I'm doing well on JC and exercise regularly. Unfortunately, I still have a big, jiggly, fat stomach. I'm a pear (most of the weight's on my hips and thighs), so the big gut is new to me. Any advice on how to lose the stomach? Do situps work at flattening my stomach? I know weight loss and cardio will help me lose fat overall, but what can I do to shrink this big gut? I can't blame it on pregnancy anymore because the baby's 18 mos. old now. Thanks!

There is no way to "spot reduce". The fat will come off at its own pace from where ever it seems to want to. I know this really bites, because I have a HUGE belly and would LOVE LOVE LOVE for the fat to go away.

Sit ups, crunches, etc. will help to tone the muscles underneath so that once the fat is gone your belly will be toned. Cardio (particularly with intervals) will burn the most fat. Weight training will build and tone muscles in addition to increasing your metabolism. A combination of the two will give you the best results for long term fitness, better looks, and weight maintenance.

Take care,
Angela

A trainer once told me (and I'm paraphrasing here..... ), "we all have 6-pack abs, it's just that some of us have a little extra fat getting in the way of us seeing it (them?)".

So, keep up the ab work (and don't forget your back, too, for full core strengthening. You'll develop your toned belly, so when the weight comes off, you'll see the results.

Core strengthening exercise, like Pilates, is a lot less tedious than endless crunches, but with equal or even better results.

Ahhhh the old Kangaroo pouch, as I like to call it--yea I have one of those. I asked my consultant about this too. I bought the balance ball from Jenny C. in hopes of trying to see that wonderful little six pack that I have lying beneath the bulge, lol, but my consultant told me to concentrate on the weight loss first. Cardio is the best way to loose fat and once you have reached your "healthy" weight then if you start your crunches the results may come a little easier. I do have one tip that I have been doing since I started J.C--When doing your cardio, whether it be the treadmill, eliptical, walking etc....squeeze your stomach in while doing it. I have read about doing this in several magazines and my son told me about it too (he is training to be a fitness instructor), and I also have the Wii game called "FITNESS COACH" and when I do the cardio routine the intructor on the game is always telling me to squeeze in my abdomen. I honestly dont know exactly what it does but it does help take off the inches. I am one that hates crunches--believe me hate is putting it midly but, I have lost alot of inches and doing the crunches on the ball is really so much less stressful on the back. I was told to wait until my healthy weight was met because when I did do the crunches (before being instructed to wait) I was sore for like a week. My son and my consultant tells me thart when you work out muscles, that havent been touched in decades, the muscles fill with water (and some kind of enzyme) to help with the repair process. I certainly dont need any water weight so I chose to wait until I reached my goal. Hope this helps at all. Good luck

By squeezing your abs, you're engaging the muscles. When the muscles are engaged, they are being worked. So, rather than letting your body hang, and dragging it through the cardio routine, you're including muscles that you might not think to include, when you're stepping, jogging, etc. Really, it's the same with any exercise. When you do squats or something, you want to give a little squeeze in your butt, at the top of the exercise. When you do bicep curls, you want to find that spot where the muscle is most engaged, and squeeze it. One of the most important parts of working your various muscles, is to feel that the muscle being worked is actually the one that you've isolated and engaged in the exercise.