On Jun 21, 2:08 pm, Doug Freyburger wrote:
wrote:

How do I reduce the fat around my waist region?

Reduce total body fat and some will come off from everywhere.
There's no reliable way to remove from a specific area except
liposuction.

Low carb diets sometimes claim they are better at reducing
belly fat than other plans. I'm a low carber and that did not
happen for me, so it wasn't true in my case.

That could possibly because you're a relatively high-fat low carber.
(Right?)

While experimenting with such a diet (being drawn in by the claims
that you allude to), I gained fat around the middle. Starting at a 26"
waist circumference with good abdominal definition (which I was hoping
to improve), I ended up at over 28" with much less defined abs. This
was over the course of about a year. What's worse, my training sucked,
resulting in a lousy 3:52 marathon compared to 3:19 the previous year.

It might be true that such eating plans are good at reducing extremely
obese people to something that is closer to average (i.e. still quite
fat). But obviously, someone who wants to lose all of the fat around
the midsection isn't shooting for average, right?

It couldn't hurt to try low carb yourself and see if it helps for you.

Very low fat, low carb (but high enough to be able to do your exercise
properly and recover) and plenty of protein: 1 gram per pound of lean
body mass per day.

If you're already lean, it's diffult to lose body fat, while
exercising. Or should I say, while exercising in a progressive way
such that you're making gains. If you're dieting enough to shed even
more body fat, you will have a hard time developing parameters like
endurance, speed, muscle mass, etc.

To have a shot at nailing these different goals all at once, your
nutrition has to be optimized. Everything that goes into your mouth
has to fill a specific need. There can't be any discretionary
calories.