Yeah, it is tough shifting the fat, no doubt. My body fat is coming down well (can't recall last time you tested at mine, but i bet you yours is down from that measurement, those scales are decent to have for motivation but also to show you if you are or are not on the right track)
Obviously you can't spot reduce, so can't target the belly, (as you know I'm sure) but as body fat comes down, it does all start to go. I'm around 12% now but can still pinch more than I'd like to, so don't be too disheartened.
Avoid the fat burning pills (I know you've not mentioned them) but the ingredients do say a bit, caffeine and pepper basically. Heat up your system. I think you already have a fair amount of chillis, stoking the fires never hurt. Ah yes, sorry, just read up and you mention chillis, will leave this in for anyone else though.
I have an apple a day, good for many reasons, interested to know what you've read to make you think you will do that. Whatever, I would. I love the Jazz apples .. so tasty! Great for soluble fibre and so on.
You might want to cut down on the startchy food for a while, so less rice, potato, bread. But then, I'm eating it at the moment and with intense exercise as well, the fat is coming down, so do you want to restrict yourself? It is the one food that you can target to cut down on, just up the veg/salad and protein foods if you do cut those down.
I have googled normal v sweet potatoes a few times, never seemed a massive difference to me, but if you like sweet potatoes then no foul, no harm really isn't it?
NO to fruit juice. It is heavy on fruit sugars and to the body, sugar is sugar. You want your body to burn fat, not give it sugar as energy.
The one thing I always read was a grapefruit, or even half a grapefruit every day is good. I forget the details now, I used to do it, but turns out they can be bad if you are prone to kidney stones, so after my kidney stones, I stopped.****
The one thing is explosive exercise,you can't do it everytime otherwise your system becomes stretched. But my boxing for example, is very explosive. HITT is a method. I bought a jump rope (skipping rope) that you took the piss out of me for yesterday, (for calling it a butch 'jump rope'
) and was quite surprised how good that was.
The slow and steady walks are great, keep them up, but you will need some explosive exercise as well. Not sure how explosive the DTU sessions are, they sound pretty good from how you explained them.
When gyms re-open, I think you'll see far better results from weight training now as well, because you aren't looking to lose weight and train, you are looking to tone up, burn the rest of the fat and you will start to show some definition. And you can do explosive weights, as I said to you before, you can go from machine (and dumbel) to machine with lowish weight and just train to failure, move to the next, train to failure, move on and etc... You should end up soaking. As said, you cannot do that every time, it puts too much stress on the body, but it does stoke the fire. And the more muscle you build, the more fat you burn.
Keep on keeping on mate, don't get too frustrated (hard I know, I do at times but I just re-focus) because it does take time.
**** the grapefruit thing. From WEBMD:
Sorry, but grapefruit doesn't burn fat.
There have been a few studies about grapefruit and weight loss. In one, obese people who ate half a grapefruit before meals for 12 weeks lost more weight than those who didn't eat or drink any grapefruit products.
It may be that the water in grapefruit helps you feel full, and then you eat less. But if you're hoping that grapefruit will melt fat, you're going to be disappointed.
There is a grapefruit diet, but if you read the instructions, it isn't to do with the grapefruit, it says cut down on starches etc.
https://www.shape.com/healthy-eating/diet-tips/5-fat-burning-foods-speed-metabolism
