How to reduce waist size

[stargir]

Had an NHS health check today as I am over 50 years old, BMI 21.9 so fine, cholesterol and blood pressure all good but my waist is 81cm which is borderline increased risk of heart problems. I already do 4 classes at the gym each week including 2 spin classes where I leave dripping in sweat, weight is 9 stone, how do I lose inches off my waist? I’m pescatarian, barely drink, don’t smoke. The health professional didn’t seem concerned but I would like to reduce my waist size, I have always had a thick waist even when I was very underweight at 18. Any suggestions apart from sit ups etc which I already do sporadically.

You sound really healthy but if you want to train your core, Pilates would be a good one to add into the mix.

Sounds like a blood sugar / metabolic rate problem.
You need to cut out snacking between meals. Minimum 5 hours between eating and just water in between, not even tea / coffee. No carbonated drinks.
Cut out processed, refined carbohydrates and sugars. Get enough sleep. Make sure your bathroom habits are regular. You should see a reduction in your waist in 4 weeks.
Good luck!

Yes I am wondering if the spoonful of sugar and biscuit with my tea which I have up to 5 or 6 times a day is a bit of a sugar addiction. I don’t eat breakfast but can’t face food until after 10.30, meal portions are fairly small

No exercise will reduce fat around your waist. The only thing that will reduce the risk related to fat around your middle is calorie deficit and fat loss. There is no exercise that can be linked to fat loss in any area of the body.

If you want to have a slightly smaller waist through exercise you can try Pilates and also practice suck ins but they won't affect the risk related to fat around your middle.

Black coffee or tea is fine when fasting

A spoonful of sugar and a biscuit 5 times a day is 500 calories of junk. If you can cut out the biscuit you'll be making a very good start.

Wow! That’s a lot of sugar 😁 and I say that as someone with a sweet tooth.

Without doubt that is your problem and I bet if you can knock it on the head you’ll lose it off your waist - as PP’s have already said, try going lower carb.

Good lord! You have a bmi of less than 22 and yet you eat 5 or 6 biscuits with sugary tea every day? How on earth does that work?

I listened to a Zoe podcast at the end of last year about the redistribution of fat during menopause. It explained that ' belly fat' ( I hate the word 'belly') is an area where oestrogen is produced and an increase in fat here, in post menopausal women, was functional.when the ovaries stop working, our bodies lay down more fat here to compensate.

The podcast wasn't advocating massive increases in fat deposits, but was saying that woman ought to understand this process and not worry about this change when it doesn't reflect significant weight increase.

I am not sure if that's at all helpful OP, I'm just sharing in case it is.

Lindor - I guess it is because I don’t eat excess calories overall in a day, don’t eat breakfast and have small portion sizes. When I am in the office, 3 times a week, the tea and biscuit reduces to 3 times a day.

Thanks Brainworm, I will look for that podcast

No exercise will reduce fat around your waist...

I'm not sure that's true, at least we know that aerobic exercise reduces visceral fat = the fat around your organs. So relatively, for people who start from place of doing no exercise, engaging in an aerobic exercise routine will tend to reduce their waist size. Your organs are in your abdomen, so aerobic exercise should reduce fat storage in central area of body.

That may not help OP though if her fat storage has always been in the middle, and she already does aerobic exercise 4x/week, she may have achieved most of what she can achieve in possible waist fat reduction from aerobic exercise.

OP: could you get an estimate of your body fat %? Lots of ways to do that. Maybe your body fat isn't high, so then the seemingly high W to H ratio isn't the same risk potential for you than it would be for someone who actually has high body fat %.

OP's waist is 32" now. 57 kg & 1.61 cm tall.
OP, When you weighed < 47 kg, how small was your waist then?
I'm sure you know that fixing any worry about your waist size is not worth getting very underweight again.

That's not an easy paper to skim read! I was surprised as it goes against current accepted knowledge but this was interesting This meta-analysis showed that a decrease of visceral adipose tissue can be obtained by exercise without diet in people with overweight and obesity. Aerobic exercise of moderate to vigorous intensity seems to have a greater effect on VAT than low intensity aerobic exercise or strength training.
it wouldn't apply to the OP in that case.

This is great advice OP, particularly that exercise only gets rid of visceral fat if you're OW/obese to start with so it's probably time to look at what you eat instead.

I'm in a similar boat (low BMI 18-20 all my life, and odd belly fat since I was a child, despite being a very active person who used to be a sports instructor when younger) and recently came across the concept of visceral fat. It seems to be mainly to do with diet and simple carbohydrates (not just sugar) as far as I can make out. I'm going to try logging what I eat and see what the proportion of simple carbs is (white bread, pasta, white rice etc) and see whether I can make changes to that to get an improvement.

Aerobic exercise may reduce fat but you can’t target fat loss in specific areas. You can tone up areas which may make you look better but it won’t reduce the fat stored there.
Diet has a lot more impact on fat/weight loss vs exercise.

Waited hula hoop.

Weighted ^

According to the machine in my gym my visceral fat level is 5 and fat mass % is 25.7% but I’m not sure how accurate those machines are to be honest.

iirc, the W2H ratio thing is a true threshold. If you're in the healthy range then you're healthy. If you're beyond it, unhealthy. Being close doesn't matter, you just want to be on the healthy side of the line.

Also, The hazard of high W to H ratio is CVD risk: it sounds like OP has good CVD indicators other than her seemingly high W2H ratio. Which isn't over the unhealthy threshold, anyway. Most people with high W2H ratio will not otherwise have good indicators.

I'm still wondering what size waist OP had when she was 47 kg.

I can’t remember what my waist size was when I was <47kg, I have just always struggled to get a dress that fits, even at 7 stone when I was ill at age 18, as my proportions seem wrong with a really short thick body and longer legs, I am 164cm tall now and 59.2 kg with clothes on

You sound like a classic “straight up and down” shape. If you were this shape even at under 50kg then it is very very unlikely you’re going to be able to reduce your waist much now IMO. It’s just your shape. Rejoice in your long slim legs and wear short trapeze and swing dresses. I also doubt you have heart risk from it although I am not a doctor.

A weighted hula hoop or other oblique exercises (side plank with leg lifts for example) might do a tiny bit to whittle it but not a lot I suspect.