Can Resistance Training to Lose Weight Lead to a Flabby Stomach?

During your first week of resistance training after a sedentary lifestyle, you may be anxious for immediate results, but sometimes your stomach will get flabby first. There are varied reasons for this demoralizing result; however, the flabbiness is typically temporary and is actually a good sign that you are on the right path. Keep up the good work to shed that flab.

  1. Resistance Training

    • Use a weight machine, a barbell or even just your own body weight to start a resistance-training program. Working with weights improves your muscle strength in a way that aerobic exercise cannot compete with. Other benefits include increased bone strength, an increased metabolic rate for calorie burning and enhanced quality of life. These are all long-term goals. In the short term, you may notice your stomach getting loose and jiggly. One possible reason for this is just that you've been inactive for a long time and have developed blubber fat.

    Increased Blood Flow

    • Blubber fat is fat that has been denied adequate blood circulation for so long that it has hardened. When you start to exercise -- particularly difficult exercise, such as resistance training -- you get blood back into those hard-to-decrease places, like your abdominals. As soon as your blood reaches the fat, it starts to break it down. Your fat becomes loose again. Don't despair if weeks of training lead to a belly of gelatin; this is merely the first step toward significant weight loss.

    Water Retention

    • When you pump those muscles, they get sore and your body sends fluid into them to fix that. If your abdominals are burning after crunches, planks and kettlebell swings, then expect a little increase in fluid in your waistline. While this may make you feel flabbier, it's not permanent. As your body adjusts to the routine of exercise, your fluid retention should reduce. Other ways to reduce fluid include cutting some salt out of your diet, drinking more water to flush out toxins and taking vitamins B5 and B6 to help your body process the fluids.

    Diet

    • When you perform resistance-training exercises, you use up calories. The first thing your body is going to urge you to do is replace those calories by eating more. Resist this urge. It's not uncommon to undo all of your hard work by accidentally eating more than you usually do now that you are exercising. According to nutritionists at Loyola University Health System, diet plays the bigger role in weight loss than exercise. If you notice extra flab on your stomach even after a few weeks of resistance training, then start counting your caloric intake to make sure you're not sabotaging yourself.