How To Lose Belly Fat
This article was co-authored by Laura Flinn. Laura Flinn is a National Academy of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer, USA Olympic Weightlifting Sports Performance Coach and Certified Fitness Nutritionist, with an additional qualification as a TRX Suspension Trainer. Laura runs her own personal training program based in the San Francisco Bay Area and specializes in topics such as weight loss, muscle growth, cardiovascular training, and strength training.There are 14 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page.wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. This article received 16 testimonials and 93% of readers who voted found it helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 998,826 times.
Belly fat can be unsightly and hard to get rid of, but it is an issue of more than just appearance. Carrying excessive weight in your midsection is risky, especially for men. A larger waist circumference puts you at a higher risk for a variety of chronic diseases including: diabetes, heart disease, sleep apnea and even certain cancers . You can reduce the amount of belly fat and the risks it poses by losing weight. Make a few dietary and lifestyle changes to help lose weight and support a healthy lifestyle.
Cut Back On Carbs Especially Refined Carbs
Reducing your carb intake can be very beneficial for losing fat, including abdominal fat.
Diets with under 50 grams of carbs per day cause belly fat loss in people who are overweight, those at risk for type 2 diabetes, and women with polycystic ovary syndrome .
You dont have to follow a strict low carb diet. Some research suggests that simply replacing refined carbs with unprocessed starchy carbs may improve metabolic health and reduce belly fat .
In the famous Framingham Heart Study, people with the highest consumption of whole grains were 17% less likely to have excess abdominal fat than those who consumed diets high in refined grains .
SUMMARY
A high intake of refined carbs is associated with excessive belly fat. Consider reducing your carb intake or replacing refined carbs in your diet with healthy carb sources, such as whole grains, legumes, or vegetables.
How To Lose Weight On The Sides Of My Stomach
Unfortunately there’s no magical side belly fat workout. If you want a sculpted, narrow waist, you can’t crunch your way there. According to the American Council on Exercise, spot reduction is a fitness myth, and isolated strength exercises can’t help you lose fat.
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However, cardio exercise does burn off enough calories to get rid of excess weight, no matter where on your body it may be â as long as you don’t consume those extra calories in your diet. To get a defined waist and a slimmer, streamlined stomach, combine regular cardio with exercises for your obliques.
Read more:The Ultimate Guide to Fat Loss
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Create A Smoking Cessation Plan
If you smoke, quitting may initially feel like it causes you to gain weight as you fight to curb nicotine cravings. But once youve quit, it will be easier to be more active and you may find it easier to lose weight. Youll also be significantly more healthy.
Quitting smoking can be challenging, but you can work with your doctor to create a cessation plan thats right for you.
The main cause of abdominal weight gain usually boils down to eating more calories than you consume. But its not quite that simple. Other factors can cause fat to accumulate in the upper belly area, including:
- hormones
Including Physical Activity To Reduce Belly Fat
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Go For High Intensity Intervals
Any type of exercise can help you torch more calories and burn more fat. But high intensity intervals can be particularly potent.
Why? Alternating between hard and easy seems to help keep your insulin levels lower. That can encourage your body to use up fat instead of squirreling it away in your cells for the future.
Youll also keep burning more calories even after you finish a workout. Best of all, you can turn almost any workout into HIIT.
Flavor Your Food With Garlic
A little garlic in your meals could mean a lot less weight around your middle. The results of a Korean study found that mice given a high-fat diet supplemented with garlic lost significantly more weight and abdominal fat than those who just ate fatty foods. Even better, they also improved their liver health, making it easier to stay healthy and burn off that excess fat in the long term. For more flavorful ways to make your food more enjoyable, turn to the metabolism-boosting spicy recipes and watch those pounds melt away.
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Why Is Extra Belly Fat A Problem
Although we may affectionately refer to our extra inches as love-handles or describe ourselves as cuddly, carrying too much abdominal weight does have a dark side. Visceral fat although small in proportion to other body fat is active, which means it produces messengers that influence how the body functions. These messengers include pro-inflammatory cytokines and compounds which influence how hormones like insulin work.
What this means is that when visceral fat starts to accumulate it may become a risk to our health, increasing our chances of developing conditions such as:
- Type 2 diabetes
- Alzheimers disease and other forms of dementia
Drink Water To Stay Hydrated
Properly hydrating your body is a must for optimal health.
Though water is the best fluid to drink, many people tend to reach for sweetened beverages like sports drinks, teas and juice when they feel thirsty.
The calories and sugar found in sweetened beverages add up and can cause you to gain fat around the waistline.
Studies have shown that a higher intake of sugar-sweetened beverages is linked to weight gain, specifically in the abdominal area (
Instead of sugary beverages, hydrate with plain or sparkling water, or unsweetened tea.
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Cardio Exercises For Side Fat
According to the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, healthy adults should perform 150 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise per week to maintain a healthy weight. You’ll likely need to aim higher than those recommendations to lose overall body weight with your love handle workouts.
You can do any kind of cardio you choose, including biking, hiking, swimming, jogging or even brisk walking. Keep in mind that more intense exercises burn more calories, so you may lose weight faster if you can incorporate tougher activities into your workouts.
Dont Overload On Cardio
Even though Ballantyne recommended cardio for a cool down, he’s wary of its effectiveness when performed alone. Extended periods of steady state cardio, like jogging, wont do much to cut down your spare tire. “It’s not going to work as well as interval training,” Ballantyne said.
This is related to another issue, according to Ballantyne: Many guys don’t have enough muscle in the first place. Losing love handles, like bodybuilding, is a game of illusion. Muscle on your chest and back can essentially “hide” excess fat in your love handle area.
“So most guys are skinny-fat, and then try to lose love handles with cardio only, and basically become even smaller versions of themselvesbut still skinny-fat,” Ballantyne said. “It’s better to use intervals and weight training to gain muscle and lose fat at the same timewhich IS possibleand change your body’s overall appearance.”
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How To Lose Belly Fat In A Week
This article was co-authored by Laura Flinn. Laura Flinn is a National Academy of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer, USA Olympic Weightlifting Sports Performance Coach and Certified Fitness Nutritionist, with an additional qualification as a TRX Suspension Trainer. Laura runs her own personal training program based in the San Francisco Bay Area and specializes in topics such as weight loss, muscle growth, cardiovascular training, and strength training.There are 20 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page.wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. This article received 18 testimonials and 89% of readers who voted found it helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 1,359,615 times.
Belly fat, or visceral fat, is fat stored in and around your abdominal organs. It can increase your risks of cancer, high blood pressure, stroke, dementia, heart disease, and diabetes.XResearch source You cannot lose large quantities of weight or excess body fat within one week – especially visceral or belly fat. To get healthier and lose the dangerous belly fat, you’ll need to change your diet, exercise routine, and lifestyle over a longer period of time. However, during a week you can start to make some great, health-promoting changes to your lifestyle.
Drink Plenty Of Water
Drinking enough water boosts metabolism, which helps you lose weight.
Lemon water, a common favorite, may aid weight loss if you use it to replace sugary drinks. However, it has no proven added weight loss benefits over regular water.
A 2008 study of women with excess weight found that increasing daily water intake to more than 34 ounces per day, over 12 months, resulted in 4.4 pounds of weight loss.
You could drink more water by keeping a water bottle nearby, adding no-calorie, natural flavors to your water, or tracking your consumption with an app like WaterMinder.
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You’re Not Getting Enough Sleep
From scrolling through social media to having a late-night coffee, there are plenty of ways we unknowingly keep ourselves awake at night. Aside from feeling tired and groggy the next day, not getting the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep each night can affect weight loss, explains Dr Luke.
“When we’re lacking in sleep, our bodys hormones get thrown off balance which can impact our hunger levels the next day. We all have two hormones that affect our appetite: ghrelin and leptin. When we dont get enough sleep, our ghrelin levels rise, and our leptin levels drop. This means that when we’re awake, we tend to eat more but feel less satisfied. Try going to bed a little earlier than usual to avoid this imbalance and remember to remove any distractions that might prevent you from nodding off,” he continues.
How Do I Know If My Belly Fat Is A Problem
An easy way to assess if there may be a problem is to measure your waist. Experts suggest that for women a waist measurement more than 80cm and for men more than 94cm suggests there may be an issue. These guidelines are adjusted for ethnicity with South Asian, Chinese and Japanese men recommended to have a waist circumference no more than 90cm. If your measurements exceed these guidelines and you are concerned, refer to your GP for further guidance.
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Eat Plenty Of Soluble Fiber
Soluble fiber absorbs water and forms a gel that helps slow down food as it passes through your digestive system.
Studies show that this type of fiber promotes weight loss by helping you feel full, so you naturally eat less. It may also decrease the number of calories your body absorbs from food .
Whats more, soluble fiber may help fight belly fat.
An observational study in over 1,100 adults found that for every 10-gram increase in soluble fiber intake, belly fat gain decreased by 3.7% over a 5-year period (
Make an effort to consume high fiber foods every day. Excellent include:
- flax seeds
- blackberries
SUMMARY
Soluble fiber may help you to lose weight by increasing fullness and reducing calorie absorption. Try to include plenty of high fiber foods in your weight loss diet.
Focus On Healthy Fats
Filling up on healthy fats like avocados, olive oil, nuts, seeds and fatty fish can help slim your waistline.
Not only do healthy fats taste delicious, they help you feel full, causing you to consume fewer calories throughout the day.
One study of more than 7,000 people found that when participants ate a high-fat Mediterranean diet supplemented with olive oil, they lost a greater amount of weight and accumulated less belly fat than those on a low-fat diet 30085-7/” rel=”nofollow”> 9 ).
Replacing less nutrient-dense foods with healthy fats may help you lose body fat. This could be as simple as adding a few slices of tasty avocado to your meal.
In fact, one study showed that people who consume avocados tend to weigh less and have less belly fat than those who dont .
Even though healthy fats are high in calories, incorporating moderate amounts into your diet can help you shed pounds.
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Will My Hormones Influence How Much Belly Fat I Have
During our reproductive life women have less visceral fat than men, but this changes as oestrogen levels fall during midlife and at the menopause. At this stage, testosterone starts to play a more significant role in where women lay down fat, favouring the upper body rather than the hips and thighs, with our proportion of fat to body weight also increasing.
Menopause is not the only time when hormones play an influential role in fat storage. Women diagnosed with the condition PCOS may also be prone to increased intra-abdominal fat storage.
S For Beating Belly Fat
There are four keys to controlling belly fat: exercise, diet, sleep, and stress management.
1. Exercise: Vigorous exercise trims all your fat, including visceral fat.
Get at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise at least 5 days a week. Walking counts, as long as it’s brisk enough that you work up a sweat and breathe harder, with your heart rate faster than usual.
To get the same results in half the time, step up your pace and get vigorous exercise — like jogging or walking. You’d need to do that for 20 minutes a day, 4 days a week.
Jog, if you’re already fit, or walk briskly at an incline on a treadmill if you’re not ready for jogging. Vigorous workouts on stationary bikes and elliptical or rowing machines are also effective, says Duke researcher Cris Slentz, PhD.
Moderate activity — raising your heart rate for 30 minutes at least three times per week — also helps. It slows down how much visceral fat you gain. But to torch visceral fat, your workouts may need to be stepped up.
âRake leaves, walk, garden, go to Zumba, play soccer with your kids. It doesnât have to be in the gym,â Hairston says.
If you are not active now, it’s a good idea to check with your health care provider before starting a new fitness program.
2. Diet: There is no magic diet for belly fat. But when you lose weight on any diet, belly fat usually goes first.
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Diet To Get Rid Of Upper Belly Fat
What you eat when youre trying to lose weight matters. If youre dieting to get rid of upper belly fat, there are a few important factors to keep in mind.
Upper belly fat can be the result of your body storing water weight. Sodium consumption, dehydration, and a lack of electrolytes can cause your body to retain water.
This can make your stomach and other areas of your body appear swollen. Stick to a diet low in salt while youre working to lose belly fat.
Belly fat can also be affected by how much fiber you eat. When youre not consuming enough fiber, your stomach can be pushed outward by gases and waste in your digestive system.
This is the result of a sluggish gut that doesnt have enough fiber to push food through and out of your digestive tract in a timely manner.
Thats why eating a diet high in fiber-rich foods can help with weight loss and belly fat. It also makes cutting calories easier, as fiber helps you feel full for longer.
When youre working to lose belly fat, avoid white starches, processed grains, soft drinks, and foods high in sugar. These foods can disrupt your endocrine system and make it harder for your body to let go of fat.
These exercises wont work to spot treat areas of fat on your body, but they will strengthen your core, tone your waistline, and improve your posture while youre losing weight.