Lower body fat wont go!

[molokhia]

18 year old male...

I've been working out and doing cardio since November. My upper body is fine but my butt and legs have all the fat on my body.

I started out at 172 and currently I weigh 157. All my lifts have increased and I am stronger than I was in November but I havent lost any fat from my lower body. It just comes off of my stomach.

I go to the gym 6 days a week, 4 days lifting, HIIT 4 times, and indoor soccer once a week. My caloric intake is 2200 calories and I usually get 200 grams of protein, 300 grams of carbs and the rest is fat.

Usually my routine is:
Sun-HIIT
Mon-chest/tris/HIIT
Tue-HIIT/Shoulders
Wed-Back/Bis/indoor soccer for 40 minutes
Thur-HIIT
Fri-Legs
Sat-Rest

How can I get rid of this lower body fat? I'm worried about getting into the 140's and losing strength and still having the fat on me.

[Confucius Taoka]

Dude I have the same problem as you... I have a lot of fat around my butt area, I guess its genetics that there's more fat stored in those areas, but it'll go away eventually.

You need to work on those areas, do some work on glutes (kickbacks, Lunges, Deep squats) and legs (leg curls, squats...).

It'll go soon.

[molokhia]

I do spend a good amount of time on my legs.

As of late, my leg routine has been:

-4 sets a.ss to grass squats
-4 sets deadlifts
-2 sets straight leg dead lifts
-2 sets hamstring machine
-2 sets weighted dumbell lunges
-4 sets calve raises

I've already lost 15 pounds but none of it has gone away. In fact, my abs are looking leaner than ever but the lower body fat just makes my body look retarded.

I know 157 is pretty light but if I bulk, I'll still have too much fat on my lower body and it wont look good at all.

[OUFBALL09]

I had the same problem as you when I was a freshman in high school. I had a solid upperbody, but my stomach and ass were very high in fat. This is what I did, and it definatly helped me lose the weight:
1.) cut out sodas, diet included.
2.)eat organic food whenever possible.
3.)always check the ingredient labels on food for 2 things- partially hydrogenated oils, and high fructose corn syrup. Trans fats will kill your diet, and even though the package may say 0 grams trans fat, check the ingredient list anyway because if its .49g or less per serving, they dont have to include it on the nutrition facts. And this can add up very quickly unknowingly.
4.)on the treadmill do 1min sprint, 1min walk...2 min sprint, 1 min walk...3 min sprint, 1 min walk etc...

well hope that helps, it sure helped me.....goodluck bro

[molokhia]

My diet is already very good. I only drink water, about 10-12 glasses a day. I dont eat ANY processed foods. Everything is natural. The only unhealthy food I can think of is white buns that I eat with a chicken breast for lunch. The bun only has 110 calories where as 2 whole wheat slices would have 240 calories.

I've tried several HIIT routines as of late but I've been doing this one:

-5 min warm up
-25 second sprint
-35 sec rest
Repeat 10 times
-5 min warm up.

I get to about 180-185 BPM which is exactly where I think I should be while doing HIIT.

[OUFBALL09]

you might want to try taking some CLA and Fish Oil caps along with your diet and exercise

[molokhia]

Any more suggestions?

[AphtaLyfe]

Keep dieting, and lower your body fat.

Do you do squats? that will tighten up your lower body as well.

[molokhia]

Yes as I posted above...

I do spend a good amount of time on my legs.

As of late, my leg routine has been:

-4 sets a.ss to grass squats
-4 sets deadlifts
-2 sets straight leg dead lifts
-2 sets hamstring machine
-2 sets weighted dumbell lunges
-4 sets calve raises

[image101]

First of all, how tall are you?
You seem to be doing a ****load of exercise, and I get the feeling that you are definatly not eating enough to compensate. If you are too active and don't eat enough, your metabolism will slow down very quickly. HIIT 4 times a week is very hard as it is, but if your other workouts are anything like the leg routine you posted (plus you play soccer!!) you are more than likely overtraining.
HIIT + leg workouts like that, combined with a low caloric intake like yours will quickly eat up your leg muscles. It happened to me when I was doing something similar, but I wasn't even training as much as you are. If you lose muscle anywhere, that area will look smooth and flat, not toned up and hard.
Have you been getting weaker in the gym? I think you need to eat more, or stop doing so much cardio.

[Mythos219]

Any more suggestions?

The golden rule in cutting is calories in v. calories out. Even if you eat completely clean, if you are taking in more calories then you are burning, you will not lose weight. Start cutting calories very slowly. Take a 100 calories out from carbs, and see if there's any change. If not, drop some more calories. From the sound of things, you are like me, a meso-endo. I can cut calories down to 1500 and not lose any muscle, so don't worry about muscle loss (let the ectos sweat muscle loss, we have no worries about that) - as long as your PWO nutrition is in check and you aren't cutting calories too low (less than 1500), you will be fine.

[molokhia]

I'm 5'9 157 pounds.

I agree that HIIT 4 days a week is too much. Due to exams coming up I'll have to cut out 1 HIIT session so I'll be lifting 4 times, doing HIIT 3 times in 5 days per week. The two other days I'll just be eating 2200 calories.

I ddont think my leg day is that hardcore. Someone on another board told me if I have too much fat on my legs that I should spend much more time on my legs to see results.

I'm eating 2200 calories per day, which I dont think is too low at all. If anything, I think it's pretty high but when I plateau I'll be able to reduce my calories. I dont want to go any lower than 1800 calories but thank good I'm still losing weight at 2200 calories.

I was looking at my log book and it said that my butt/hips were 37 inches back in March 2004 when I weighed 140 pounds! Now I weigh 157 pounds and it's 37.5 inches.

[molokhia]

image101, my problem is the opposite. I CANT LOSE ANY WEIGHT AT ALL FROM MY LEGS!!! I dont think its easy for my body to lose muscle from my legs. I weighed 172 in November when I started and I've gotten much stronger while losing 15 pounds. All of my lifts have increased and I havent gotten weaker anywhere on my body. On Fridays I just work out my legs. I dont do HIIT or any other cardio. I do them on Friday so I can rest on Saturday and I'm usually 80% recovered by Sunday.

[AphtaLyfe]

Sorry about my last post, didn't notice you already did do a good lower body workout.

Only thing I can say is that you can't spot reduce but I'm sure you already know that.

I had some stubborn belly fat for a while, after dropping my body fat more and more the fat eventually went away.

Just keep losing body fat and you'll get to where you want to be.

[molokhia]

Can you guys estimate my body fat %?

As you can see my upper body is pretty small but my lower body is heavy and it makes my entire body look out of proportion.

http://tinypic.com/view/?pic=t5t25y

http://tinypic.com/view/?pic=t5t4pc

http://tinypic.com/view/?pic=t5t74w