Quickest Way to Lose Belly Fat for Men

While men and women have vastly different body shapes, the steps to losing belly fat and/or fat from anywhere on the body are the same for both. Men have a tendency to store excess body fat on their upper bodies, but can speed up their rate of fat loss by adhering to a few simple principles.

Reduce Calories

Men have a tendency to store excess body fat in their abdominal areas, leading to the dreaded formation of beer guts and love handles. Men who want to reduce their abdominal fat must reduce their daily intake of calories to a level below the amount of calories they burn through daily exercise and normal metabolism. This is known as a negative calorie balance, where the body burns more calories than it ingests. The greater the difference between the number of calories you burn and the calories you ingest, the faster you will lose weight.

Eating a low-fat, low-calorie diet rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and lean meat and dairy products and avoiding a high-fat, high-calorie diet rich in fast foods, pastries, and greasy foods will help promote weight/fat loss by enabling you to feel fuller and more satisfied on less food and less calories.

Increase Aerobic Exercise

Along with reducing the calories you take in, you need to increase the frequency and/or duration of your aerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise—exercise that increases the body's oxygen consumption—is an effective weight/fat loss tool that burns a lot of calories and increases basal metabolic rate over the long run, both of which contribute to fat loss and/or weight loss. The type of aerobic exercise engaged in is not as important as the intensity of the exercise, as more intense exercise produces better weight loss results.

Men seeking to lose fat should engage in moderate to vigorous levels of aerobic exercise at least four to five times a week, for at least 30 to 45 minutes per session as is recommended by many leading health and fitness experts. To maximize fat loss, aerobic exercise should be done so that you reach 70 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate, which is a vigorous, high-paced exercise level. To determine your maximum heart rate, simply deduct your age from the number 220. For example, a 35-year-old man would have a maximum heart rate number of 185 (220-35=185) beats per minute.

The best types of aerobic exercise will be ones that you enjoy—such as cycling, swimming, running, and walking, to name but a few—which at the same time allow you to work out intensely enough to burn a lot of calories. The more vigorous and intense an exercise is, the more calories you burn, which helps to speed up your rate of fat/weight loss.