed to cold temperatures.

Having seen DHs success I am going to start too!

The other one is to avoid dairy products. Apparently they cause the body to release lots of the fat storing hormone insulin. I don't know if I can do that one though, I like my milky coffee in the morning.

Tim Ferriss also reccommends kettlebell swings and a slow carb diet (protein/fat + green veggies + 1 serving of pulses at each meal apart from one day a week when you can eat whatever you like, to trick your metabolism from slowing and thus preventing plateaus.) It's not a ketogenic diet, but you lose fat just as quickly/steadily. It is also easier to stick to long term.

Anyway, lots of these tips can found online in his blog.

Good luck.

[Orangesarenottheonlyfruit]

Cheers both. Quite like the idea of cold showers. A masochistic part of me believes that pain should be involved for beauty!!!

War on the wobble begins here!

[foreverondiet]

My DH also reading Tim Feriss's book. Well worth a read.

[BabyReindeer]

Running will really tone everything up from the midrif area downwards. Sadly I'm not running as much as I did but I was quite astonished last summer how much difference it made.

[BrokenBananaTantrum]

Is it safe for me to start running when I'm so overweight?

[wildstrawberryplace]

You could start off with v.fast walking...almost running but less impact?

[foreverondiet]

re: running, make sure you have good sports bra and good trainers and start very slowly, eg to start with something like:

1 min normal walking, 1 min fast walking, 20 seconds slow jog, 1 mins normal walking, 1 min fast walking, 20 secs slow jog etc

As you get fitter gradually decrease the length of the walking bits and increase the length of the running bits. The aim being that by the time you aren't quite as overweight you'll be able to run for 30 mins (ie 5km run).

Cycling and swimming both also good in meantime. If you can do 6x a week then try 2 of each workout (swimming/cycling/walking & jogging).

[BrokenBananaTantrum]

That's great advice thanks. I'm going to have a go at it tomorrow night.