Welllll....
I weigh less than I did prior to my first (of 3) pregnancies, and I still have a tiny pooch but I have to say it is mostly wrinkley damaged saggy skin. I carried waaaaay out front (from behind you usually couldn't tell I was pg!...but it did some major skin damage around my belly button). It is not too bad but the area is not so smooth so I think my bikini days are over. That's ok though. I would be good with a tummy tuck without lipo, but I don't think I am going to go to that extreme.
I think on some women that is fat's last stand. I think that you might consider having your body fat measured. For me, that would be a good indicator of whether or not it is fat, or perhaps the muscle needs to be toned. Does that make sense? I have heard that the abs are never the same but you sure can't tell that from looking at Cathe's pics! I suspect it is somewhat related to genetics. Also I can tell when I do crunches that I have a little bit of muscle separation in my lower abs.
I used a low calorie diet to lose much of my fat, but recently became frustrated that my "skinny" ness didn't have enough muscle and still had some flab, even tho the scale is reading "right". So I am doing some reading and am instead eating a higher calorie diet...but higher in lean meats (no red meat, cheese), complex carbs, and the like. I think I can increase my muscularity and decrease my bodyfat that way.
Clean clean clean...clean eating...my breakfasts are whole grain oats, egg whites, or protein shake and oatmeal. Lunches and snacks are fruit, brown rice, lean meats, veggies. Same with dinner. I actually eat quite often, about every 3 hours. I drink a ton of water. I eat 20-30 g of protein at each of my 5 meals.
I do think the eating, the water intake, and increasing muscularity can really help. Personally I use my pooch as a motivator to keep pushign myself in my eating and workouts. Will it ever look the way it did before? I doubt it, but I do think it can be vastly improved and if the rest of me gets "ripped" in the process....so much the better!
Hope this helps! Keep going! If you can still stay in a healthy weight range (not too low) by losing a few more lbs, you might find that it comes off from that very area (abs). That was true in my case. It was like, the last 2 lbs.
Jen
