Wife's stomach

[chuckg]

I'm hoping to get some advice for my wife. She's feeling down because, except for the rest of her body which has become quite toned, her stomach is still somewhat loose. Her routine is this:

Circuit training, 3 full circuits of 10 reps each exercise

Incline DB press/ incline flys superset
Weighted floor situps (20)
Squats/ Front squats superset
Leg lifts (10-15)
Shoulder press/ laterals
upper/ lower crunches (25)
Wide grip bent over rows/ pullovers superset
Skullcrushers/ bicep curl superset
SLDL's
Calf raises

Like I said, this is a circuit routine and she does 3 full circuits 3 times a week. Due to her schedule this seems to be the best routine for her. She enjoys it and she has gotten really nice benefits from it. Her body has become quite tone. Not ripped or real definitive muscle separation, but quite tone. But her stomach seems to be lagging. She's 42 years old, if that means anything with this. Her diet is somewhat of a low carb, high protein, low fat diet. She's currently 5'2" tall and weighs approx. 125. We haven't done a BF test because our little one (6 years old) was playing with the calipers and now they disappeared.
So i'm wondering, are more days of stomach in order, or is it something else. Does anyone have any recommendations? She's been working out for quite a few years now and it's become more present to her within the past 2-3 months. I also must add that due to her period, which affects her in a painful way (has all her life), she basically works out 3-4 weeks, then off the period week.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[Insex]

Originally Posted by chuckg

Her diet is somewhat of a low carb, high protein, low fat diet.

That might be the answer right there. Her diet might need an upgrade.

Looks like your wife is very disciplined in the weightlifting field. She does a lot of exercises that most women try to avoid. But like I said earlier, her diet might be to blame. Try having her increase her carb intake. When I say carbs, I'm talking about the good complex carbohydrates (vegetables, whole wheat, whole grains, pasta, brown rice, ect.) and not the unhealthy simple carbohydrates. If your wife is not trying to gain size, then she doesn't need to be on a high protein diet. Too much protein in a diet turns into unhealthy fat.

Also, does your wife do cardo? Because if not, then doing 20 to 40 minutes of cardio 3 times a week would definitely melt the fat off of there. Sometimes, working out with only the weights just isn't enough.

Just a thought, when you look at a football player, particularly offensive linemen, they workout a lot. They spend countless hours running out on the football field, doing drills, and lifting weights in the weight room. But they still have a big gut due to the fact that they eat like crap.

[pliny_2001]

Well, short answer is you can't spot reduce, so the only way to lose abdominal fat is to continue to lower your overall body fat. If her stomach is one of the first areas where she showed weight gain, it'll be one of the last to show its loss. And please don't take offense, as this is meant in only a diagnostic sense, but I think that 125 is a high weight to be looking for good abs at 5'2''. (sorry)

Another culprit may be the guy who stole your calipers. Others can go into more detail, but pregnancy can stretch out your abdominals to the point that nothing short of surgery can bring them to a pre-pregnant condition.

And Insex is right - adding cardio and fine-turning your diet are going to help melt fat. Hope this helps.

[Italianangel]

Diet! I would up the reps a tad too. Get her doing 15 now. She is used to it and fitter so she can probably do it in teh same time frame more or less.