How to lose belly fat and stay healthy? Having those 6 or 8 packs has always been our dream, but it is not possible without lose belly fat. Having people turn around and give us a second look is something that we all crave about. We have seen Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp maintain those abs like it was a child’s play. We have even seen them do roles for which they gain a lot of weight around their waist and then miraculously they just seem to lose it effortlessly. This is what we think about such celebrities, that they can actually lose the belly fat effortlessly, but in all honesty, even they struggle with their belly fat all the time.
There have been days when you and I have struggled as well, sadly losing the belly fat that we have had since our childhood is not that very easy. People try very hard to beat the belly fat, but in the end, it seems to be the winner. Though for so long you have never found any easy answers to help you lose belly fat, you need not worry any more since this page is going to let you in on some secrets that you had never known about before.
Why the Belly Fat?
Why do we gain belly fat? This is a question that is always daunting us. We seem to follow a strict diet and even exercise a bit, but why is that the belly fat has not eased up. Well, there are many reasons why you accumulated the belly fat in the first place and there are more reasons as to why you are unable to lose your belly fat that easily.
If you have been on a crash diet for some time, and once you get trim if you went back to eating regularly, then your body has stored up on belly fat. This is your body’s way of defending itself from a dry spell without food. During the time that you were on the crash diet, your body craved the necessary nutrients. Once, after the diet, the regular nutrients were made available, your body thought that in the future, it will not find food again, hence it stored the necessary fat around your waist. The sad part is that it will keep doing that for a long time after this.
How to Lose Belly Fat?
1.) Sleep a Lot to Lose Belly Fat
If you really want to lose belly fat soon, then it is time that you invested some money in some thick drapes and some good quality memory foam mattresses. This would help you have an undisturbed sleep of seven to eight hours, which is necessary for your body to do an inventory check which will help lose weight.
Your body has fat cells all over and these cells need to produce Leptin to take an inventory of the amount of energy it has stored around. Leptin can only be produced if you are in a deep sleep stage, so anything lesser 7 hours of deep sleep would only mean more fat around the waist.
2.) Keep Inflammation at Bay to Lose Belly Fat
It has been recently proved that people who tend to have inflammations on or in their bodies tend to gain more weight and more importantly tend to accumulate belly fat faster. This is even more worrying if the inflammation is found within the mouth. Oral ailments like weak roots, rotting gums or any other dental ailments will lead to the person gaining weight.
The same research has also proven that people who brush their teeth twice a day, use mouthwash after every meal and floss regularly had better oral hygiene and a better success of losing the unwanted belly fat easily.
3.) Cardio Exercises to Lose Belly Fat
Cardio exercises, if done right can really work wonders in reducing belly fat. Belly fat is not really very tough to burn, but at the same time it is not going to burn immediately. This fat takes time, but once you start exercising, it burns pretty fast and consistently. When exercising, build upon your cardiovascular exercises steadily.
Always keep a track of the number of miles you do each day against the time it takes. As your cardio seems to gain better strength, you will see that the time taken to cover the miles also reduces faster. It is always best to start safe, slow and steady with cardio exercises. In a week start with two days of cardio, then work your way up to 3. When you are really sure of yourself, then let it go to 4 days a week. It is better to start slow a steady than to be fast and sorry.
4.) Eat Slowly to Lose Belly Fat
Recent studies have shown that the time it takes for a message to be relayed from your stomach to your brain is somewhere between ten and twelve minutes. It simply means that it usually takes about ten minutes for your brain to realize that you are hungry. It again takes another ten minutes to realize that the food has started to fill your stomach. Simply put only after you are well within your eating spree does your brain realize that the stomach is starting to get full.
This is one of the major reasons why people tend to overeat – delay in the time taken to relay the message between the brain and the stomach. Hence, make certain that you eat really slowly. Take your time to chew your food as it half digests your food, makes it easier to metabolize and conveys the message to your brain that food is in the stomach by that time.
5.) Before Ab Crunches Lose The Belly Fat
Most people think that doing the ab crunches is the best way to lose belly fat easily. Sadly, what these people do not know is that ab crunches would make your ab muscles stronger, build muscle mass and definitely not be seen under all that belly fat. So before you go about doing the ab crunches make sure that you lose belly fat with other exercises like the bridge, squats or the side stretches.
The bridge is a relatively easy exercise that will help you lose the belly fat. All you have to do is prop your body up with your elbows, and stretch your body while lifting your body with the ball of your toes. Look down, tuck your tummy in and hold this position for as long as you can.
As for the side stretches and squats, you can do as many as you want, but tuck your tummy in for all these exercises.
6.) Interval Training to Lose Belly Fat
Research has proven that people who tend to exercise, allowing small resting periods, tend to lose weight faster. This is also true when it comes to an exercise like ab crunches. Ab crunches are one really effective exercise that can burn the belly fat and tone the ab muscles easily. When you do the ab crunch exercise, always make it a point to rest after every repetition. Give a gap of 1 – 2 minutes before you start the next repetition.
Also with every succeeding repetition, make sure that you increase the number of crunches that you do. This would help burn the belly fat fast and would also give you the best of results really soon. You can make this easier by either setting a stop clock with an interval mode or by using the interval timed exercise mode on an elliptical climber or even your treadmill.
7.) Never Skip Breakfast to Lose Belly Fat
Skipping breakfast is the worst move ever when it comes to losing belly fat soon. Eating your breakfast should happen within the first 60 minutes of getting out of bed. This would make certain that your bad cholesterol levels are low and your insulin level doesn’t drop later. Always make it a point to eat your breakfast exactly at the same time every day. During the weekends, if you have the habit of sleeping in, then make it a point to have your breakfast a lot earlier than one hour of getting out of bed.
Your breakfast should always be high in fiber and protein rich. This would ensure that your stomach is full and does not make you feel hungry soon. If you love to eat cupcakes, sweet muffins and fruit loops for breakfast, then make it a point to still have a portion of high fiber or protein rich dish to help curb the appetite.
8.) Whole Grains to Lose Belly Fat
If you really like your grains and can’t live without eating them, then it would be best if you could buy whole grains and not the refined grains that have gone through many stages of polishing. It doesn’t matter whether it is wheat or rice that you wish to eat as long as you choose the brown variety over the white ones.
In your daily meal of five servings that consists of a serving of vegetables and fruits each, make certain that you even add a serving of whole grains. Grains are known to burn fat easily. It helps by metabolizing the sugars in your body and melting the fat underneath the skin. This happens to be the fat that is really hard to melt and luckily, whole grains can help you do that easily.
9.) Ten Thousand Steps to Lose Belly Fat
Set a goal to at least walk ten thousand steps each day. It would be best if you could either invest in a digital pedometer or get a pedometer app from either of your mobile phone’s app stores. This would help you track the number of steps that you take and help you achieve your goals easier. One of the recent studies has proven that people who walked ten thousand steps each day were able to lose a lot of belly fat easily. When the same participants reduced their walk from the targeted ten thousand steps to fifteen hundred steps each day (without altering their daily diet) their belly fat soon increased by 8% instantly.
10.) Cut the Amount of Sweet to Lose Belly Fat
As you have understood really well by now, anything sweet will be the worst nightmare if you want to lose belly fat fast. Pastries, chocolates and ice creams are always known by the fun phrase, “a moment on the lips, forever on the hips”.
This is true when it comes to the amount you eat. If you buy a lot of chocolates and hoard them in your house, then you will tend to eat more. So make certain that you buy only very less quantities and pick up only the single serve packs. This will help you cut your cravings and control the amount of calories that you eat.
11.) Elevate Your Mood to Lose Belly Fat
People tend to gain belly fat when they binge eat and binge eating is a side effect of being depressed. Such depression is again an effect of improper eating habits. This as you can see is one vicious and never ending cycle. You don’t eat properly, you will tend to sulk and when you sulk, you will end up binge eating to fill that empty feeling within you or worst you might end up binging upon chocolates – the worst nemesis for someone who wishes to lose belly fat.
So make certain things that this does not happen, you would have to make certain that you eat at the right time and never go hungry. When you are feeling really low and feeling like you are in the dumps, you would tend to eat more than usual. So make certain that you elevate your mood and if you crave chocolates, make sure you binge into the figs.
12.) Yogurt to Lose Belly Fat
One of the recent studies has shown that people who take in more calcium rich yogurt tend to lose twice the amount of belly fat than the ones who did not consume yogurt. This study had two groups of people. The first group of the respondents was given calcium rich yogurt while having five hundred calories removed from their daily diet and then there was the group that had only five hundred calories removed from their diet without adding the yogurt to it. Surprisingly, people who ate the yogurt in their daily diet lost their belly fat twice as fast as the other group. The presence of probiotic bacteria in the yogurt had helped in burning the excess belly fat easily.
13.) Nuts, Greens & Meat to Lose Belly Fat
When you are at a restaurant and you badly need to binge on something, then make certain that you immediately order an appetizer or a side order which consists of only nuts, meat or vegetables. If you are ordering vegetables, then make certain that you ask for just almonds. Almonds not only help fill your stomach easily, but it is also filled with good oils that are good for your heart and does not build on your belly fat.
You can also look for leafy vegetables or plain meat dishes to help cut your appetite. If you are choosing a plate of leafy vegetable salad, then make certain that you have it dressed with just vinaigrette. Skip any high calorie, egg-based salad dressing in order to lose belly fat.
14.) Mint to Lose Belly Fat
If you want to control your appetite at all times and not binge and give into cravings, then make certain that you keep chewing on mint leaves at all times. The flavor of these leaves is so strong that it actually helps cut your appetite and control your binging. Studies have proven that even brushing your teeth often with mint flavored toothpaste will help control your appetite. But be careful with this method since you might harm your tooth whilst trying to lose that belly fat.
Unbalancing the nutrient content of your food will also help you lose the belly fat soon. If you are eating a high calorie diet today, make certain that you reduce the calories tomorrow. When you keep doing this, your body doesn’t set to a particular cycle and each day it has to work differently to burn the calories in your body.
15.) Wait Till The Cravings Ebb to Lose Belly Fat
After all, we are human and at most times we are confronted with our very own demons in the form of cravings. These demons usually rear their ugly head up when you are on a diet plan which involves absolutely no carbs. Giving in to ice creams or pastries would only mean that you would end up gaining more belly fat. So should you brand yourself to overcome such cravings? Well, not at all, all you would have to do is eat a small portion of the ice cream or the pastry that you crave so much and wait for another twenty minutes before you eat another piece.
The time that you take to eat the next piece is more than enough for you to overcome your craving and in time you would learn to control it.
16.) Have Company to Lose Belly Fat
When you are on the path to lose belly fat fast, it would always be for the best if you can have company to do it. Choose a friend who is just as willing as you are to lose belly fat. Next, the two of you would always have to do your exercises together. This would ensure that you are well motivated at all times and would not find a reason to give up. If you want to give up on an exercise, your friend would motivate you to carry on and vice versa.
It would also be equally well if you can join a neighborhood sports club that you like. So whatever the friend could have done for you in the way of motivation, the sports club team can do the same.
17.) Drink Water to Lose Belly Fat
We have heard that drinking water is very good for us. But no one has bothered to tell us, how drinking water is good for us. Well, water is important for our daily functioning since it helps the blood carry nutrients around the body and it also helps the blood carry oxygen to various parts of our body. When it comes to weight management and losing belly fat soon, then water is the elixir of life since it helps metabolize your food fast, carry out the toxins and the unwanted fat either through the pores on your skin or via your urine.
Also, if you drink water before you eat your food, it would tend to cut your appetite by filling the space in your stomach. This would mean that you tend to eat lesser food and make your body burn the existing fat, which would in turn make your tummy a lot trimmer than before.
18.) Skip No Meal to Lose Belly Fat
One of the craziest things that I have heard till date is that skipping meals actually help in losing belly fat. This is nothing but a myth and one that would not only have a wrong long term effect on your body, but also one that will make you gain a lot of belly fat soon. Immaterial of whether you are busy or whether you are tired, always make it a point to eat your meals regularly. Instead of varying the portions of the three meals each day, you can do well by eating smaller portions of 5 meals each day. This would not only ensure that you do not feel hungry suddenly, crave food and binge eat, but it will also help burn any excess carbs even faster.
While on a limited portion five meal plan each day, always make it a point to eat a portion of fruits and a portion of fresh vegetables during two such meals. This would help your body get the necessary fiber and help burn the excess belly fat fast.
19.) Skip Carbs to Lose Belly Fat
If you have been under the impression that eating a good portion of the carbs would actually help you lose belly fat, then you have been wrong. Carbs are potent when it comes to gaining weight and belly fat. If you really want to lose the ugly belly fat, then you have to stay away from carbs as much as possible.
Skip any vegetable that is rich in starch, skip pastries of all sorts, skip deep fried food and skip liquid carbs like sweetened carbonated drinks and fruit juices.
If you really want to eat something that will cut your appetite like what carbohydrates do, then you can treat yourself to a slice of avocado. Avocadoes are not only known to cut the appetite, but are also known to burn belly fat really fast.
20.) Eat After Your Workout to Lose Belly Fat
If someone had told you that you are not supposed to eat after a rigorous workout, then that somebody was very wrong. As we all know, your body requires calories to digest your food and break down those complex sugars that you have consumed. It has been proved that when you eat your food after a rigorous workout, your body tends to burn up to seventy three percent more calories than what it generally would if food was consumed on an empty stomach. It doesn’t matter whether you go for a vigorous run or try out multiple repetitions of rigorous ab crunches because any food you eat after these exercises surely will burn the unnecessary belly fat easily.
21.) More Fiber to Lose Belly Fat
If you are unable to cut anything from your delicious food plate, then chances are that you will not be able to lose the belly fat that easily. However, if you can accommodate more beans or more fiber onto your plate it would make things all the more easier for you.
It doesn’t matter whether you eat carbs or veggies with extra fiber, because by the end of the day both carbs and fiber fill your stomach up and helps cut down on the craving. So instead of filling your stomach with bread or rice, it would be best to fill it up with fibrous vegetables. Research has proven that people who added more beans to their plates were able to lose the belly fat fast without having to make any other changes to their diet!
22.) Add Proteins and Read Labels to Lose Belly Fat
Remember to add more proteins to your daily diet to lose belly fat. Studies have proven that your body tends to burn more calories that are present in proteins than what your body does with calories that are available in carbs. It doesn’t matter whether you indulge in meat based proteins or strictly vegetarian proteins, since your body is better at efficiently burning calories that are present in proteins of any type.
Also, before you buy any food items off the rack, always make it a point to read the labels carefully. Any food item that is made with high fructose should be off the list completely if you wish to lose your belly fat soon. Also make it a point to avoid high fructose corn syrup based sweet drinks since they tend to make you look flabby by gaining those dreaded pounds around your waist.
23.) Exercise to Lose Belly Fat
One of the sure ways to lose belly fat fast would be to exercise your abs regularly. Always make it a point to exercise whilst you stand since, you would burn more calories faster when you exercise standing. During such exercises, always mix your body moves. When you are exercising your upper body, rest your lower body and vice versa, this would make sure that all your muscles, both in your upper and lower body are well exercised.
If you have a garden or a yard, then you should be really very lucky that you do not have to pay to tone your muscles up. Dig the yard, plant more trees and bushes, and mow your lawn regularly and you will see that in no time you start losing your belly fat easily.
24.) Trick Your Body While Exercising to Lose Belly Fat
To make sure that you lose belly fat soon, you need to exercise and to make your exercise give you the best workout, you would have to learn to trick your body. When you are on the elliptical climber, you would have to let go of the handles and need to have a blindfold on when you use it. This would mean that you concentrate and balance yourself more cautiously. When you try harder to balance yourself on the elliptical climber, you tend to burn more calories and lose belly fat faster.
You can also do the same with the rowing machines. Though you have to hold on to the handles to get the maximum workout, you can still exercise being blindfolded. A blindfold would mean that you would not be able to look at the time or know when to quit. You will always think that you are falling short of the usual time and tend to exercise longer and work your abs better.
25.) Motivate and Challenge Yourself to Lose Belly Fat
One of the best and time tested ways to lose belly fat would be to motivate yourself. Give yourself a treat every time you have said no to deep fried or high fructose food items. Snack on a slice of dill pickle. These pickles come in handy to cut any craving and the best part is that each slice has only one calorie in it!
You can also motivate yourself by keeping a daily tab on the inches that you lose around your waist and how soon your tummy is getting flatter. With each inch gone, you can motivate yourself by renting out a movie that has only the best sculpted bodies in it. Every time you see such bodies, it should automatically make you crave to be like those stars.
When you are in the gym and you have beat your own ab crunches, then it is time to challenge yourself to more crunches. If you were able to pull 5 crunches today, then challenge yourself to 6 the next day. This will make you shed that belly fat really very soon.