Loose lower belly (Below navel area)

Question

My lower belly (the navel area and below it) sticks out a bit. I am not fat. I am really slim; in fact my chest is just thin and normal, but the lower belly sticks out a bit.

I examined myself, and it seems my problem is neither loose connective tissues, nor anterior pelvic tilt. As far as being slim is concerned, it is kind of that I am not really really slim, but just a normal kind of guy, not skinny and not fat at all. I am a programmer, so I sit at my computer all day programming, less physical activities, so I also think that I might have a fat belly due to lots of food and no exercise.

Please suggest me a good exercise for a fat belly, especially the area around the navel.

Answer 1

There are plenty of possible reasons, here are my two best guesses:

No. 1 is an anterior pelvic tilt. Modern lifestyles with lots of sitting and shoes with heels lead to tight hip flexors, which lead to a tilted pelvis, a hollow back and a protruding belly.

Fixing this requires attack from multiple angles, there are many muscles involved here, not just the hip flexors. Ideally, you'd find out where your weakest links are and target those. In general, I'd recommend strengthening your glutes and stretching your hip flexors.

There are many ways to strengthen your glutes. Kettlebell swings or deadlifts are compound exercises with a strong emphasis on the glutes. I'm not sure squats would work as well, they don't use the whole posterior chain in the same way that swings or deadlifts do. Glute bridges and hip thrusts are a more focused approach.

There are also various ways to stretch your hip flexors. The classic is the lunge stretch. But be careful to do it with good form, or you'll just hyperextend your lower back rather than stretch your hip flexors. Tim Ferris is quite enthusiastic about Supine Groin (progressive) stretches from the Egoscue method.

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As for something completely different, your digestion can also cause your belly to produde. A bloated stomach is not flat.

Answer 2

In case you are actually really slim, then your condition can also be caused by weak connective tissue or by some kind of food intolerance.

The former can be caused by hormones, malnutrition or just simple biological predisposition. You can alleviate it by doing core exercises (both front and back!) but be careful to not create too much abdominal pressure, because if your connective tissue really is weakened, you might risk an umbilical hernia. If you strengthen your abdominal muscles your belly will look more evenly distributed.

But also check if you perhaps are suffering from any kind of malnutrition or dehydration, which also brings me to the latter possible cause: It is possible, that you are consuming some kind of food, which you cannot be digested properly. In this case the food is not digested, but fermented which often results in a bloated bowel and most likely flatulence.

Here you must experiment a little bit. Check if your condition gets worse after eating certain kinds of food. Pretty common are lactose intolerance and fructose intolerance, so if you notice that after eating dairy products or fruit you belly gets extended even more, you might have found a possible cause (but don't be paranoid, any food will extend your stomach and bowel a little bit)

If you are unsure with any of this, you should also ask a doctor to rule out any actual sickness.

A general advice in case these tips won't help you: By getting toned in general you can cover up many irregularities of your body.

Answer 3

Please suggest me a good exercise for a fat belly, specially the area around the navel.

I'm sorry to break it to you but there isn't such a thing as losing fat in a specific area. If you want to lose fat, you'll have to lose fat all over your body. I would suggest doing heavy compound lifts (squats, deadlifts) combined with some cardio.

You will also need to work on your diet. You stated that you think it might be because of "lots of food and no exercise". Try to find out how many calories you need in a day and don't eat more than that if you want to lose some fat.

Also, a small tip; doing ab exercises won't do as much for buring fat, as one might think. This is because you need to burn calories, and ab exercises don't burn a whole lot of it.

Answer 4

From a side view, how does your body look in terms of position of joints? Is your hip ahead of your shoulder? You should take a macro look at your entire body. Sitting a lot may cause tight hamstrings which may lead to a swayback posture. There may be an anterior shift in your pelvis and/or increased posterior tilt of your pelvis.