Everyone has some form of belly fat, some people have a small pouch that covers there mid-section and others have large rolls of belly fat which protrude out over the waist line.
One thing that everybody can agree upon is that belly fat, no matter how much or how little just downright UGLY!
If you workout, belly fat puts a veil over that lovely toned stomach we all have underneath which is really unfair. It can seem that this layer is just meant to be there or that you are somehow genetically predisposed with this which isn’t the case.
How to lose lower belly fat is a common problem for men and women fueled by photos we see every day in glossy fashion/health magazines or television shows glamorizing unnaturally skinny girls and crazy diet fads with miracle pill cures !
If you can distance yourself from most of the above (difficult I know) but think about the issue realistically and want a natural body shape without the fat around the waste this article can help you get the results you are looking for, No False promises or tricks, cheats or miracles just a set plan of action to follow.
Contents
A Quick Summery of Why You Are Hear
I’m sure you have some experience of trying to lose belly fat however, judging from the fact that you’re still looking up how to lose belly fat, I can take it you haven’t been 100% successful in you endeavor and there is still a bit of fat that resides around your mid riff or possibly this is your first effort to reduce the fat or maybe you are somewhere in between.
You may have in the past followed a diet and exercise to lose belly fat. This might have consisted of low in fat foods which you may have though were directly associated with putting on belly fat and also lots and lots of walk and jogging as your exercises thinking that it was going to melt away your mid riff. Unfortunately like many other people in the same situation, you were wrong , Sorry – but now that is out of the way we can concentrate on what is going to work and see very good results in a short time frame.
Exercise
What are the Best Belly Fat Exercises?
How often should I complete them in a given week?
How long is it going to take to see dramatic fat loss results?
Many people think that the best exercises to burn belly fat fast are actually orientated around the mid-section. By this I mean practically all abdominal exercises that focus on the mid-riff. What many people don’t understand is that these so-called belly fat targeting exercises are totally ineffective and a complete waste of time if your primary goal is to burn subcutaneous belly fat.
What these exercises are good for is developing the underlying ab muscles. If you have veil of belly fat over these muscles you have no chance of showing off a toned and flat stomach. So, the message really is that if you are someone who does 100 crunches every night in the knowledge that you are going to lose belly fat from doing this then my advice to you is STOP, immediately!
Best Exercises
At this stage you may be wondering what are the best belly fat reducing exercises?
My response to this is that there is not one exercise that will melt away belly fat for good. I say this because the main concern for someone who is trying to lose belly fat isn’t so much to focus on developing muscles in the mid-section but instead on achieving a calorie deficit through exercise 4-6 times per week.
Calorie deficit – if maintained everyday – is what results in belly fat reduction.
In contrast to this a calorie surplus is what causes you to pile on ugly belly fat. If you are unsure of what a calories deficit and surplus is then let me quickly explain. You must first establish how many calories you require to maintain your current level of body weight. If it is 1800 calories per day then any number of calories below this would be regarded as a deficit and anything above would be known as a surplus.
When trying to lose belly fat we want to achieve a calorie deficit through diet and regular exercise. We can achieve a calorie deficit through exercise by engaging in cardiovascular exercise which is typically
Power walking
Jogging
Cross-training
Swimming
Rowing
Surfing
Circuit training
These belly fat burning exercises should be carried-out 4-6 times per week for 30-45 minutes depending on your level of fitness. Each session should be completed at moderate to high intensity so that you burn enough calories at each session to give you a decent calories deficit.
Below is my own cardio exercise routine from last week
| Day | Morning Exercise | Time | Afternoon Exercise | Time |
| Monday | Jogging | 45 minutes | Rowing Machine | 45 minutes |
| Tuesday | Swimming | 1 hour | ||
| Wednesday | Jogging | 45 minutes | Football/soccer training | 1 hour |
| Thursday | Rest | Rest | Rest | Rest |
| Friday | Circuit Training | 45 minutes | ||
| Saturday | Rest | Rest | Rest | Rest |
| Sunday | Swimming | 1 hour | Cycling | 1 Hour |
Next week my routine will be completely different by mixing up the activity’s but the amount of time will be exactly the same, it best to mix up yur routine with a mixture of activity’s you enjoy so you don’t get board you need new challenges to keep you motivated.
Belly Fat Loss 3 Ineffective Methods
Are you trying to achieve belly fat loss fast? Well here are the biggest mistakes people make when they are trying to rid belly fat for good!
Belly Fat Diet Pills
Many people take diet pills in hope that they actually work and somehow burn that layer of subcutaneous (outer) fat on your body.
However, what you may be surprised to hear is that most of these diet pills will have little or no effect on you whatsoever provided you are following the same Belly Fat Diet and exercise regime that you were following before.
It’s amazing sometimes how convincing these adverts for diet pills are. Usually, all these ads follow the same format. A woman or a man with a perfect figure assuring you that it was all as a result of this supplement. Some really convincing adverts even have some before and after shots of the person after taking some magic pill. The truth is though that no magic pill alone will strip 10 pounds off you. The only thing that can do this is a calorie deficit through diet and exercise! So save you money because these pills are ineffective and are a rip-off.
Fad Diets to Lose Belly Fat
There are many fad diets available these days promoted by every kind of dietician, doctor or guru. I’ll be honest that a few of these diets aren’t all that bad. In fact, I know that some of them work such as the cabbage soup diet to name one. However, there are tons of them that don’t work for a variety of reasons, the main one being that they are WAY too complicated!
Personally, I think when things require too much effort they frequently get disregarded and the same holds true for dieting. For example, when you have to prepare, cook and clean up after complicated meals things can get really frustrating. Add a full day’s work to this and it’s not hard to see why these complicated diets aren’t feasible in the long run.
Other diets that require a lot of thought such as weight watchers may not also be the best choice in the long term. However, I couldn’t totally write the weight watchers diet either because I have friends who have experience great first hand results from using the weight watchers point system to lose belly fat. If I was to guess I would say 95% are a waste of time but there are exceptions but is it really worth the time? in my opinion the answer is no.
Belly Fat Loss Exercises
If you are someone who crunches and crunches on a gym mat thinking that you are directly targeting belly fat well I’ve already advised you to stop. Abdominal crunches and everything related to them will only strengthen the underlying ab muscles. You will not achieve belly fat loss with these exercises alone.
What you must do is to engage in a whole body workout that gets as many of the muscle of the body moving as vigorously as possible for a good 35-45 minutes. A workout I always advocate if you are trying to achieve dramatic belly fat loss is circuit training which builds lean muscle mass and also targets body fat in a way that no other workout does!
Diet Plan
For your belly fat diet to be effective a calorie deficit is an important factor.
If your calorie intake for a steady body weight is 2000 calories then a calorie deficit would be anything under this and a calorie surplus would be anything over this. You should have a rough idea of what you eat on a regular basis that would maintain your body weight.
With this in mind, you should list out the foods and the portion sizes in this diet and roughly estimate how many calories you would be consuming in this daily diet.
Take this as your calorie intake for maintenance of body weight. Now all you have to do to lose weight is to simply eat fewer calories than this by eating smaller portions of these foods.
The only problem with the method of eating smaller portions to lose belly fat is that you may find yourself feeling hungry or run down as a result of consuming small serving of poor nutritional value foods such as white bread, refined sugar, full fat milk, cheese, butter and so on.
The Best Belly Fat Diet
The method I would choose results in you being able to eat large portions of good wholesome food that is high in nutritional value. This can be done by consuming lots of foods with small amounts of calories such as
Lean meats – (view list of lean meats here)
Green vegetables – broccoli – peas – green beans – sprouts
High G.I carbohydrates such as brown rice and whole meal breads.
This will not only benefit you in terms of losing belly fat but also your overall health and the look of your skin which will appear more youthful and vibrant. Your belly fat diet should contain about 3-4 moderately sized meals per day. These should make up breakfast at about 8 o’clock, lunch at 1 o’clock, dinner at 6 o’clock and then if you really need a meal before going to bed then supper at 9 o’clock.
Obviously, you may get hungry during the large gaps between each meal so I would recommend light snacks like rice cakes, seeds or a protein bar to fill the hunger. With these 3-4 meals you should be aiming reduce the number of carbohydrates as you get later into the day. For instance, you main carbohydrate meal should be in the morning which will be a breakfast cereal such as oats or muesli.
Then the next meal which is lunch should have a lesser number of grams of carbohydrates such as a whole meal pitta bread or slice of bread. Then dinner should contain very little carbohydrates which would be like a stir-fry with vegetables and a diced chicken breast.
Lastly, the evening meal should contain no more than 5 grams of carbohydrates which is virtually nothing. This meal is really only a snack as oppose to a meal and should contain something like cottage cheese or a few boiled egg whites.
The reasoning behind keeping the carbohydrates in your belly fat diet mainly at the start of the day is to give you energy in the morning when you really need it for the day ahead and then as the day begins to slow such as in the evening when you are not as active your primary energy source which is carbohydrates are being cut down. This makes sense because excess energy that is not burned up turns to belly fat. This is especially true in the evening when people have little activity.
Belly Fat Reduction
Many factors can contribute to you gaining an excessive, un-healthy body fat percentage around the belly and other regions of the body including the hips, chest, arms, thighs, back and even face.
These factors can, simply, be broken down into 3 categories in order of most-least important:
- Diet
- Exercise
- Lifestyle
It is only when one losses balance of these three elements that they start to put on undesired fat. Your balance should always be according to your goals whether you wish to lose weight or maintain your current weight.
More About Diet
Eating late at night
This is a big No-No. What most people don’t understand is that surplus energy from food in the body is stored as fat.
Fats and carbohydrates as oppose to protein are in high energy. So, these foods, especially late at night will be stored as fat instead of being used as energy because your very inactive and uses little energy (from sleeping!) late at night.
As a rule of thumb you should be cutting out all carbohydrates after 7 o’clock in the evening provided you’re going to bed at around 11 or 12 o’clock. This will ensure that when you settle down in the evening that no excess energy from food is being stored as fat as a result of being sedentary. Obviously, you are more than likely going to eat something in this time period so I would recommend perhaps chicken or fish along with some green vegetables like asparagus, broccoli or mangetoute.
Personally I always get hungry if I don’t eat something within an hour of going to bed. Consequently, I always opt for some cottage cheese or even 2 egg whites due to the lack of calories and energy in these foods. Also, these foods are high in protein which prevent muscle breakdown and help recovery from exercise.
High G.I foods
These are foods which promote short spikes of energy follow by a severe dip in energy. This dip can result in us having a craving for the same high G.I food stuffs throughout the day which can lead to our bodies having excess energy and as a result storing the extra energy as fat.
Low G.I foods are a better option as they they release energy slowly and don’t settle as fat as much.
Examples of High G.I Foods:
- Pasta
- White breads
- Potatoes
- Sugary foods(biscuits, chocolate, cakes) etc.
Examples of Low G.I foods:
- Wholegrain bread/pasta/rice
- Oats
- Weta-bix
- Green veg
Stay well clear of these foods after 7 o’clock in the evening to prevent belly fat storage!
High in Saturated Fat Foods
Obviously foods like burgers, fries, pizza and anything fried are bad for weight loss as there is a dangerously high content of fat in these foods.
Lack of Healthy Fats
Surprisingly, not all fats are bad for belly fat reduction. In-fact, a good dose of fats high in mono-unsaturated and low in saturated fat can help to speed up weight loss, curb cravings, increase energy and improve overall health!
It is imperative though that the right amount for you is established so that you can effectively reach you weight loss goal.
More About Exercise
Your doing too much!!
Overdoing it is such a common occurrence when you are desperately trying to rid belly fat.
This comes from emotions such as anger and frustration which make you unable to think logically. I love working out and have to resist over doing it. As a result you push yourself as hard as possible when doing your exercise to lose belly fat at a pace that is totally unmaintainable over a prolonged period of time.
When you give up this ludicrous intensity when exercising and see little results it usually results in despair and overall resentment of losing weight. To these unfortunate people I say consistent low/moderate exercise is the best!
You Lifestyle
Mind the company you keep
It is no myth that your family, friends and co-workers do have an influence on your health. If you tend to hang out with a group who regularly throughout the week head out on the town drink, smoke and cap the night of with some greasy fast food then the chances are you are going to do the same and this of course will ruin any chances you have of trying to get rid of belly fat.
With this said it is certainly worth your while reflecting on some of the people who you are surround by everyday and establish whether or not their bad lifestyle habit are rubbing off of you. After all “you become the company you keep”.
The Key To Loosing Belly Fat
I’ll let you in on a little secret to rid belly fat for good.
You may not seem to enthusiast about it but the secret to loosing belly fat and keeping it off is really quite simple and the good thing is you can have more freedom with your diet.
Weight training!
Not many people are interested in lifting weights especially women who fear the they are going to turn into some kind of muscle monsters but really this is never going to happen because number one you’re not going to be training with heavy weights very often and number two a females testosterone is very low which makes it much more difficult for them to gain muscle mass than their male counterparts.
Weight training is ideal for fat loss because muscles need feeding using up your storage of fat or at least what would become fat at some point.
Weightlifting To Lose Belly Fat
If you are someone who doesn’t like the idea of weight lifting well it’s time you change your mind set. The reason why weight training is so good for losing belly fat is because it builds muscle mass and the great thing about muscle mass on your body is that it consumes calories. Ever wonder why Michael Phelps can eat 12000 calories a day and still have an incredibly lean body?
Well, one reason is because he has an abundance of muscle which devours calories. This concerns us because if you have a body that incinerates calories you have will burn more body and belly fat. So, as a final note, you should include weight training in your weekly training routine to lose belly fat 3 times per week.
You should have each session spaced out by 48 hours and it should follow the format of a whole body workout to build lean muscle mass. The rep ranges should be in the 8-12 rep range and rest periods between exercises should be kept under 45 seconds.
Final Notes
I hope you have enjoyed reading my Lower belly fat routine, diet and workout plan if so please share with your friends on facebook, G+, twitter or whatever social network you use.
I just wanted to quickly summarize the key facts you need to remember and plan for to lose the belly fat once and for all.
1. Diet – Change your eating quantity’s and start to include lower fat foods
2. Exercise – Create a weekly routine of your favorite activity’s and remember to keep it fresh.
3. Weight Training – Nothing to intense just two or three times a week so muscles consume the fat.
If you have any questions or would like to comment please use he box below.
Metabolism
Metabolism is something everyone trying to burn belly fat should raise. Keep increasing it by working-out and eventually you can get to the stage that you can get away with eating many things that are not considered healthy.
Swimmer Michael Phelps is a typical example with his 12000 Calorie Diet! Metabolism can also be raised by eating foods that keep your energy levels stable and foods that build muscle. An example of some of these foods would be Low G.I Carbohydrate such as brown rice, whole meal bread, whole meal pasta etc and Protein such as chicken breasts, cashew nuts etc.
Opinions
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