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You asked a question and I responded. You can’t expect only answers you want to hear
You have had or have a lot of health problems for 59. Did you ever stop and think your lifestyle may not be healthy? Pancreatitis is usually from an unhealthy lifestyle. Rsd is often from an injury, overuse or accident. The amount of cardio you do is a lot even for someone training for a sport. Regardless of weight. Very few people with pain conditions especially rsd one of the most painful and even in remission the high rate of it coming back are running hard or hiking 7 miles. If the health problems you have are not an issue anymore why even mention them?
What answer are you looking for? The fact is you can’t spot reduce. You also can’t build muscle out of bone. If you want to build muscle and have a leaner looking body you will have to gain weight. Then focus on strength training and less cardio. It’s called recomposition. Awhile back a lady on another site posted a picture of herself at 125 and 145. One she had very little muscle and one she was toned. She looked thinner at 145 and had a lot of definition. All the cardio you do is just burning calories. At 59 and a female it will be a slow process
... being a little underweight, but I have heard that it is very unhealthy. Yet, I have also heard that having fat around your middle is unhealthy....
Being underweight is not in itself unhealthy-- it's just that to be underweight, your state of nutrition may not be good, so you have a harder time recovering during an illness...People who put weight on in the frontal abdominal area have a higher risk of CAD compared to those who put it on laterally-- that doesn;t mean that losing that frontal fat reduces your risk-- the genetics that leads to both CAD and to frontal obesity is what counts, not the fat itself.
You cannot "spot reduce" for the reasons I stated earlier. As we age, our body shapes usually change-- They'll never repeal The Law of Gravity...If for some reason you feel a need to be shaped like a 20y/o at age 50, then try liposuction. You won't do it by diet and exrcise.
I am a 59 y.o. female. My BMI is 18.5, right at the low end of normal. I exercise every single day in some way whether it be walking, running, cycling, working out with weights, etc. And yet, I still have a rim of fat in the belly area. My waistline used to be 24” when I was young and now it is 27”.
I have a healthy diet for me. I have chronic pancreatitis so I must eat a very low fat diet (and can’t drink at all). That said, I eat lots of whole grains, veggies, fruit, lean protein etc.
So, this is it, then? I guess I’m just stuck with a rim of fat around my middle, unless I want to be officially underweight.
So give up and accept? Other options? (I mean besides plastic surgery. I don’t care nearly enough to do that l.l)
You may have more fat cells in that area, so whatever fat is on your body will always have more in that spot. For some it's their booty, others it's their thighs, etc. Liposuction is for precisely that situation.
Since you don't want liposuction, one thing to do is to work out with weights. You're doing that, but not enough, apparently. And you have to eat more protein to gain muscle. That has to be your main focus for a while, instead of running and other cardio. Running decreases muscle, depending on how much you do.
Your waist is larger now, despite weight the same or less than years ago, because you have lost a lot of muscle. We naturally lose muscle as we age. You have to work on muscle growth just to the stay the same.
I was noticing this same thing with me today...I remembered my waist was 25 1/2 - 26" years ago (weight 118), but now I weigh about 113 with a waist of about 27"...sometimes it measures 27.5". I knew at once it was a loss of muscle. Even though I weigh less, I'm larger because of loss of muscle (and bone, I guess).
I was supposed to be working on that last year but got sidetracked. I'm going to try to make myself buckle down and start a muscle growth exercise routine. I eat more protein now than last year, but maybe not enough.
One caveat: If you've had children, your waist will be larger now than before and will probably stay that way. (I didn't have children, so that's not why my waist is larger.)
Ok, great. So, I should starve myself, then not gain the weight back. I actually wouldn’t mind being a little underweight, but I have heard that it is very unhealthy. Yet, I have also heard that having fat around your middle is unhealthy. Maybe underweight is only unhealthy if it is a matter of being significantly underweight? I am currently 115 and 5’6”. Significantly underweight would be 10% below that, so 103.5 lbs. Maybe I should just try to lose 3-4 more pounds and add in more core and lower body strengthening?
Your weight is fine. In fact, if you gain muscle your weight would (and should) increase, but at the same time your measurements would decrease (maybe a little, maybe a lot...depends), and your body fat would decrease. Your bmi would probably increase.
The unhealthy aspect of midsection fat doesn't apply to your case, in my lay person's opinion (but you can research that). What that is talking about is someone who has the proverbial beer belly or is obese or has a lot of fat in the belly, because that means the organs will also have more fat...too much fat. You aren't fat enough for that to apply. You're not fat at all, actually. You just have the "roll" in front that some women have, it sounds like?
Also to consider regarding your waist/belly is if your increased waist measurement is just in the front, or also on the sides and back. A lot of women develop back fat above the waist, when they gain weight. You can't spot reduce, but you'll want to keep an eye on those areas, too, as you gain muscle, to see if those areas improve.
I've read that it's best to be careful when exercising the sides of the waist, since some exercises can cause the waist to thicken on the sides. I don't know if that's true, but consider that. I think that bends and twists should be fine, but whether you should bend to the side holding weights, I'm not sure. I need to look that up.
Good luck. I'm going to try to increase muscle and get my waist down, too. It takes a while to build muscle, so I don't know when I'll see results. Losing weight isn't the answer, though. I accidentally lost weight from 118 lbs to 108 lbs a couple of yrs ago. I thought I looked great...better at 110. But people told me I was too thin. I was happy because my midriff and abdoment was flat & looked great. But I finally saw what others were talking about: I'd lost booty, my skin wasn't taut on my arms, my face was a bit drawn. I've gained a bit of weight, so I'm looking better. I just need to add muscle.
You asked a question and I responded. You can’t expect only answers you want to hear
You have had or have a lot of health problems for 59. Did you ever stop and think your lifestyle may not be healthy? Pancreatitis is usually from an unhealthy lifestyle. Rsd is often from an injury, overuse or accident. The amount of cardio you do is a lot even for someone training for a sport. Regardless of weight. Very few people with pain conditions especially rsd one of the most painful and even in remission the high rate of it coming back are running hard or hiking 7 miles. If the health problems you have are not an issue anymore why even mention them?
What answer are you looking for? The fact is you can’t spot reduce. You also can’t build muscle out of bone. If you want to build muscle and have a leaner looking body you will have to gain weight. Then focus on strength training and less cardio. It’s called recomposition. Awhile back a lady on another site posted a picture of herself at 125 and 145. One she had very little muscle and one she was toned. She looked thinner at 145 and had a lot of definition. All the cardio you do is just burning calories. At 59 and a female it will be a slow process
No, my pancreatitis was not due to lifestyle. It was iatrogenically (medically)-induced. I had my first series of attacks as an uncommon side effect of a medication (Azathioprine) for a rare autoimmune disease (autoimmune inner ear disorder). This rare autoimmune disease causes rapid bilateral progressive deafness. In fact, I went from hearing perfectly to being legally deaf in one ear and significantly impaired in the other in about 3 months. The cause of the autoimmune disease is officially unknown, but it came on the day after I had a flu shot, so I always wonder about that. In any case, we stopped the Azathioprine and I recovered slowly from the pancreatitis. But I never fully recovered from the attacks. I am no longer sick every day as I was back in 2017. And in fact I am still slowly improving year over year, but the improvement is very slow and sadly I will never be able to eat normally again.
My heart arrhythmias were also triggered by medication given for the Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease. I never had a problem before until I withdrew from high-dose corticosteroids without an adequate taper.
And my (atypical) RSD and repetitive strain injuries came on over 20 years ago when I was in grad school. It got to the point where I was pretty disabled, but I finally went to an amazing, well-known therapist and worked with her every day for five months and recovered almost all of my functioning. Years later, I still do all the exercises she prescribed and I am pain-free 99% of the time.
So, where you see a story of ill health due to lifestyle choices, the truth is more long-term recovery of health after lots of bad luck.
I mention the health problems because I still have some limits. It is by respecting those limits that I currently have an awesome lifestyle, if I do say so myself
By the way, I have been doing lower-body strengthening exercises along with attention to my diet and have dropped somewhere between 1/2” and 1” off my waist and about 2-3 pounds of weight while also feeling great. I have decided not to lose anymore weight — yesterday I successfully wore a tight-waisted dress I bought 35 years ago — good enough for me! — and am only going to be focussing on maintaining the new healthier diet (more fruit and veggies, less bread and fro-yo bars) and the new lower body routine.
If you read medical sources, as I have done recently, you will see that being problematically underweight comes with symptoms — fatigue, frequent infections etc. If you still have tons of energy, look good and are not getting sick, you probably aren’t problematically underweight.
Last edited by Jill_Schramm; 04-17-2023 at 04:03 AM..
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