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Losing weight only on my legs

Dave563 Posts: 4 Joined: 2006/08/23	2006/09/08, 06:13 AM I'm doing treadmill everyday and I'm not losing weight in my stomach. I'm losing weight on my legs only. I'm also lifting weights. I'm trying to loose my gut and bulk up. What is I'm doing wrong?
	2006/09/08, 07:31 AM You can not spot reduce. I am sure you are losing weight in more places than your legs. Trying to lose and bulk up ?? Well which is it ?? Look to your diet.
RavenRP Posts: 16 Joined: 2005/10/24	2006/09/08, 01:57 PM For a while I felt like you in my bodies’ response. My bike was ripping up my legs in a good way but the gut just couldn’t seem to shake it off. Losing but I wanted more. I am no doctor or expert of any kind so keep in mind I am just a shmow talking out his ear. But I think since muscle eats fat it will burn fat easier in areas that have more muscle and if your working your legs more therefore they are getting more response in that way. But keep in mind if you are losing weight then you are losing weight every where. I think it just tends to come off the belly in a visual way last. It has the softest area, but its losing also it just takes longer. I would recommend some core exorcise. I started doing a workout video that does a mixture of styles and I can really feel the core strengthening. I believe its trimming my gut. I still have too much belly fat but I can feel a hard surface emerging underneath and I believe the core work and abdominal work is doing it. But also be forewarned core work tends to raise Cain on the legs as well. Shoot I can hardly walk down the stairs for a bit after a good workout. My balance and flexibility and I believe overall strength is talking off from core. Keep up the weights. For that matter keep up whatever work you like doing. Hard legs feel good don’t they?
bb1fit Posts: 11,105 Joined: 2001/06/30	2006/09/08, 02:14 PM Bottom line, bodyfat does not care where it comes off of. It will shed from the easiest place first, hardest last. Men's lower waist fat(the fat that keeps one seeing a 4 pack for instance instead of a 6 pack) will normally be last to go.(on a man). It is tough. The only thing probably tougher is lower bodyfat on a woman. :) -------------- Maximus from Gladiator....Strength and Honor!
RavenRP Posts: 16 Joined: 2005/10/24	2006/09/08, 02:17 PM right on!
bb1fit Posts: 11,105 Joined: 2001/06/30	2006/09/08, 02:48 PM Body density assumptions..... If there is a single major problem with the current body composition methods, it has to do with body density. Backing up, and I mentioned this in the previous articles, methods such as calipers are actually estimating body density. Body density estimates then go into a second equation (called the equation of Siri) which converts body density to bodyfat percentage. One of the key sets of assumptions used for bodyfat measurement is that certain tissues (i.e. fat, muscle, water) have a given density, that that density is unchanging, and that it is constant from person to person. ALL 3 ARE WRONG! The original body density determinations were done on a small group of older male Caucasian cadavers. First they were also underwater weighed. Then the cadavers were dissected so that each component could be weighed and measured for density. This data was used to develop the original underwater weighing equations and body density numbers. Older sedentary males hardly have the same tissue density as a young male (or female) athlete. For decades researchers used the same values regardless. For the underwater weighing, the residual volume issue is a non-issue since cadavers don't have to exhale their air out. But it factors for living individuals. Newer methods like MRI and DEXA allow such values to be determined for each individual (bone scanners to check for osteoporosis are measuring bone density). MRI is unrealistic out of the lab or hospital setting while DEXA costs are coming down (as mentioned last week). Now, while you won't see huge differences in the density of a given tissue, it's not a total constant. Heavy training is known to increase bone density, disuse to decrease it. Bone density is assumed to decrease with age and that is factored into the equations. That's not always a correct assumption. One female bodybuilder I trained had the bone density of a 20 year old although she was in her 40's, so you can see the problems in assuming that bone density goes down with age. This is as big part of why some of the bodyfat estimations you will see for athletes are unrealistically low (sometimes you get negative numbers): the body density estimations are all wrong. There are also racial differences in bone density. On average, African-Americans have denser bones than Caucasians who have denser bones than Asians. So an equation that uses the bone density value for Caucasians will over- or underestimate other ethnic groups. Studies are showing that one type of lean body mass (called essential LBM) has a different density than another type (called inessential LBM). Researchers now delineate different types of subcutaneous bodyfat, which may have different densities as well. You're probably starting to get the idea of the complexity of the situation. Ultimately, since all body composition methods are based on body density assumptions, they all at least share that set of problems. -------------- Maximus from Gladiator....Strength and Honor!