I’m flabby. I’ve got some prodigious belly flab and arm flab, and as you can see from my picture, my jowls are downright flabby, too. I recently decided to resist the purchase of larger pants . . . and perhaps sweatpants. I’m setting out to get rid of flab. I failed before, at least to keep the weight off. I’m sort of like a white, unpopular Oprah, riding up and down the scale with vigorous workouts followed by gluttonous feasts. This time I decided to research weight loss as well as how to get rid of those flabby trouble spots. What my research uncovered what most people (including me) deny to themselves: getting rid of flab is neither easy but nor is it as complicated as the hugely obese, $40 billion dollar weight-loss industry would have you believe.
Unless you’re sadly desperate to lose those pounds for an occasion like a wedding or reunion, forget about diet pills and fad programs—they are unhealthy, unsustainable, and sometimes dangerous. To get rid of flab, we’ll need to get educated about the kinds of foods humans are supposed to consume, exercise (both aerobic and anaerobic), and change habits, which is no small task. Getting rid of flab (whether you have belly flab, flabby thighs, or total flabbage) requires a sea change—a departure from the unhealthy lifestyles that are so well promoted and normalized.
Get Rid of Flab
The first thing you’ll need to do to get rid of flab is get your mind in the right place. Sit down and write about what your goals are, the sources of your obesity, and what has hindered your efforts in the past. What triggers unhealthy habits? Perhaps troubled relationships—familial and otherwise—cause eating binges. Perhaps a chaotic job keeps you sedentary and lifeless after hours. Without removing these impediments in your life, you will fall victim to old behaviors and fail to make the necessary changes to get rid of flab. This, undoubtedly, is the hardest part of weight loss.
To get rid of flab, you’ll need to ingest fewer calories than you expend each day. Healthy individuals are supposed to get 2,000 calories a day, but if you’re trying to lose weight, you’ll need to consume somewhere between 1,400 and 1,800, depending on your age, gender, and activity level. Going lower than this can be dangerous. Not only will you not get the proper nutrition, but rapid weight loss can lead to loose, lifeless skin (some people refer to this as flab). Cutting back can be a grueling experience, wrought with binges and cravings. Do some reading, watch TV, play video games . . . whatever. Distract yourself through those weak moments.
Eating healthy foods and avoiding the wicked ones is paramount to getting rid of flab. Vegetables and fruits should be the foundation and staple of your diet, as they are low energy density foods, which means they have few calories per gram. Fruits and veggies are also ripe with vitamins, minerals, and disease-preventing phytochemicals. If you’re truly making a lifestyle change, you’ll need to eat a balanced diet. You’ll need carbohydrates, protein, dairy, and even a little fat, but you should ingest far fewer servings of each than of fruits and vegetables, which you can almost eat limitlessly without adding flab.
If you’re eating right, exercise will not only help you get rid of flab but give you more energy throughout the day. Aerobic exercise is most important. Two different doctors recommended that I exercise hard enough to raise my heart rate and breathing for at least 40 minutes three to four times a week. Other sources recommend at least half an hour daily. Of course exercise burns calories, but it also builds muscle mass. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn, even while at rest or sleeping. Remember to start off slowly, especially if you haven’t recently been active.
Anaerobic exercise, such as weight training, is great for getting rid of flab, especially those trouble spots like stomach flab, underarm flab, and flabby thighs. Anaerobic exercise builds muscle more so than aerobic exercise, which mostly burns fat. If you are overweight bordering on obese like myself, spot targeting a certain area to get rid of flab isn’t viable—you’ll need to target the whole body via the steps above. However, with more muscle mass, you’ll burn more calories during any activity, and as the flab comes off, your body will look healthy and toned.Flab, Excess Skin, and Surgery
Individuals who lose a large quantity of weight are sometimes left with loose, saggy skin. Dealing with this flabby mess is mostly prevention. If you lose weight the healthy way, dropping around one pound a week, the chances of your skin fitting snuggly again rise. During and after weight loss, make sure to keep your skin healthy by protecting it from the sun, moisturizing, and taking fish oil supplements, which are high in essential fatty acids. Weight training during weight loss can also help, but many other factors come into play, such as how obese you were, how long you carried the weight, and age (skin loses its elasticity over time). Before you consider skin reduction surgery, make sure your problem isn’t just more excess fat. Also, after losing copious amounts of flab, the skin may need up to a year to recover . . . if it ever does. Skin reduction surgery is a major ordeal; aftercare and recovery is fairly serious and complications can arise. It is also quite expensive and no insurance company is going to help with a cosmetic operation.
