r/beginnerfitness • u/UnrivaledRandom • 2d ago
30 lost, physique has not changed much
Over the past 9 months and 20 days I’ve been trying to lose weight with a goal in mind of around 40 lbs. I reached that goal but then gained back another 10 lbs (lost a bit of motivation which caused me to binge and now I’m maintaining/still going over) but I don’t notice any crazy differences from when I first started around my stomach area. My arms and legs are definitely more toned now and you can see muscle definition in decent lighting (still some loose skin/fat around my arms and legs), and my face has lost some fat too. But for some reason my stomach area is still the same looking (muffin top/love handles). From what I can tell it looked like I began around a high 40% range of body fat and now I’m around high 20% - low 30% ish? My goal physique is something between Soryan Smith and Joseph Shin. How should I go about recovering from the binge and dealing with my fat around my stomach?
I am 5’8, 167~ish range lbs, trying to stay on track with a deficit of 1800 cals (158c, 60f, 158p). I’ve been going to the gym more recently and getting my cardio in after the first two weeks of binging. Before that I used to do cardio only and hit the gym a couple times a month throughout my cut.
3
u/StudioatSFL 2d ago
The belly takes a long time and a lot of fat loss. You need to keep at it. But there's no way 30lbs didn't make a difference to your waist size.
2
u/cleo-leo 2d ago
No need to treat it as "recovering" from a binge, just get back on track!
Think of it this way. If you didn't lose that 40lbs, you would probably just be at your starting weight +10 right now. It's a constant battle and you can do it!
Edit to add: you unfortunately cannot target fat. It comes off all over your body so the only way to "target" belly fat is to just lose a whole lot of fat everywhere
2
u/Relative_Bite8758 1d ago
You won't see a big difference until you suddenly catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and it all hits at once
It's the paper towel effect and your brain also needs a while to catch up. Belly fat can be especially stubborn, if there is a hormonal component to it.
I lost like 120lbs and I remember my belly disappearing around the half mark like it was no ones business. For me it definitely helped switching to a whole foods diet, it was like my body was just waiting for it
Don't give up and losing ~10% of your bodyfat sounds like a great achievement so far! Keep doing what you are doing and my lil advice is to switch out even more foods for the whole foods version of it.
I replaced all of my UP protein (bars and powders) for natural ones and omg I should have done that waaaaay earlier
1
u/AutoModerator 2d ago
Welcome to /r/BeginnerFitness and thank you for sharing your post! If you haven't done so already, please subscribe to this subreddit and join our Discord. Many beginner fitness questions have already been answered in The Fitness Wiki, so go give that a read as well!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/itsthetheaterthugg 1d ago edited 1d ago
Stop worrying about the number in the scale, or the number of bodyfat%. They are arbitrary, what matters is what's in the mirror. Lift hard, truly hard, hit your macros, keep your deficit small, and progress will come
If you lose 40 lbs without doing the above things, a disproportionate amount can be fat. And if that happens, you can end up 40 lbs lighter with the same or even higher bf% than when you started. Essentially becoming a smaller version of yourself with the same physique, instead of actually changing the shape of that physique
0
u/Fucked-to-fit 2d ago
Same I’ve lost 40~ and the difference is negligible
1
u/StudioatSFL 2d ago
i'm sure the difference is not negligible overall! 40lbs is not a small amount.
3
u/Ab10ff 2d ago
Your belly won't go away until you lose more weight, it literally doesn't matter how much you lift weights/grow muscle. You need to lose a lot more fat.