I lift iron 10 pounds weights when I do my sit-ups (starting today), how long be!

I lift iron 10 pounds weights when I do my sit-ups (starting today), how long before I see results?

Trust me: you CANNOT get a flat stomach from doing sit-ups, weighted or not. It is 100% diet-based. You can burn calories at the gym and the energy can come from your body fat, putting you on the path toward tightening your stomach. This combined with putting yourself on a calories deficit (eating less than you burn every day) will cause you to lose weight.

Finally, sit ups will strengthen the stomach muscles, though they will NOT be visible until you shrink the fat cells down with dieting. Doing sit-ups too many times per week will lead to injuries, including a bad back, as you have found.

If you truly want a flat stomach, join a gym and hire a trainer to put you on a regimen. It isn't as bad as many think. In fact, it becomes fun and you will enjoy many other benefits in addition to a tighter midsection. I say this to steer you away from the gadgets you see on TV - I promise you that none work and all of those demonstrators are models that are on diets. Further, any attempt other than diet and exercising the RIGHT way is a big waste of time.

Here are some diet tips:

First things first. When you eat less calories than you burn, you will lose weight. The questions, is do you want to lose muscle or fat. (It will make a big difference as to how you look when you achieve your weight loss goal.)

One pound of FAT = 3500 calories

Surely you want to burn fat and hold onto as much muscle as you can. The best defense to ensure this, generally speaking, is to eat proten with every meal. Why? To spare your body from losing muscle, which IS protein. A safe method is to go to a calculator on a website (search for "calorie counter" on Google). That will give you a rough estimate. Next, subtract 500 calories from that to put you on pace to lose one pound of fat per week (-500 calories times 7 days equals -3500 calories per week = one pound of fat loss.) Remember, eat protein with every meal, about 20-35 grams to be safe. If you find that you are losing more than one pound per week, that means that you are losing muscle. Below is what you need to do in that situation:

To ensure you are burning fat and not muscle as you restrict your calories, it also helps to workout since your body is adaptive, meaning that to keep muscle, you have to give your body a reason to do so such as working out. If you work the muscle, your body basically says, "We have to hold onto the muscle to do all of this work, so we can't burn it for energy. We'll have to use the fat, as it is less important to our survival." Hence, you get lean and reach the image you have in your mind; your goal.

Trust me, in most cases the end result of "losing weight" doesn't look good. You can disguise it in clothes and other out of shape people may think you look "great," but nothing beats a fit body. It doesn't have to be an extreme physique, like in the magazines, but a little exercise goes a long way with proper dieting. And you will realize countless benefits, in addition to enhanced good looks!

Good Luck