How can you lose weight in your arms and stomach?

Question

I have always had self esteem issues with my weight. Just lately though, it has been bothering me more and more (maybe b/c the media has been stressing weight loss so much recently) Nevertheless I became determined to lose it. I'm not extremely big (5'2 145lbs) I would really like some advice or a website that tells me how to get my stomach and arms smaller because I feel everywhere else on my body is the way it should be. So far, I have been drinking water and jogging around the neighborhood. I tried crunches but when I get up I get such a backache that it's hard to jog the next morning. Is there any exercises I can do on my stomach that won't hurt my back? Please serious answers only. Thankyou

Answer 1

First, for all of the "quick and easy" weight loss diet pill suggestions, remember, if something sounds too good to be true... it probably is, particularly if you have to pay for it.


On Yahoo!Answers I find certain questions being asked repeatedly which is simply a reflection of new people participating. A couple of common questions amount to "How do I lose weight," or more specifically, "How do I lose abdominal fat?" I have gotten very positive responses from my answers when I paused to reply (and now beginning to get "It works!" emails that are very gratifying. I like helping people)... so have recently decided to put a good solid answer on my Yahoo!360 Blog (September 10) that I can point people to. These are my thoughts as a physician and athlete.

Don't target losing more than about 2 lbs per week. If you try to lose faster, your body will go into "starvation mode" and get very stingy about burning calories while at the same time very efficient about storing any calories that you do provide. And it will make you feel awful.

There is no site specific way of losing fat... the old myth about working your abs to burn belly fat isn't true. To get rid of love handles, you need to lose overall fat. That happens with exercise and watching your diet. More on that below.

The most effective way to lose fat is aerobic exercise in the "moderate" fat-burning range, ideally first thing in the morning before you eat. When you wake your body is ready to burn fat and your levels of growth hormone are highest at that time. Later in the day it can take up to 30 minutes just to put your body into a fat-burning mode.

Another overlooked way to burn fat is by lifting weights. Skeletal muscle has very high caloric needs... almost twice that of adipose (fat) tissue. Put on a little muscle and you will burn calories all day even at rest. Be aware that skeletal muscle weighs more, so with this approach you may see your weight increasing while your body fat is melting away. Not realizing this often stresses folks who think they should be losing weight as a measure of fitness. Forget the scale, look in the mirror and you will be happy.

To lose a pound of fat, you need to eliminate about 3500 calories. You can do this by burning more with exercise or by modifying your diet to reduce intake. If you do a Google search on say, "swimming calories" you will quickly find a website with tables of calories burned for a given exercise. You can use such lists to estimate how many calories you are burning up with your routine.

For diet, keep a diary for a couple of weeks counting calories, grams of protein, and grams of fat intake. It is easy with online sources of nutritional information (type the name of the food and calories into the Google search engine) and packaging labels. That will let you quickly figure out where the fat is coming from in your diet.

Fat gives you 9 calories per gram. So take the number of grams of fat, multiply by 9, then calculate what percentage the fat calories are of your total daily calories. Restricting the calories from fat to about 20% of your total intake is ideal for a maintenance diet... that isn't overly restrictive. Of note, you need some fat in your diet. For instance, the body uses fat to produce hormones. Once you have a picture of how to modify your diet, you can drop the diary and just go back to it occasionally if you are wanting to tweek things further.

There is a subset of questions that goes further and asks about "How to get a six-pack?" The answer is the same. Six-packs are 20% abdominal exercise and 80% diet. There is one caveat... abdominal muscles will form in the position that you work them, so be certain to pull them tightly toward your spine while doing crunches, etc. Also, during most lifting, the "core is active" which means that you should be stabilizing with contracted abs then too. Fail to do this and the abs will form, but bulging outward and the result is not attractive.

If you are trying to build muscle as a way to lose fat, then you may need to increase total calories and specifically your protein intake. I target about 0.8 g of protein per pound of body weight each day when actively building. That is far more protein than most people need in their diets.


Aloha

Answer 2

At your height and weight, you probably have some extra flab to lose, unless you are very athletic and built of solid muscle. But I'm guessing that you don't exercise too much, and so any extra weight is simply excess body fat.

You can't control where your body puts on weight or loses weight, but you can control what you eat and how much you exercise. The best way to start out is to walk, ride a bike, or swim. Running is good if you are able to do so. Work up to 30-45 minutes, 4-5 times a week, working hard enough that you are breathing heavy. If you are just starting out, that is enough to build some muscle and get in shape. And it's free!

Building muscle is important because extra muscle mass burns calories 24/7, making it easier for you to lose weight and keep it off. But exercise often isn't enough to drop the pounds.

Keep a food diary. Write down everything you eat, and how much. If you aren't losing any pounds or inches by exercise alone, then start adding up those calories to see whether you really are eating as much as you should. People don’t always notice how much they eat, but their tummy keeps track of every extra calorie.

Answer 3

you are probably not doing warm up and streches before doing crunches thats why you are getting back ache or your posture may be wrong. crunches dont target the whole abdomen so you wont get the desired results by just doing crunches. here's my advice:
1. start your routine by first doing very light jumps standing in one place. you should land on your toes and not the heel. start with 10 jumps and do 3 sets and gradually increase 10 jumps every day.
2 get a skipping rope. start slow and build up to 1000 skips in 10 minutes.
3. continue with your jogging routine, however time yourself. and try to cover more distance in the same time.
4. do a few streches ... (oprah.com or ivillage.com have good suggestions for begginers )
5. do toe touches. stand with your legs slightly apart. straighten and raise both your arms above your head and slowly bending at waist take your body down so that your hands touch your toes and your forehead faces your knees ( in the start you moght not touch your toes and may need to slightly bend your knees) you will feel strech in the back of your thighs ( hamstring muscles)
6. lie on the floor and hands crossed behind your head, move your legs in cycling motion. do atleast 30 times and 3 sets.
7. Now try the crunches.
8. for arms you will again need to check out the above websites and do the appropriate weight training to get them in shape.
9.when you are comfortable with the above easy routine you can add other exercises with time but never forget to properly have a warmed up body before targeting your muscles to do a hard job. specially if you live in a cold region.

Answer 4

stomach: situps, crunches

arms: curls, pushup, bench press, incline lifting

nothing will work if you dont eat right while you work out. Stay away from sodas and junk food. Eat less bread and pastas. Drink more water. Do all that and you will get results!

Answer 5

Dumbells for your arms definately! And any leg and arm movements also help strenghen your stomach. Try a workout ball, much easier on the back.

Answer 6

go 20 mph on your bike for 6 1 2 minutes

Answer 7

host a party the cleaning and prep work will keep you off the couch

Answer 8

Cary the motivational picture with you

Answer 9

Just about any exercising uses up calories

Answer 10

One of the biggest things in dieting and losing weight I believe is paying attention to what you put on and in your body. And obviously losing weight may be easier for some people than it is for others due to many different things. You cannot expect to lose too much weight(fat) if you are continuing to put the wrong foods inside your body. Nutrition is a huge part of losing fat, which means that you need to be food conscious. Read the label and check the ingredients to find out what you are putting inside of your body. You need to avoid processed sugar which is in MANY different things you will find in the larger grocery stores in many different varieties. To disguise sweetener's and sugars in some different products, they may list this artificial sweeter in a scientific format that you will not be able to understand. You need to evade key ingredients including high fructose corn syrup, nutrasweet, MSG, fructose, dextrose, corn syrup, corn syrup solids, maltodextrin, aspartame. You also need to avoid "Trans Fat" which may be on the percentage table on the back of a product listed, or it may be listed in the "Ingredient" section as hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oil. Processed sugar is the white sugar, which is what you want to avoid, and you also want to avoid white flower. You also need to drink ALOT of water. Drinking 8 large glasses of water daily will help to flush the toxins out of your fat cells helping you to lose "weight".
Another big thing is that you need to eat a huge healthy breakfast and drink a large glass of water as soon as you wake up in the morning. Having a slow metabolism can be a problem for alot of people overweight and a large glass of water and a large healthy breakfast in the morning will jumpstart your metabolism immedietly. Diet is the foundation for weight-loss. You can rip your abdominal muscles all day long with excessive crunches but its only going to build muscle under fat, which you want, but you also need to shed the fat off obviously.
I recommend starting a diet that you like consisting of NO pork, trans fat, processed sugars or artificial sweeteners, and whatever else I mentioned above. To make everything simple, you should eat alot more fruits and vegetables(organic or not), and alot of lean meats. Minimize your dairy intake because it can be fattening. I recommend not eating ANY red meat because it will contain a whole lot of antibiotics and growth hormones and such which are bad for you anyway regardless of whether or not you are trying to shed fat. So eat veggies, fruits, and FISH to get your protein. You can eat salmon for about 4.99 a lb depending on what store you go to, you can get mahi mahi for a decent price, or other fish's including Tuna Fish in a can.
Walking is also fantastic for losing weight. Park your car a couple extra spaces out from the store before you go in and dont be afraid to just WALK THE DISTANCE. It is good for you. Dont be lazy. All of the above, with abdominal crunches included, will help you to lose the fat on your stomach and arms.

Answer 11

Add extra 10 or 15 mins to your cardio routine