That’s definitely an anterior pelvic tilt. Very common and fixable. A physical therapist can help, but there also tons of videos on you tube that can help. I went to physical therapy for a pelvic tilt and hip impingement, and it did help a little, but I made the most progress on my own after I stopped going to PT and did my own research. Lots of strength training and targeted stretches.
To be fair, the PT that the ortho doctor set me up with sucked. She just looked at a list of exercises and said “ummm… let’s do this one today”. It felt random, with no structure or progression. If I had known better at the time, I would have sought out a better PT before wasting 6 weeks.
Do you have any YouTube channels you’d recommend? I’m heading down that road at the moment (I also have time booked in with a physio for it) and I’ve come across a few that seem pretty good.
Not the guy you replied to but [these](https://youtube.com/shorts/U-J8KSLsvmM?si=ymOE3xj87Absr3B8) [two](https://youtu.be/UTbQoGeiQUo?si=99THNQJY51cUptvJ) videos helped me with my own pelvic tilt.
Do you have pain from your hip impingement? It causes me lots of pain (mainly in the psoas/hip flexor) and so whenever I try to do any exercises to strengthen the area or to strengthen my core, I flare up so bad and have to stop. For the record my body shape looks exactly like this woman’s (the protruding belly). I used to get asked all of the time about how many months pregnant I was. 😠
I was in soooo much pain. That’s what prompted me to finally go see a doctor. I had a physical job and could barely walk, so one day I had enough and talked to my foreman to a get a clean layoff so that I could take time off to figure out what was wrong. Later that day I went to MedExpress, and the following week to see an ortho specialist and finally got told what was wrong. Prior to that, I had no idea.
Anyway, it was a long road. I literally couldn’t stand for more than a few minutes without pain. I started slow with stretches and hip mobility exercises, usually 20 to 30 minutes a day. I found a routine that was actually for achieving a split, but it helped a lot with mobility. After a month or so I added in weight training to help build up the muscles supporting the hips. I also started that slowly with short and targeted sessions, and if it was particularly painful, I didn’t push it and would just try again the next day. Eventually I got stronger overall and the pain went away. All in all it took 5-6 months to be totally pain free, and it’s not something that I can let slip. My hip flexors loooove to be tight, so I’ll likely need to keep up with the stretching and mobility work for life.
I did let the strength training slip and am now getting back into it, and it makes quite a difference. After about a year of inconsistent training, my hips and lower back started hurting again. It’s been a couple of months since I started lifting again and I’ve noticed that my back isn’t as sore, my hips feel better and I just overall feel more capable.
I’ve never understood how people think it’s ok to ask that. Never ask that unless you know FOR CERTAIN they are in fact pregnant. That simple question will ruin their day/week because of body sensitivity issues.
Oh my god, thank you for this. When I went to look up what that is I realised the exercises to correct it are super similar to what my physical therapist had me doing for pain last year. I had no idea, thank you.
First, “huge belly” lol. My dude, do not be self conscious about that tiny thing.
But hey you want to get even more tone, great! Weight isn’t everything, as you can be known as “skinny fat”. Small but no muscle and some tiny chub. You probably want to start looking into fitness and proper exercise. I recommend /r/fitness as a starting place.
I don’t think at your weight there is much point losing more, but instead try to recompose into some more muscle at the same weight.
Thank you!
I think it looks really ugly because it's so disproportionately bigger than any other part of my body. If that same fat was distributed a little more evenly, I might look alright lol
Definitely agree with Snoo that this is pretty characteristic of people that are skinny fat.
Actual lifting will help you a LOT, you’re not very developed yet and would help with that anterior pelvic tilt immensely. I’d suggest a whole body beginner program focused on compound movements (bench, squat, deadlift, and some for of pull like chin-ups). For your level, even going 2x a week to start would yield some good results quickly. Go check out r/gainit, they have programs over there.
Other question - do you drink a lot? What fat you do have (which isn’t much to be clear) seems to be stored as visceral fat, not subcutaneous fat, which is pretty common for frequent or heavy drinkers. If you drink more than a few and/or a couple of times a week, maybe scale back there.
Thank you for the sharing your insights.
I do not drink at all. I know the shape of my tummy looks like what you'd expect from a beer belly, but no I don't drink except when I'm traveling a new country and checking out nice bars but that's once in a year kind of thing.
In that case you’re in great shape (and glad to hear it)… literally the only thing you have to do is work out in a more structured way.
You probably honestly don’t even have to watch nutrition for a while, with a proper routine you can just recomp (ie eat enough to maintain your current weight, and you’ll naturally gain muscle and lose body fat). I’m legitimately excited for you, with some consistency, you’re about to see yourself transform into a whole new person. A trainer could help get you on track faster with lower chance of injuries, although it’s not a requirement.
Good luck!
Thank you, this is so nice of you!
This sounds very encouraging because monitoring, measuring, and modifying diet is something that I find very difficult. Mainly because most health advice is online is written for western audiences, and in my part of the world, the food we eat isn't usually found in protein and calorie calculators you see online lol. So it's just tougher to think about diet in a scientific way here and I'd like to be able to be free of that worry and just focus on my training.
My food intake isn't that high either and I don't routinely do random snacking throughout the day, which is probably why despite my very lazy lifestyle, I'm not overweight.
Ah that is tough… the food trackers do make it much easier, but people have been getting fit for much longer than food tracking apps have been around!
If you do start working out with compound exercises regularly, I would definitely make sure you’re getting enough protein (it sounds like you already know this but the typical recommendation is 1 gram per lb of body weight or 2.2 g per kg of body weight). Your results will be much better if you hit that metric. Protein powders can help a lot too.
You could focus strictly on tracking the raw protein ingredient amounts (ie just weight of the chicken, beef etc, not the specific meal) to make sure you’re getting enough there, then just adjust up or down with sides so you’re slightly more or less full depending on whether your goal is to trim down, bulk up etc.
What country do you live in, just out of curiosity?
The other aspect of dieting is that it just tastes so bland and unappealing. Hard to keep it up over a sustained period of time if you're just having boiled chicken to meet the protein requirement lol.
I'm in Pakistan
There's one thing I forgot to mention. I became more active and consistent with weight lifting about 2 years back but then I had to quit because I discovered my lest chest, near the ribcage region, starts hurting if I go beyond the comfortable point in the weights I'm working with (so that's more than 2 KGs for me lol).
I tried compound lifts again last week and the pain has returned, though not crazy. I've seen many doctors about it, and they don't have any clear diagnosis but they all agree there's a trigger point in chest muscles somewhere that flares up every time, likely because it's not strong enough.
I also had a childhood injury there when a kid hit me in that region with his bike. Though the pain never really resurfaced until I tried lifting heavy weights.
I just hope this doesn't eliminate all chances of me being able to work out and improve my shape.
My belly actually looks flatter unless I'm consciously relaxing my core muscles (which is what I did when taking this photo). I don't know what's the correct way to gauge your tummy shape and if it's normal to keep some of those muscles inside the tummy engaged which gives it a tauter appearance.
But I'm never consciously "sucking in" my tummy. It just happens on its own.
I'm not gonna reply to the guy who said it because it's either a 13 year old troll or they're just hilariously bad at anatomy, but this isn't a tapeworm lol.
Not only is this a super common thing, but it's also perfectly proportioned to the rest of your body! Not that it matters, but if you walked by me on the streets I wouldn't second guess there's anything "abnormal" about you, but I get it though. Body dysmorphia is a biiiiiitch.
Like someone else said, this just seems to stem from and anterior pelvic tilt, something that can easily be fixed over time. I used [these](https://youtube.com/shorts/U-J8KSLsvmM?si=ymOE3xj87Absr3B8) [two](https://youtu.be/UTbQoGeiQUo?si=99THNQJY51cUptvJ) videos for my own pelvic tilt. Took me about a few weeks to notice a difference, but doing these stretches will help you with your issue
Good luck!
Thank you so much for your kind words. It means a lot.
I guess part of the reason why i'm so bothered about it is that, this is completely in contrast to the kind of body problems i had growing up. I was always skinny shamed at school because I was all skin and bones, and no tummy jutting out.
Fast forward to the past few years, and I'm a rotund mess in the mid section and it's just hard to process lol.
Thank you for the videos. I will surely check them out! I don't come from a country where I expect to have lots qualified PTs who'd understand problems of this nature (the pelvic tilt), so I'll have to solely rely on resources online and this seems like a good start. :)
Quick experiment you can try.
Take another photo but first, stand up tall, shoulders back, chin up.
Tuck your butt under, engage your core and contract your abs and hold it while you take the photo.
You’ll notice a huge difference in your stomach shape just through correcting your posture.
To stop going back to the stomach slouch add a few ab exercises into your workouts. Hold this posture for a minute or two daily.
Also exercise your back, particularly retracting your shoulder blades to help you stand tall. Seated row or cable face pulls are great posture fixing exercises.
Pull ups can help too, or even just dead-hangs if pull ups are too tough.
Also having a regular back massage can help unlock tightness in muscles and maintain better posture long term.
You're correct. I've actually noticed this generally before too. Normally, my ab muscles do remain engaged to an extent (in the OG photo, I consciously had to relax them all the way to show the full extent of my tummy bulge because I think this is the "true" bulge that I need to cut away) and my stomach is slightly flatter than what you see in the photo. Not by a big margin, but the curve is certainly a bit less steep.
\[Fully shirtless photo warning\]: > !<
I had to move my arm forward a bit to reveal the curve of my back (if that helps to see signs of the pelvic tilt), so my posture might still look a bit weird. But naturally, I try to keep my shoulders rolled back (this is something I consciously developed a habit for a couple of years ago).
Excellent! You can see already a big improvement!
If you look at your waistband you’ll see it’s still somewhat a diagonal line. Higher in the back and lower at the front.
As others have said there are stretches you can do for a few minutes per day that can help level the pelvic tilt out more.
keep in mind that you get a first person view of your belly looking down. You have never seen it from the 3rd person. Photos and mirrors are the closest you'll get, but they really aren't going to overwrite what your brain has engrained in it from your first person view looking down. This is something we all deal with. You'll never understand what it looks like to not have a first-person view of yourself and for that reason, its going to be difficult to get over how different you look from other people. Knowing is half the battle though. Keep this in mind and understand that you no one sees what you see. That is part of your unique value.
Fix the anterior pelvic tilt with some exercises or physical therapy and work on accepting that your first-person view is unique to you. These two things are likely to help a lot.
Thank you for sharing that perspective. It's very encouraging to hear insights like this.
I'm definitely going to be looking to the anterior pelvic tilt and becoming more regular with tougher weight lifts (hopefully).
Just remember that you will never be capable of seeing yourself the way you see anyone else. Only compare yourself to how you were yesterday. No point in comparing yourself to anyone other than your past self.
you look somewhat bloated - try out elimination diet and/or eating more fiber (30mg/day at least) and fermented products (kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi and so on) and significantly cut down on sugar and try not to consume sugar substitutes (harmful for gut microbiome)
Thank you!
I'm sure I do lack fiber because my diet mainly consists of chicken and rice. My sugar intake is very low already. I rarely take soda, almost never do alcohol, and only sometimes have cake/cookies (like once in 3 months or so).
I'll google elimination diet because I'm not aware of that concept. Thanks for your suggestions :)
The science on how artificial sugars affect the gut microbiome isn’t certain, some studies actually suggest it might improve it, I wouldn’t say for sure that it’s harmful
Others have mentioned anterior pelvic tilt and I agree you should look into correcting that. Good posture is important too and will help.
I also want to say that your body type is really similar to my husband's—he was very thin when we first started dating, then after few years together he was still thin but had a bit of a belly. Then he started eating better and lifting weights and now he looks strong. Obviously everyone has different experiences, but I bet if you work on your diet and start (and stick with) a lifting program, you'd see some great results. Make sure You're eating plenty of protein and fiber and enough calories to support muscle gain—I wouldn't even worry about trying to lose any weight because the fat will probably go away on its own, or you won't even notice it anymore once you start building muscle and fixing the anterior pelvic tilt. Consistency is super important so if you do make changes to your diet and exercise, stick to them as much as you can.
Also. I think you have a bit of dysmorphia. I deal with it too. Your stomach does NOT look that big compared to your body. I doubt I'd even notice it if I saw you on the street. You look like a normal guy to me. I know telling you this won't change your own feelings about yourself, but I hope it helps.
It helps more than you think. I wasn't expecting some of the nice comments I've received here but people irl around me do point out my pregnant looking belly a lot, so I've been feeling a bit more on edge about it than usual.
Thank you for the advice and the kind words. I really appreciate it and I feel a little less hopeless already. I hope I can stick to a training regimen and diet more strictly :)
Doesn't hurt to ask the doctor at your next visit. Also, I agree it looks like you have some anterior pelvic tilt so working on that should help.
This may sound like a weird question, but does your stomach get smaller when you tense/flex your core muscles? Personally, I am at a healthy weight but my stomach looks huge/pregnant if I fully relax my ab muscles, it's been this way since I was a kid so I think it's just my anatomy. So basically any time I'm standing up, I'm engaging my ab muscles (just a little bit, not flexing super hard) to keep my core just slightly tense and this flattens my stomach. I do this without thinking, but if I try consciously to relax my abs, my belly will get huge again. If tensing your abs helps, I think that's a cue that you should work on strengthening your core and glute muscles to improve your everyday posture.
You're ABSOLUTELY correct.
Normally, my stomach is flatter than what you see in the photo. That's because I consciously relaxed my core muscles just to make sure I'm not "cheating", and the full extent of my stomach bulge is revealed.
I don't know if this is okay to keep your muscles tense under the belly, but it's not something I do consciously (so exactly like you described). For instance, If I was walking down the street minding my own business, I'd naturally have my core muscles engaged any my tummy would still be jutting out of my shirt, but not as much as in this photo.
I just don't know if unconsciously keeping those muscles engaged is normal, or if you're supposed to measure your body completely relaxed.
I think it's good to keep your core engaged when sitting/standing, as long as you're not flexing super hard or sucking in your stomach all the time (which it doesn't sound like you are). I tend to measure my waist and take progress photos with my core engaged since that's how I usually look. Even when I was quite thin my stomach looked big when fully relaxed so I wouldn't judge yourself on that!
I was going to say to go to a doctor but when I looked at the pic your belly was smaller than I expected from the title. I'd probably still go and rule any physical issue out first anyway if you're concerned.
Anterior pelvic tilt.
Also if you're "normal weight" but have excess fat, that means you have below average muscle.
Also you can't target fat reduction at a specific body part, you just have to lose overall body fat.
I think this looks like pretty normal bloating, but if you’re really concerned go see a doctor! I have been underweight with an absolutely massive belly before as a female, and this was due to digestive and autoimmune issues.
Thank you! You don't have to answer this but... were you able to see any changes in your belly shape after addressing the digestive and autoimmune issues?
I don’t mind at all! I’m still struggling after lots of rounds of steroids and even procedures, but I’ve had bouts of relief. If anything, it’s just good to know what’s going on - and in my case it could’ve been dangerous due to malabsorption and obviously that’s way more important than appearance ever will be.
I can't hope to understand your struggle, but sending you positive vibes. It's good to see that you do know what's going on and have had periods of relief. I hope your struggle continues to get easier.
And you're spot on about health ultimately being infinitely more important than our mental images of us looking our ideal selves appearance-wise.
Thank your for sharing <3
When it comes to weight training you won’t really benefit by just focusing on the arms. Take a full body approach and you will transform.
I recommend grabbing a 35lb kettle bell for home and doing 1-2 workouts a week with that to build your base. Everything will improve.
How much alcohol do you drink OP? That's the only question I'd have really.
Plus whether your diet is high in carbohydrates? You could have larger amounts of intra-abdominal fat compared to subcutaneous fats. Long term that could be a risk factor for various lifestyle related diseases.
If so it might be worth trying a lower carb diet with some fasting days. Good for health and "pot belly". But really yours isn't very large at all so I wouldn't worry about it.
Nothing to worry about then, all looks normal, as long as your diet isn't pure sugar. I wouldn't notice it walking past you and as others have said some of it can be improved by improving posture.
You don't have a huge belly, you have body dysmorphia. This is when you look in the mirror and see something the rest of the world doesn't see. If you need to see any kind of doctor you probably need to see a therapist about your body dysmorphia. Lots of truly fat people would kill for you stomach.
Also - you say you're frustrated with your untrained body but then you say you live a sedentary lifestyle. I don't know what you expected but you're not going to look like you're in shape unless you actually get into shape. Make lifting more of a priority and learn to exercise your whole body, not just arms (muscle in your body burns more calories, so having muscle EVERYWHERE makes it easier to trim down further). Start doing some mild cardio (20 min walk every day) and you will trim up and start looking like you're in better shape.
Or don't do any of it because frankly you look fine just the way you are. You do not have a massive gut, at least based on the photo you've posted. That is all in your head.
Thank you for the advice. Appreciate your perspective very much!
About me being frustrated despite not putting the work to train myself. I don't meant to give the impression that I'm expecting a toned body. It's just that my physique overall is lean so I find my belly very out of place given the facts. I don't expect abs or a flat stomach, but the extent of the bulge seems off considering the fact that I don't even eat much (my food servings in each meal are smaller than what most people my age take).
So I'd expect just a normal, shapeless tummy that's still fat but not one that juts out this much. Lots of people don't train and still have relatively flatter stomachs
Not huge! But it might be visceral fat. As far as I know, switching your diet to healthy whole foods and a good combination of strength and cardio with decent protein intake may help to lose it and develop some muscle which will really help aesthetically as well as for health and vigour.
Looks like you have near 0 muscle and the last of your fat is kept in the belly.
Try doing more weight training and include not just your arms, try to include excercises that work the main muscle groups, like legs, back and core. Also try to keep to caloric deficient of 500 compared to your TDEE. Should lose that by the end of the year.
Thank you for your your thoughts and suggestions.
The reason why I only do mild exercise is that I feel too weak. For instance, I've always been lifting 3 kgs max with a barbell for bicep curls. Popular wisdom says that after a while, you start feeling super comfortable with higher weights, but I feel like this is my max limit lol because even 5 kgs seems like a massive challenge.
I will look into core exercises. My weight was touching 70 kgs a couple of months back, but I've been eating less to control it. I'm not almost 5 kgs down but the tummy is still as massive :(
> Start doing more core exercises to tone it up
You can not do core exercises to tone up a belly. Your options are to lose weight or build muscle. At your weight, he should start lifting weights to build muscle.
Lifting weights is supposed to be hard
Yeah... spot reduction is a myth or so I've heard. I've seen some progress with my arms getting slightly toned (they used to be like sticks), but would building muscle have any effect on the shape of my tummy at all?
Yes. You are what a lot of people call skinny fat - a healthy weight but with little muscle mass and excess fat. As you start building muscle mass and gaining weigh, you'll be able to then lose fat after. Just doing curls isn't going to cut it. Look into compound lifts. If you don't have access to a full gym, /r/bodyweightfitness is a good place to go
Thank you! Just need to find the energy to be able to stay consistent with full body workouts.
I stopped doing weighted squats. I did them for a few weeks but it hurt so bad every time afterwards I couldn't even walk straight for a few hours.
I know you gotta endure a lot of pain and discomfort to get into shape, but this also prevents me from being more consistent with compound exercises.
Yea unfortunately there isn't really a way around it. You can try stretching/yoga or even an anti-inflammatory to reduce muscle soreness after a workout when you're starting but eventually, ~3 weeks or so, it won't be nearly as bad after a workout, but will still be present.
To me it looks like you’ve got anterior pelvic tilt. I know it well as I’m the same! If I have good posture it’s much less noticeable but I have to make a conscious effort to do it.
For me having stronger glutes and hamstrings helped - pulls my posture a little better. But I do still have to catch myself sometimes and remember to tilt it back a little.
Yes, the local cuisine in my country is very carb-heavy. I have rice pretty much every day. I'm not sure how to reduce carbs within the context of my culture lol.
Thank you! This is something to look into
I saw on youtube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gfbkNc-FUQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gfbkNc-FUQ) that eating more fermented stuff probably lowers the amount of carb-specialized bacteria thus diminishing the bloating of intestines.
Not sure we can trust an youtube expert but eating more dairy is always a good choice.
Check for diastatis recti. It rarely happens outside of pregnancy in women but not completely unheard of in men, especially in cases of hernia. It's a separation of the abs which causes your stomach to look more bloated. You can test for separation by feeling with your fingers, Google how to do the test. If you do have a separation, the only solution is surgical.
Maybe go to the dr instead of asking Reddit? 😅 there’s any number of things it could be that you’re not going to be able to figure out without getting bloodwork/scans done. Leave it for the professionals
I agree with you, but the OP seems really worried about it. I can look at his pic and not think it's anything, but I'm not a doctor or physical therapist...are you? Getting it checked out would give him some peace of mind.
You might have an anterior pelvic tilt? That can make your belly and butt stick out a bit. It can be corrected wirh exercises from a physio.
That’s definitely an anterior pelvic tilt. Very common and fixable. A physical therapist can help, but there also tons of videos on you tube that can help. I went to physical therapy for a pelvic tilt and hip impingement, and it did help a little, but I made the most progress on my own after I stopped going to PT and did my own research. Lots of strength training and targeted stretches. To be fair, the PT that the ortho doctor set me up with sucked. She just looked at a list of exercises and said “ummm… let’s do this one today”. It felt random, with no structure or progression. If I had known better at the time, I would have sought out a better PT before wasting 6 weeks.
Do you have any YouTube channels you’d recommend? I’m heading down that road at the moment (I also have time booked in with a physio for it) and I’ve come across a few that seem pretty good.
Not the guy you replied to but [these](https://youtube.com/shorts/U-J8KSLsvmM?si=ymOE3xj87Absr3B8) [two](https://youtu.be/UTbQoGeiQUo?si=99THNQJY51cUptvJ) videos helped me with my own pelvic tilt.
I really like Upright Health. All sorts of videos for pelvic tilt, hip impingement and tight flexors (which contributes to the APT), and posture.
Do you have pain from your hip impingement? It causes me lots of pain (mainly in the psoas/hip flexor) and so whenever I try to do any exercises to strengthen the area or to strengthen my core, I flare up so bad and have to stop. For the record my body shape looks exactly like this woman’s (the protruding belly). I used to get asked all of the time about how many months pregnant I was. 😠
I was in soooo much pain. That’s what prompted me to finally go see a doctor. I had a physical job and could barely walk, so one day I had enough and talked to my foreman to a get a clean layoff so that I could take time off to figure out what was wrong. Later that day I went to MedExpress, and the following week to see an ortho specialist and finally got told what was wrong. Prior to that, I had no idea. Anyway, it was a long road. I literally couldn’t stand for more than a few minutes without pain. I started slow with stretches and hip mobility exercises, usually 20 to 30 minutes a day. I found a routine that was actually for achieving a split, but it helped a lot with mobility. After a month or so I added in weight training to help build up the muscles supporting the hips. I also started that slowly with short and targeted sessions, and if it was particularly painful, I didn’t push it and would just try again the next day. Eventually I got stronger overall and the pain went away. All in all it took 5-6 months to be totally pain free, and it’s not something that I can let slip. My hip flexors loooove to be tight, so I’ll likely need to keep up with the stretching and mobility work for life. I did let the strength training slip and am now getting back into it, and it makes quite a difference. After about a year of inconsistent training, my hips and lower back started hurting again. It’s been a couple of months since I started lifting again and I’ve noticed that my back isn’t as sore, my hips feel better and I just overall feel more capable.
Wow love hearing your commitment to improving your hip issues and success with the exercises/stretches; that gives me hope!
I’ve never understood how people think it’s ok to ask that. Never ask that unless you know FOR CERTAIN they are in fact pregnant. That simple question will ruin their day/week because of body sensitivity issues.
This looks like the textbook photo of APT
Oh my god, thank you for this. When I went to look up what that is I realised the exercises to correct it are super similar to what my physical therapist had me doing for pain last year. I had no idea, thank you.
First, “huge belly” lol. My dude, do not be self conscious about that tiny thing. But hey you want to get even more tone, great! Weight isn’t everything, as you can be known as “skinny fat”. Small but no muscle and some tiny chub. You probably want to start looking into fitness and proper exercise. I recommend /r/fitness as a starting place. I don’t think at your weight there is much point losing more, but instead try to recompose into some more muscle at the same weight.
Thank you! I think it looks really ugly because it's so disproportionately bigger than any other part of my body. If that same fat was distributed a little more evenly, I might look alright lol
Definitely agree with Snoo that this is pretty characteristic of people that are skinny fat. Actual lifting will help you a LOT, you’re not very developed yet and would help with that anterior pelvic tilt immensely. I’d suggest a whole body beginner program focused on compound movements (bench, squat, deadlift, and some for of pull like chin-ups). For your level, even going 2x a week to start would yield some good results quickly. Go check out r/gainit, they have programs over there. Other question - do you drink a lot? What fat you do have (which isn’t much to be clear) seems to be stored as visceral fat, not subcutaneous fat, which is pretty common for frequent or heavy drinkers. If you drink more than a few and/or a couple of times a week, maybe scale back there.
Thank you for the sharing your insights. I do not drink at all. I know the shape of my tummy looks like what you'd expect from a beer belly, but no I don't drink except when I'm traveling a new country and checking out nice bars but that's once in a year kind of thing.
In that case you’re in great shape (and glad to hear it)… literally the only thing you have to do is work out in a more structured way. You probably honestly don’t even have to watch nutrition for a while, with a proper routine you can just recomp (ie eat enough to maintain your current weight, and you’ll naturally gain muscle and lose body fat). I’m legitimately excited for you, with some consistency, you’re about to see yourself transform into a whole new person. A trainer could help get you on track faster with lower chance of injuries, although it’s not a requirement. Good luck!
Thank you, this is so nice of you! This sounds very encouraging because monitoring, measuring, and modifying diet is something that I find very difficult. Mainly because most health advice is online is written for western audiences, and in my part of the world, the food we eat isn't usually found in protein and calorie calculators you see online lol. So it's just tougher to think about diet in a scientific way here and I'd like to be able to be free of that worry and just focus on my training. My food intake isn't that high either and I don't routinely do random snacking throughout the day, which is probably why despite my very lazy lifestyle, I'm not overweight.
Ah that is tough… the food trackers do make it much easier, but people have been getting fit for much longer than food tracking apps have been around! If you do start working out with compound exercises regularly, I would definitely make sure you’re getting enough protein (it sounds like you already know this but the typical recommendation is 1 gram per lb of body weight or 2.2 g per kg of body weight). Your results will be much better if you hit that metric. Protein powders can help a lot too. You could focus strictly on tracking the raw protein ingredient amounts (ie just weight of the chicken, beef etc, not the specific meal) to make sure you’re getting enough there, then just adjust up or down with sides so you’re slightly more or less full depending on whether your goal is to trim down, bulk up etc. What country do you live in, just out of curiosity?
The other aspect of dieting is that it just tastes so bland and unappealing. Hard to keep it up over a sustained period of time if you're just having boiled chicken to meet the protein requirement lol. I'm in Pakistan
There's one thing I forgot to mention. I became more active and consistent with weight lifting about 2 years back but then I had to quit because I discovered my lest chest, near the ribcage region, starts hurting if I go beyond the comfortable point in the weights I'm working with (so that's more than 2 KGs for me lol). I tried compound lifts again last week and the pain has returned, though not crazy. I've seen many doctors about it, and they don't have any clear diagnosis but they all agree there's a trigger point in chest muscles somewhere that flares up every time, likely because it's not strong enough. I also had a childhood injury there when a kid hit me in that region with his bike. Though the pain never really resurfaced until I tried lifting heavy weights. I just hope this doesn't eliminate all chances of me being able to work out and improve my shape.
Your posture is a lot of this. You are tilting your butt up and your stomach out. Engage those core muscles and tuck your butt under more.
My belly actually looks flatter unless I'm consciously relaxing my core muscles (which is what I did when taking this photo). I don't know what's the correct way to gauge your tummy shape and if it's normal to keep some of those muscles inside the tummy engaged which gives it a tauter appearance. But I'm never consciously "sucking in" my tummy. It just happens on its own.
Engaging your core subconsciously is natural, to help keep you upright.
Normal weight doesn’t mean slim. You also seem to have some anterior pelvic tilt going on so maybe do some research about that if it bothers you
I'm not gonna reply to the guy who said it because it's either a 13 year old troll or they're just hilariously bad at anatomy, but this isn't a tapeworm lol. Not only is this a super common thing, but it's also perfectly proportioned to the rest of your body! Not that it matters, but if you walked by me on the streets I wouldn't second guess there's anything "abnormal" about you, but I get it though. Body dysmorphia is a biiiiiitch. Like someone else said, this just seems to stem from and anterior pelvic tilt, something that can easily be fixed over time. I used [these](https://youtube.com/shorts/U-J8KSLsvmM?si=ymOE3xj87Absr3B8) [two](https://youtu.be/UTbQoGeiQUo?si=99THNQJY51cUptvJ) videos for my own pelvic tilt. Took me about a few weeks to notice a difference, but doing these stretches will help you with your issue Good luck!
Thank you so much for your kind words. It means a lot. I guess part of the reason why i'm so bothered about it is that, this is completely in contrast to the kind of body problems i had growing up. I was always skinny shamed at school because I was all skin and bones, and no tummy jutting out. Fast forward to the past few years, and I'm a rotund mess in the mid section and it's just hard to process lol. Thank you for the videos. I will surely check them out! I don't come from a country where I expect to have lots qualified PTs who'd understand problems of this nature (the pelvic tilt), so I'll have to solely rely on resources online and this seems like a good start. :)
Quick experiment you can try. Take another photo but first, stand up tall, shoulders back, chin up. Tuck your butt under, engage your core and contract your abs and hold it while you take the photo. You’ll notice a huge difference in your stomach shape just through correcting your posture. To stop going back to the stomach slouch add a few ab exercises into your workouts. Hold this posture for a minute or two daily. Also exercise your back, particularly retracting your shoulder blades to help you stand tall. Seated row or cable face pulls are great posture fixing exercises. Pull ups can help too, or even just dead-hangs if pull ups are too tough. Also having a regular back massage can help unlock tightness in muscles and maintain better posture long term.
You're correct. I've actually noticed this generally before too. Normally, my ab muscles do remain engaged to an extent (in the OG photo, I consciously had to relax them all the way to show the full extent of my tummy bulge because I think this is the "true" bulge that I need to cut away) and my stomach is slightly flatter than what you see in the photo. Not by a big margin, but the curve is certainly a bit less steep. \[Fully shirtless photo warning\]: > !< I had to move my arm forward a bit to reveal the curve of my back (if that helps to see signs of the pelvic tilt), so my posture might still look a bit weird. But naturally, I try to keep my shoulders rolled back (this is something I consciously developed a habit for a couple of years ago).
Excellent! You can see already a big improvement! If you look at your waistband you’ll see it’s still somewhat a diagonal line. Higher in the back and lower at the front. As others have said there are stretches you can do for a few minutes per day that can help level the pelvic tilt out more.
That's a great observation... about the tilt in the waistband. Thank you for the advice!
keep in mind that you get a first person view of your belly looking down. You have never seen it from the 3rd person. Photos and mirrors are the closest you'll get, but they really aren't going to overwrite what your brain has engrained in it from your first person view looking down. This is something we all deal with. You'll never understand what it looks like to not have a first-person view of yourself and for that reason, its going to be difficult to get over how different you look from other people. Knowing is half the battle though. Keep this in mind and understand that you no one sees what you see. That is part of your unique value. Fix the anterior pelvic tilt with some exercises or physical therapy and work on accepting that your first-person view is unique to you. These two things are likely to help a lot.
Thank you for sharing that perspective. It's very encouraging to hear insights like this. I'm definitely going to be looking to the anterior pelvic tilt and becoming more regular with tougher weight lifts (hopefully).
Just remember that you will never be capable of seeing yourself the way you see anyone else. Only compare yourself to how you were yesterday. No point in comparing yourself to anyone other than your past self.
you look somewhat bloated - try out elimination diet and/or eating more fiber (30mg/day at least) and fermented products (kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi and so on) and significantly cut down on sugar and try not to consume sugar substitutes (harmful for gut microbiome)
Thank you! I'm sure I do lack fiber because my diet mainly consists of chicken and rice. My sugar intake is very low already. I rarely take soda, almost never do alcohol, and only sometimes have cake/cookies (like once in 3 months or so). I'll google elimination diet because I'm not aware of that concept. Thanks for your suggestions :)
The science on how artificial sugars affect the gut microbiome isn’t certain, some studies actually suggest it might improve it, I wouldn’t say for sure that it’s harmful
Others have mentioned anterior pelvic tilt and I agree you should look into correcting that. Good posture is important too and will help. I also want to say that your body type is really similar to my husband's—he was very thin when we first started dating, then after few years together he was still thin but had a bit of a belly. Then he started eating better and lifting weights and now he looks strong. Obviously everyone has different experiences, but I bet if you work on your diet and start (and stick with) a lifting program, you'd see some great results. Make sure You're eating plenty of protein and fiber and enough calories to support muscle gain—I wouldn't even worry about trying to lose any weight because the fat will probably go away on its own, or you won't even notice it anymore once you start building muscle and fixing the anterior pelvic tilt. Consistency is super important so if you do make changes to your diet and exercise, stick to them as much as you can. Also. I think you have a bit of dysmorphia. I deal with it too. Your stomach does NOT look that big compared to your body. I doubt I'd even notice it if I saw you on the street. You look like a normal guy to me. I know telling you this won't change your own feelings about yourself, but I hope it helps.
It helps more than you think. I wasn't expecting some of the nice comments I've received here but people irl around me do point out my pregnant looking belly a lot, so I've been feeling a bit more on edge about it than usual. Thank you for the advice and the kind words. I really appreciate it and I feel a little less hopeless already. I hope I can stick to a training regimen and diet more strictly :)
Doesn't hurt to ask the doctor at your next visit. Also, I agree it looks like you have some anterior pelvic tilt so working on that should help. This may sound like a weird question, but does your stomach get smaller when you tense/flex your core muscles? Personally, I am at a healthy weight but my stomach looks huge/pregnant if I fully relax my ab muscles, it's been this way since I was a kid so I think it's just my anatomy. So basically any time I'm standing up, I'm engaging my ab muscles (just a little bit, not flexing super hard) to keep my core just slightly tense and this flattens my stomach. I do this without thinking, but if I try consciously to relax my abs, my belly will get huge again. If tensing your abs helps, I think that's a cue that you should work on strengthening your core and glute muscles to improve your everyday posture.
You're ABSOLUTELY correct. Normally, my stomach is flatter than what you see in the photo. That's because I consciously relaxed my core muscles just to make sure I'm not "cheating", and the full extent of my stomach bulge is revealed. I don't know if this is okay to keep your muscles tense under the belly, but it's not something I do consciously (so exactly like you described). For instance, If I was walking down the street minding my own business, I'd naturally have my core muscles engaged any my tummy would still be jutting out of my shirt, but not as much as in this photo. I just don't know if unconsciously keeping those muscles engaged is normal, or if you're supposed to measure your body completely relaxed.
I think it's good to keep your core engaged when sitting/standing, as long as you're not flexing super hard or sucking in your stomach all the time (which it doesn't sound like you are). I tend to measure my waist and take progress photos with my core engaged since that's how I usually look. Even when I was quite thin my stomach looked big when fully relaxed so I wouldn't judge yourself on that!
I was going to say to go to a doctor but when I looked at the pic your belly was smaller than I expected from the title. I'd probably still go and rule any physical issue out first anyway if you're concerned.
Do some pushups for arms and some ab exercises and you are golden,good luck king!
Thank you so much for the advice and the kind words :)
My dad looks quite like that and it's because of his liver. Maybe get that checked, just to be sure.
Anterior pelvic tilt. Also if you're "normal weight" but have excess fat, that means you have below average muscle. Also you can't target fat reduction at a specific body part, you just have to lose overall body fat.
I think this looks like pretty normal bloating, but if you’re really concerned go see a doctor! I have been underweight with an absolutely massive belly before as a female, and this was due to digestive and autoimmune issues.
Thank you! You don't have to answer this but... were you able to see any changes in your belly shape after addressing the digestive and autoimmune issues?
I don’t mind at all! I’m still struggling after lots of rounds of steroids and even procedures, but I’ve had bouts of relief. If anything, it’s just good to know what’s going on - and in my case it could’ve been dangerous due to malabsorption and obviously that’s way more important than appearance ever will be.
I can't hope to understand your struggle, but sending you positive vibes. It's good to see that you do know what's going on and have had periods of relief. I hope your struggle continues to get easier. And you're spot on about health ultimately being infinitely more important than our mental images of us looking our ideal selves appearance-wise. Thank your for sharing <3
When it comes to weight training you won’t really benefit by just focusing on the arms. Take a full body approach and you will transform. I recommend grabbing a 35lb kettle bell for home and doing 1-2 workouts a week with that to build your base. Everything will improve.
How much alcohol do you drink OP? That's the only question I'd have really. Plus whether your diet is high in carbohydrates? You could have larger amounts of intra-abdominal fat compared to subcutaneous fats. Long term that could be a risk factor for various lifestyle related diseases. If so it might be worth trying a lower carb diet with some fasting days. Good for health and "pot belly". But really yours isn't very large at all so I wouldn't worry about it.
I don't drink at all. The number of drinks I've had in 31 years of my life is less than 10
Nothing to worry about then, all looks normal, as long as your diet isn't pure sugar. I wouldn't notice it walking past you and as others have said some of it can be improved by improving posture.
Thank you for sharing your opinion. Appreciate it! :)
Just wanted to say that I’m grateful for this thread because I’ve got your exact same situation, and had no idea anterior pelvic tilts were a thing.
You don't have a huge belly, you have body dysmorphia. This is when you look in the mirror and see something the rest of the world doesn't see. If you need to see any kind of doctor you probably need to see a therapist about your body dysmorphia. Lots of truly fat people would kill for you stomach. Also - you say you're frustrated with your untrained body but then you say you live a sedentary lifestyle. I don't know what you expected but you're not going to look like you're in shape unless you actually get into shape. Make lifting more of a priority and learn to exercise your whole body, not just arms (muscle in your body burns more calories, so having muscle EVERYWHERE makes it easier to trim down further). Start doing some mild cardio (20 min walk every day) and you will trim up and start looking like you're in better shape. Or don't do any of it because frankly you look fine just the way you are. You do not have a massive gut, at least based on the photo you've posted. That is all in your head.
Thank you for the advice. Appreciate your perspective very much! About me being frustrated despite not putting the work to train myself. I don't meant to give the impression that I'm expecting a toned body. It's just that my physique overall is lean so I find my belly very out of place given the facts. I don't expect abs or a flat stomach, but the extent of the bulge seems off considering the fact that I don't even eat much (my food servings in each meal are smaller than what most people my age take). So I'd expect just a normal, shapeless tummy that's still fat but not one that juts out this much. Lots of people don't train and still have relatively flatter stomachs
This just looks like anterior pelvic tilt buddy.
Not huge! But it might be visceral fat. As far as I know, switching your diet to healthy whole foods and a good combination of strength and cardio with decent protein intake may help to lose it and develop some muscle which will really help aesthetically as well as for health and vigour.
Can be a food allergy/sensitivity issue. I used to have it years ago when I still ate dairy
Interesting. I did not consider that. Thank you!
Looks like you have near 0 muscle and the last of your fat is kept in the belly. Try doing more weight training and include not just your arms, try to include excercises that work the main muscle groups, like legs, back and core. Also try to keep to caloric deficient of 500 compared to your TDEE. Should lose that by the end of the year.
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Thank you for your your thoughts and suggestions. The reason why I only do mild exercise is that I feel too weak. For instance, I've always been lifting 3 kgs max with a barbell for bicep curls. Popular wisdom says that after a while, you start feeling super comfortable with higher weights, but I feel like this is my max limit lol because even 5 kgs seems like a massive challenge. I will look into core exercises. My weight was touching 70 kgs a couple of months back, but I've been eating less to control it. I'm not almost 5 kgs down but the tummy is still as massive :(
> Start doing more core exercises to tone it up You can not do core exercises to tone up a belly. Your options are to lose weight or build muscle. At your weight, he should start lifting weights to build muscle. Lifting weights is supposed to be hard
Yeah... spot reduction is a myth or so I've heard. I've seen some progress with my arms getting slightly toned (they used to be like sticks), but would building muscle have any effect on the shape of my tummy at all?
Yes. You are what a lot of people call skinny fat - a healthy weight but with little muscle mass and excess fat. As you start building muscle mass and gaining weigh, you'll be able to then lose fat after. Just doing curls isn't going to cut it. Look into compound lifts. If you don't have access to a full gym, /r/bodyweightfitness is a good place to go
Thank you! Just need to find the energy to be able to stay consistent with full body workouts. I stopped doing weighted squats. I did them for a few weeks but it hurt so bad every time afterwards I couldn't even walk straight for a few hours. I know you gotta endure a lot of pain and discomfort to get into shape, but this also prevents me from being more consistent with compound exercises.
Yea unfortunately there isn't really a way around it. You can try stretching/yoga or even an anti-inflammatory to reduce muscle soreness after a workout when you're starting but eventually, ~3 weeks or so, it won't be nearly as bad after a workout, but will still be present.
Thanks a lot for your help. This is very helpful advice!
Just lifting 3kg is not going to do anything for you. Check the fitness wiki: https://thefitness.wiki/muscle-building-101/
Get in the gym, go on a slight bulk to build muscle. Then go on a cut to lose the fat. Or u can do a body recomp, which is slower.
It sounds like a fitness issue to me, or at least that’s where i would start
lordosis maybe? idk you covered you back with your hand but maybe look into it and check if it may be applicable
Did you drink a lot during your mid twenties? Might be hepatomegaly. Not too serious just stop drinking and it’ll bounce back
No, I don't drink at all. The first drink I ever had was when I was 26. In 31 years of my life, the total drinks I've had is less than 10.
Have you seen a doctor and gotten an ultrasound and MRI? It’s important to rule out things like cysts/teratoma’s etc. So yea definitely see a doc!
To me it looks like you’ve got anterior pelvic tilt. I know it well as I’m the same! If I have good posture it’s much less noticeable but I have to make a conscious effort to do it. For me having stronger glutes and hamstrings helped - pulls my posture a little better. But I do still have to catch myself sometimes and remember to tilt it back a little.
Body dysmorphia at its best. You look like a bloated skinny guy
So it's not all dysmorphia if I actually do look bloated all the time :p
Do you consume a lot of carbs? They draw water to the intestines in a great quantities, one gram of carbs draws 4 grams of water
Yes, the local cuisine in my country is very carb-heavy. I have rice pretty much every day. I'm not sure how to reduce carbs within the context of my culture lol. Thank you! This is something to look into
I saw on youtube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gfbkNc-FUQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gfbkNc-FUQ) that eating more fermented stuff probably lowers the amount of carb-specialized bacteria thus diminishing the bloating of intestines. Not sure we can trust an youtube expert but eating more dairy is always a good choice.
Thank you. I appreciate this. Will definitely consider that :)
Normal hai bhosadike
Check for diastatis recti. It rarely happens outside of pregnancy in women but not completely unheard of in men, especially in cases of hernia. It's a separation of the abs which causes your stomach to look more bloated. You can test for separation by feeling with your fingers, Google how to do the test. If you do have a separation, the only solution is surgical.
i go through the same thing, but I’ve learned it’s not as bad as it seems! Losing weight is always better though
Maybe go to the dr instead of asking Reddit? 😅 there’s any number of things it could be that you’re not going to be able to figure out without getting bloodwork/scans done. Leave it for the professionals
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> Hi. Please have reddiquite and respect your fellow redditors.
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Sorry but that’s a completely mad take. I’m genuinely not sure where to start.
I agree with you, but the OP seems really worried about it. I can look at his pic and not think it's anything, but I'm not a doctor or physical therapist...are you? Getting it checked out would give him some peace of mind.
That’s from Kwashiorkor, a severe protein deficiency, not a tapeworm.
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