Losing excess belly fat around the abdominals -- and keeping it off-- is important for everyone. Excess weight around the abdominal area is tied to an increased risk for heart disease, diabetes and certain forms of cancer. The problem with belly fat is that it's visceral fat, the kind that surrounds your organs and can secrete toxins. To shed excess belly fat and get your waistline under control in a way that's safe, healthy and fast, you'll need to exercise regularly and eat a well-balanced diet designed to help you lose weight.
Tips For You
- Perform abdominal exercises to tone and strengthen your muscles. This may not help you to shed belly fat, but toning your midsection through crunches, bicycle twists and leg lifts can still help you to lose inches and flatten your belly, since muscle takes up less space than fat. Weight training will also boost your metabolic rate so you burn more calories even at rest. Abdominal exercises will improve your health and provide the foundation for later weight loss.
- Exercise four to five times a week, doing cardiovascular exercises for 30 to 45 minutes at a time. Activities might include running, walking, bicycling or swimming, but anything that elevates your heart rate will help. The cardiovascular activities are what will help you burn fat. It isn't possible to spot-reduce fat in one area, so you won't be able to guarantee when you'll lose belly fat or how much of it you'll lose right away, but if you incorporate regular cardio into your workouts you'll lose weight all over, and eventually, the excess belly fat will come off. The good news: Abdominal fat may be especially responsive to exercise than fat in other areas of the body, according to Tongjian You, a professor of nutrition and exercise at SUNY Buffalo.
- Eat a balanced diet. Cut back on excess unhealthy fats such as unsaturated fat or trans fat. Make sure you're eating enough protein, whole-grain carbohydrates and fruits and vegetables. Continue to eat healthy sources of fat in moderation. Healthy fats include monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids such as those found in olive oil, avocados and nuts.
- Get seven to eight hours of sleep each night. Studies by the Columbia University Medical Center suggest that lack of sleep can make you hungrier, which can make effective weight loss difficult. Lack of sleep also increases levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which may be linked to abdominal fat.
The only healthy way to burn fat is with diet and exercise. Diet pills are false hope in a capsule. They are expensive and come with possible side effects and health risks. Working out and eating sensibly can burn fat without danger of pills. Diet pills are expensive; they can lead to heart problems, depression, impotence and unwanted drug interactions with prescription meds.
Tips For You
- Jump-start your metabolism. Early workouts tend to supercharge the metabolism to burn calories more efficiently than later in the day. To maximize fat burning without pills, schedule an extra workout. Two 30-minute workouts are more effective than one 60-minute session. Use the early morning exercises to do moderate cardio routines, and later in the day do strength or weight training.
- Exercise first before eating. Work out 30 minutes before consuming a healthy breakfast. Early workouts burn more than twice as much fat as exercise later in the day because overnight your body is burning carbohydrates. When you first wake up and your body is low on carbs, it will burn fat instead.
- Always eat breakfast. Breakfast will actually fire up your metabolism. If you don't eat until lunch, your metabolism slows down and functions less effectively when it isn't "fueled" properly. Sensible eating after your morning workout will curb the urge to reach for a sugary snack. It helps you feel more energetic and better able to cope with the stress of day. Consume more fiber, especially leafy green veggies, to burn fat efficiently.
- Use your nose. Breathing through your nose tends to stabilize the heart rate and promotes endurance. With greater endurance, you will be able to complete your workout and burn more fat.
- Stand or sit up straight. Your mother told you good posture was important, but who knew it was good for burning fat? Whether on exercise equipment or walking or jogging, good body alignment promotes better breathing and more intake of fat-burning oxygen. Use the hand grips on exercise bikes or other equipment only for balance.
- Cut calories. You will fire up your fat-burners with these tips, but if you combine them with a healthy diet of fruits, vegetables and low-fat meats like chicken and fish, you will see changes fast. You can also cut your portion sizes in half to help you easily cut your calorie intake.
Everyone wants to lose fat quickly, which is why weight loss and fat burning supplements are so popular. However, the safety of many those supplements has not been proven, so by taking them, you may be putting yourself at risk. There are many safe and effective ways to burn fat quickly and naturally without having to take a single pill. By following the steps in this article, you can naturally supercharge your metabolism and shed those unwanted pounds, transforming your body into a fat-burning machine.
Things You'll Need
- Access to exercise equipment/areas
- Water
- Green tea
- Healthy food
Tips For You
- Examine your diet. Rid your diet of any processed, sugary, fatty, and greasy foods and exchange them for whole grains, lean proteins, fresh fruits and vegetables, and healthy fats. In an article on diet and fat loss on bodybuilding.com, writer and bodybuilder Charlie Poole reveals that protein is essential to building muscle and therefore speeding up the metabolism, which in turn burns fat.
- Eat often. Eating frequently throughout the day will increase your metabolic rate and help you burn fat quickly. According to fitness experts at bodybuilding.com, eating small, nutritious meals every two to three hours throughout the day is essential to burning fat and getting lean.
- Drink water. In an article on WebMD, nutrition lecturer at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing Jamie Pope reveals that everything your body has to process, even water, burns calories. By drinking at least 8 ounces of water per day, you can help your body burn calories and, in turn, shed fat.
- Drink green tea.The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published a study in December 1999 that revealed that those who ingested a green tea extract at least three times a day had a 4 percent increase in their metabolic rate. By adding green tea to your daily diet you will automatically be burning more fat.
- Exercise with resistance training. Weight lifting and lean muscle building is essential for fat loss. According to an article in Redbook, chief exercise physiologist for myexerciseplan.com, Richard Cotton, M.A., reveals that building muscle automatically helps you burn fat, since one pound of muscle burns as much as 9 times the calories as one pound of fat does.
- Exercise with cardio training. While all cardio exercise helps with fat loss, there is one specific type of training, high intensity interval training also known as HIIT, that will dramatically increase the speed at which you lose fat. According to an article written by legendary bodybuilder Dave Draper on the bodybuilding.com site, fat is burned quickly when you exercise the most intensely, so by performing interval training, such as 1 minute sprints on the treadmill, your metabolism will increase and remain high even after your workout is over.
