Understand Your Hip And Stomach Fat
You may want to lose weight primarily in your hips and tummy, but know that you cant control which fat your body burns first. Fat is stored in fat cells throughout your body. Some people have more fat cells in certain trouble spots, which means these areas are more prone to plump up. When you reduce your calorie intake below what you burn, your body mobilizes stored fat and converts it to usable energy. You cant point to your hips or belly and tell your body thats where you want it to direct fat loss, though youre body loses in a set pattern determined by genetics.
Women tend to store extra fat in the hips to help support a baby during pregnancy. Hip fat is subcutaneous, which means it lies just under the skin, and its notoriously stubborn to lose. Pinchable belly fat that expands over your waistband as a muffin top is also subcutaneous and harder to lose.
If, however, your stomach is larger than 35 inches around as a woman, or 40 inches around as a man, you have an abundance of visceral fat. This fat is particularly insidious as it weaves around internal organs and secretes compounds that increase your risk of health problems, such as heart disease. Because visceral fat is more metabolically active, it is also more responsive to exercise. When you first drop weight through diet and exercise, you can lose visceral fat from deep in your belly sooner than you can drop the subcutaneous fat.
How Can I Lose My Tummy In 7 Days
We think you already know what we’re going to say, but we’re going to go ahead and say it anyway. Whilst, technically speaking, you can lose weight over the course of a week, there’s no magic diet nor secret hack that will enable you to shift an entire organ within a week. And, any diet promising to enable such fat loss is, at best, unsustainable and, at worst, potentially damaging to your physical and mental wellbeing.
‘The majority of diets follow the same cycle of restrict, crave, binge, restrict,’ says Nutritionist Jenna Hope. ‘During the restriction phase you may lose weight as youre significantly limiting your calorie intake, or in some cases, your carbohydrate intake . However, as the cycle continues you begin to regain the weight plus more due to the bingeing.’
So, in short, steer well clear.
Getting Rid Of Lower Stomach Fat
First, throw out the idea that you can spot treat areas of fat on your body. You can do thousands of reps of toning exercises to tighten your waistline and not see fat loss.
Exercises like cardio, yoga, and crunches may tone your muscles and strengthen your lower abs, but they wont erase fat deposits.
The only way to lose fat on your lower stomach is to lose fat overall. A calorie deficit helps with this.
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Reduce Refined Carbohydrate Intake
Just as you should drink whole milk because it is less processed, you should also reduce refined carbohydrate intake for the same reason. Refined carbs, during processing, are stripped of their bran and germ. The end result is food that is artificially low in fiber and nutrients and high on the glycemic index. When you eat foods with a high glycemic index, your blood sugar levels fluctuate.
Blood sugar levels spiking and crashing increases hunger and calorie consumption. This results in excess belly fat. Contrastingly, when you incorporate more whole grains into your diet, you will lose inches off your belly, lower your BMI and burn overall body fat. Replace processed cereals, white bread, and pasta with whole wheat pasta, whole grain bread, oats, barley, and quinoa.
Consume A Combo Of Calcium And Vitamin D
Say cheese! Adding some extra calcium and vitamin D to your diet could be the best way to get the flat stomach you’ve been dreaming about. Over just 12 months, researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville found that obese female study subjects who upped their calcium intake shed 11 pounds of body fat without other major dietary modifications. To keep your calcium choices healthy, try mixing it up between dairy sources, calcium-rich leafy greens, fatty fish, nuts, and seeds.
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The Best Exercise For Belly Fat
We’ve been conditioned to think that super hard exercise are going to be the things to help us get results, especially when we’re trying to lose lower belly fat. In fact surprise, surprise it’s much more holistic than that and is about keeping your nutrition, exercise and general movement in check concurrently.
Outside of gym workouts , the movement you’re doing walking to the shops, making a cup of tea or taking your pooch out to stretch their legs can actually contribute more to hitting your healthy fat loss goals. This type of movement is known as NEAT and is a cornerstone of healthy body composition.
‘NEAT simply refers to the energy used carrying out any daily activity that isn’t formal exercise or sleeping,’ says Elliott Upton, personal trainer at Ultimate Performance and Head of LiveUP Online Coaching.
NEAT plays a major role in how much energy you expend per day and increasing your metabolic rate. It also helps control your blood sugar, aid muscle recovery, lower stress levels and improve cardiovascular health.
You can increase your NEAT by walking instead of taking public transport, opting for the stairs over the elevator or doing household chores. Whichever you choose, they’ll all contribute to the process in which you lose stomach fat.
Learn everything you need to know about NEAT exercise with this full explainer.
How Do I Lose Belly Fat Fast
Right, by “fast”, we’re going to have to assume you are looking for answers to how to lose belly fat efficiently and safely. That’s the only way we know how to do things at WH and the only way we plan on doing things, too.
One way to make sure you’re as dialled into your belly fat loss journey as possible is to get more granular with your nutrition. Now, ifyou’re already familiar with counting calories, listen up this is how to fine-tune your fat loss efforts to focus on how to lose belly fat in particular. It’s known as learning how to count and calculate your macros.
“Counting macros” is a diet technique to make sure you’re eating the right amounts of each macronutrient protein, fat and carbohydrates. By tweaking the volume of each you can make your fat loss efforts more efficient.
How? Well, each macronutrient plays a different role in keeping our bodies ticking over. In broad strokes: protein helps to build and maintain muscle tissue, carbohydrates provide fast and slow-release energy and healthy fats support hormone function.
Tweaking the volumes you eat can help build muscle and lose body fat more efficiently, as well as allowing you to re-incorporate some of your favourite foods. Because you’re looking at what makes up what you eat, foods that are less nutrient-dense can be incorporated . All you’ll need to do is work out how that impacts the rest of your day.
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Reduce Water Retention And Bloating
Water retention occurs when the body holds excess fluid.
Water retention can make you heavier and bigger. And it can sometimes cause swelling in the legs, ankles, and hands.
Most times people with water retention are also bloated. Bloating makes the belly look bigger.
Some of the things you can do to reduce water retention and bloating include:
- Reduce salt intake
- Increase intake of vitamin B6
- Reduce intake of refined carbs
- And drink plenty of water
You’re Not Tracking Your Progress
Another important point from Dr Luke. While every person is different and what weight loss plan works for them will be different, tracking your progress can serve as an encouraging reminder that what you are doing is working.
“There are some great apps and wearable tech devices available that make it easier to stick to your plan. They can help you monitor your goals, your food intake and the calories burned during exercise. If these arent an option, write down a meal and exercise plan. This will help you stick to your goals and remain focussed,” he explains.
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Dine On Dark Chocolate
Not for every meal, but a square or two of the darker variety can actually help lessen your tum. It’s all down to the monounsaturated fat, which can help to speed up your metabolism.
Dark chocolate 70% bar, £3.98, Tony’s Chocolonely
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Thin People Have It Too
Even if you’re thin, you can still have too much visceral fat.
How much you have is partly about your genes, and partly about your lifestyle, especially how active you are.
Visceral fat likes inactivity. In one study, thin people who watched their diets but didn’t exercise were more likely to have too much visceral fat.
The key is to be active, no matter what size you are.
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You’re Doing Too Much
Your body needs a healthy balance of exercise and rest. And did you know? Doing too much prevents the body from shifting excess fat according to Dr Luke, aka, has the reverse result that you’re after. “Exercising without rest can impact our levels of the steroid hormone cortisol and cause an increase of stubborn fat stored in the belly. Not allowing your body to recover can increase the risk of injury too, so make sure you factor in rest days to your exercise plan.”
Turn The Fitness Up A Notch
Becoming more active in the next two weeks will help you lose weight faster. Exercising doesnt have to be a drag, and like dieting, it doesnt have to be drastic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends 150 minutes of moderate-intensity cardio per week. Thats only a 20 minute brisk walk per day.
If you dont currently exercise this may sound doable, and then any exercise you do on top of that would just be bonus calories burned. Even taking the stairs, floor exercises during tv, or looping the mall burns off additional calories.
If you are a regular gym goer, then your routine may simply lack intensity, which is what you need if you are hanging onto that last 15 pounds of subcutaneous fat. Your body burns fat more efficiently when you do short burst of high intensity exercise followed by short periods of lower intensity exercise.
A paper published in the Journal of Obesitys 2011 issue, showed that this type of high intensity interval training is highly effective for burning subcutaneous fat. hiit includes such exercises as sprints, push-ups, squats, burpees, jumping jacks and many more.
A hiit example would be: 3 Rounds of
20 seconds push-ups, 10 seconds running in place
20 seconds squats, 10 seconds running in place
20 seconds jumping jacks, 10 seconds running in place
20 seconds butt kicks, 10 seconds running in place
20 seconds burpees, 10 seconds running in place
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How Do You Lose Total Body Fat
Diet and exercise is the most effective way to lose total body fat.
Eating healthier, lowering your caloric intake, and exercising daily is a great recipe for fat loss because its the fastest way to create a caloric deficit. A caloric deficit happens when you take in fewer calories than your body needs thereby forcing it to convert triglycerides from fat cells into useable energy.
Aim to create a caloric deficit of around 700 calories a day. By doing this, you will be able to lose anywhere from 1-2 pounds a week.
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This might seem like a small amount, but the results will be long term and sustainable. Plus this gives your skin time to adjust to the weight loss, so your breasts dont sag.
Rapid loss in this area could result in loose skin. You can use an online calorie counter to estimate what your deficit should be. Myfitnesspal is a great resource.
Do not starve yourself or create too big of a deficit. Women should never eat less than 1200 calories a day. For men its higher at 1800 calories a day.
If you starve yourself, it only works against you, and prevents you from losing weight. Your body will go into starvation mode and hold on to every calorie that you eat. It will even store the calories you eat as fat because it thinks that you are in a famine mode.
Starving yourself can also lead to binge eating where you lose control over how many calories you eat.
Diet To Get Rid Of Excess Belly Fat
Consuming more calories than you burn can make you more likely to develop visceral fat. It sometimes accumulates around the abdomen.
Eating the right foods may help aid weight loss. Avoid or limit foods that are highly processed and high in refined sugars and bleached grains. Theyve been linked to blood sugar instability and inflammation in the digestive tract.
Instead, focus on adding healthy protein and fiber sources to your diet. Cruciferous veggies may help keep you full for longer and contain many nutrients. These include:
- cauliflower
Protein can boost your stamina and energy without adding a lot of calories to your daily calorie needs. Some protein sources include:
- hard-boiled eggs
- beans and legumes
- nuts and seeds
Avoid or limit artificially sweetened drinks, including energy drinks and diet sodas. Stick to anti-inflammatory beverages, such as unsweetened green tea and water.
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Monitor Your Eating With A Food Diary
Self-monitoring, like keeping a daily food diary, is a great way to keep track of what you’re eating.
Try out a free food diary app like MealLogger, MyNetDiary, iEatBetter, and MyFitnessPal. These apps make it easy to keep track of your meals, nutrients, and calories right from your phone. If you prefer a pen and paper, that works too! You can purchase a simple notebook and manually keep track of what you’re eating each day.
The Center For Disease Control has a free food diary template online that you can print out. Websites like MyFoodDiary can help you track your diet right from your computer too.
What Is Belly Fat
First things first. Before we talk about how to get rid of belly fat or how to lose belly fat, its important to know exactly what belly fat is.
Belly fat or abdominal fat is the subcutaneous fat that sits around the waist and provides a store of energy, and also protection and heat, for the organs, says Tarik Belalij, personal trainer and nutritionist at Everyone Active Becontree Leisure Centre.
Small amounts of fat below the skin is normal and healthy, it is the visceral fat, which surrounds the organs that can be the most dangerous type of fat leading to heart attacks and diabetes.
How do you know if youve got this type of fat situation going on? Excessive visceral fat is what causes the beer gut , pushing the stomach out from the inside, Belalij says. So, to reiterate, were not talking bloating, which comes and goes, were talking about actual belly fat tissue.
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Blackout With Blackout Shades
Light-blocking curtains make a huge difference when it comes to falling asleep. Outside light makes it harder for your mind to shut down, even if you think you’re immune to such instinctive signals. Melatonin, the hormone involved in putting your body to sleep, is compromised when light is present.
“Darken your room so that going to bed, even early, feels natural,” Smiley says.
Why Is It So Hard To Lose Weight After 60
Losing and maintaining your weight can start to become an issue as early as age 50, though many experience this annoyance around age 60.
What is going on?
Hormones Are Slowing Down, And So Is Your Metabolism
For starters, your metabolism slows down as you age.
Robert Herbst, a personal trainer and 19-time World Champion in powerlifting explains, âIâm 60, so I know what it means to be 60. The slowing of the metabolism is a function of decreased production of testosterone and human growth hormone , which causes a loss of muscle mass.â
Donât worry â that loss of muscle mass can be reversed, and weâll get to that in the next section.
Carolyn Dean, MD and author of 30 books, including The Complete Natural Medicine Guide to Womenâs Health also explains, âThe loss of nutrients such as magnesium has decreased the production of metabolism-boosting hormones, so your weight loss efforts are handicapped.â
In essence, this isnât your fault. With age, your body becomes less efficient with producing the key hormones it needs, which makes losing weight⦠well, really hard.
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Perimenopause and Menopause
For women, perimenopause and menopause are a reality of your 50s and 60s. Because of this shift, you actually burn fewer calories than you used to.
Another issue that comes with both perimenopause and menopause is insulin-resistance, which makes losing weight even more difficult.
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