To feel ashamed, embarrassed and not know how to fix this?

[Avatarthewayofwater]

I've taken the image from Google as I'm far to embarrassed to take a picture of myself.

Any weight I gain goes on my stomach and due to emotional binge eating I find myself here.

I did have ultrasound scans to check nothing underlying was going on, but no its visceral fat and only I can get rid if it.

The problem is I've changed my diet completely and calorie counting and eating healthy along with exercise. Yet nothing has changed stomach wise.

I'm so self conscious and I can't wear normal clothes because I constantly look pregnant.

Even at the gym I hide in a big hoodie so no one can see.

It's making me depressed and I don't know how to get rid of the stomach fat.

Has anyone else been like this and managed? I had a c section years ago and have an underactive thyroid if that makes any difference.

Please be kind...

I think you should consider carefully whether this is sustainable for you, do you have an idea of how many calories you need a day and how much of a deficit you’re creating with this? You want to put something in place that you can sustain long term so anything that’s too punishing is a mistake IMO, unless you have iron willpower!

And are you weighing and tracking your food? Tacos with minced beef could be anywhere between a few hundred and over a thousand calories, it depends on the portion size and what else is going into it.

I tend to do well in the day and then fuck up in the evening if I am being strict with my diet, I manage fine in the day time when Im busy at work then overeat when DP cooks tea. Right now I am consciously aiming for higher calories (2,000) which based on my exercise should still result in weight loss, so I don’t feel deprived and don’t binge.

I agree. I work with endocrine doctors and they would agree. However she can’t go changing her medication and it’s dangerous advice to suggest she do so.

That would be a seriously large lunch for me - I'd have either the eggs or tuna, not both, with the veg, and that's on a maintenance eating pattern. I'd never lose any weight if I ate a lunch that size, I'd probably gain.

You might have a bacterial imbalance. Looks like you’re not digesting food properly. Gluten intolerance can make it very hard to lose belly fat. Maybe get some probiotics, quit gluten and do more exercises that will work your abdominal muscles, some resistance training. Walking is great but it isn’t enough to lose belly fat. You’ll feel better if you make sure to get a sweat on.

Fair play to you for getting up and doing it, but a 4am start to go to the gym before work is quite extreme! Why don't you just put a fitness video on and jump about your living room for 30 mins? The FitOn app is a good shout, I'd forgotten about that. Fair enough on the days that you're lifting weights you need to be in the gym (although you could do that at home too, if you bought some), but that won't be every day, more like 3x a week. The hassle of going to the gym just to use the treadmill is pointless imo. Are you really going to do this every day? I'd worry it's unsustainable, and you'd end up packing it all in.

Are you weighing everything? The oil you cook with, sauces/mayo you put on, spoonfuls of cottage cheese/yoghurt, milk in coffee, etc, etc.

Most people (especially those who are overweight and have past of disordered eating) massively underestimate calories.

It’s essential you are in a calorie deficit for body fat loss. Going to the gym every day, cutting things out your diet, walking loads etc is all pointless if you aren’t weighing your food/accurately tracking calories.

Cottage cheese, 2 eggs and a tin tuna seems like a massive lunch in all honestly. Plus your dinner. I’d have either tuna, cheese or eggs personally.
Fair enough if you are weighing and accurately tracking and it’s small portions and coming in as a deficit though. If you are just estimating without weighing though you could easily be over based on the food you’ve described.

Yes I am logging everything on mfp and my smart watch is linked too so it works out when I need extra calories from exercising.

I know I keep asking, but what are you logging as ‘mixed veg’? What vegetables.

And are you logging all sauces/condiments/add ins? For example, if you scrambled the eggs with butter, black pepper and some milk, don’t just log the eggs.

Roughly how many calories net are you aiming for a day? I need to get to 1200 net to lose weight - and I tend to put on weight in exactly the same place as you. Looking at your meal plan - that breakfast alone must be pushing close to 500 calories. I wouldn't even eat 500 calories for lunch, let alone breakfast, if I was aiming to maintain or lose weight. Add on probably another 500 for lunch, assuming you had more than just eggs in your scrambled eggs. That's 1000 calories before you have dinner, without snacks. And people can massively overestimate how many calories they're burning through exercise - you'd need to do an awful lot of exercise to create a calorie deficit with a diet like that. My DP does a serious amount of sport (ex pro Rugby player) and he wouldn't eat that much for breakfast and lunch.

I don't mean to sound unkind BTW - it's hard. I know, I've been there.

But are you WEIGHING everything?
Not just logging 2 eggs as scrambled eggs. Are you WEIGHING how much oil you cook in? Weighing how much milk in your coffee? Weighing butter on your toast? Weighing nuts/fruit/yoghurt you eat? Weighing mayonnaise you put on things, dressing on salad?

I wouldn’t deduct the calories from exercise. Unless you are working out at very intensive levels. Walking for 30 minutes on a treadmill is pretty insignificant in terms of calories and will often be overestimated on smart watches/mfp.
Body fat loss will come from what you eat. Cardio is great in lots of ways but I wouldn’t subtract from your calorie expenditure. It can also make you hungry and make sticking to a deficit difficult/miserable. Weight lifting doesn’t do this.
Get lifting those weights ASAP, even if it’s just your body weight resistance for now - push ups, plank etc. Getting up at 4am could be MUCH better spent by doing shorter amount of time on weights. Sleep is also important for weight loss.

Keep drinking masses of water - loads and loads! X

Completely agree with this.

Unless you are in a very active job then doing intensive sports on top, I would never deduct exercise calories.
As a whole, we are far more sedentary than we are designed to be as humans. Doing several hours of walking/physical exercise should be the norm, not something extra in order to eat extra food!

100%. I walk over 2 hours a day to and from work (I like walking) and it wouldn't even occur to me to log those calories. I can easily do 15-20k steps a day. That's just compensating for a sedentary office day.

And yes on weights. If I want to dump a few pounds I hit the weights.

Seriously large lunch and not enough breakfast. For breakfast, I either have oats, zero fat yoghurt and fruit (put together overnight) or sometimes grilled bacon fat removed, scrambled eggs and baked beans. Lunch a baked potato with tuna in brine (whole small tine) and a tablespoon of low fat mayo (substitute beans if not had for breakfast) and dinner - which has to accommodate lactose intolerant DH - something like pasta with low fat mince, mushrooms, peppers and using a low fat frying agent etc as a bolognese style sauce. I have lost over a stone since the middle of Aug 22 (and feel much better). Excercise consists of bell ringing 3 times a week, a modicum of housework (more interesting things to do) and some gardening. Losing weight from tums is hard and I doubt 30 minutes a day on a running machine will do it - it needs exercises that involve stomach muscles such as lying on the floor and raising the legs (don't know name for this!) in order to return some tone - but only with GP's advice, esp if have had a C-section.

You can’t target fat loss from a specific area of the body unfortunately. Doing all/only abs work as your exercise will do nothing to reduce the body fat on your stomach.
The only way to lose body fat is through a calorie deficit. There isn’t a way to control which areas of the body the fat comes off first.

You can target which areas of the body you muscle build. As a woman building stomach muscles that show is incredibly hard. You need very little body fat and a huge amount of training.

Far, far better to work on weight training in all areas or the body - arms, legs, back, shoulders, stomach, bum.

100% - I put weight on my belly first and lose it last.

Well, I agree about calorie deficit - it is the only way. I wasn't suggesting not doing other exercise, of course.

Any exercise is great. Lots of people think if you do certain exercises (like doing exercises involving stomach muscles like you suggested) you will lose stomach fat.

It just doesn’t work like that.
You could spend hours every day doing sit ups, leg raises, stomach crunches etc etc but it doesn’t mean body fat will come away from your stomach. It will tone your stomach muscles under the layer of fat but unless you have very low body fat and you train incredibly hard, you won’t see any visible difference.

Agree.

Glad someone said not to deduct the exercise calories. Thought it was just me. If I'm working at a deficit I don't include exercise calories

Also looking at that, I think you may be undercounting calories (as well as eating far too many calories as carbs, they make me pile on weight, I need to keep carb % low). Unless you ate all of that dinner totally dry with nothing on it and just all steamed and poached. What did you cook the chicken breast in?

It's quite common if you've problems like an underactive thyroid. I found eating a yeast-free diet helped mine, combined with Tesco's shapewear. Stuff like Pilates can help your core and posture so it's better hidden. Don't give up on the diet and exercise as it will reduce it x

@Avatarthewayofwater - I hope you’re finding this useful and not seeing it as in any way critical. It’s really hard figuring out how to lose weight sometimes because it’s actually really personal. What works for some doesn’t work for others. So people sharing thoughts is just supposed to be helpful. I found it really hard to shift visceral fat and belly weight until I figured out through trial and error what worked for me. I think there may be a genetic component as well - I’m from a partly S Asian background and all the women in my family have a lot of belly weight if they carry extra. And all of us have an issue with carbs being really problematic for us. Doesn’t mean it’s the answer for you, but shared experience is sometimes helpful. I wouldn’t have figured it out for me without the wonderful women on MN sharing their thoughts a few years ago.