How to lose belly fat

This guide will provide tips on how to lose belly fat. There are three key ways that you can lose abdominal fat: dieting, exercise and lifting weights. The best way to do it would be to combine all three, but dieting and exercise should form the basis of your fat loss program. Although the purpose is to lose fat around the belly, the great news is that fat loss will be all over.

Diet

The most important way to lose abdominal or belly fat is to ensure you have a diet that provides a negative calorie intake. To lose fat, a person has to have an intake of calories that is less than total daily calorie consumption.

What it means

Daily calorie intake - Energy expended in calories = Calorie deficit/fat loss

Approximately, 3500 calories equates to about 1 pound of fat. You should aim to lose no more than 2/3 pounds of fat every week until you have reached your desire weight.

You should aim for a calorie deficit of around 1000 a day. Remember, to discount the calories expended through exercise.

Eating frequent small meals

Try and consume your required calories through frequent but small meals, ensure they are high in protein because it maintains muscle, which is required for maintaining strength and helps boost metabolism. The purpose of small meals is to allow the body to digest food properly and reduce fat storage.

Make sure the last meal or two consists mostly of protein. You should get your carbohydrate and fat requirements in earlier meals. The idea is to reduce carbohydrate and fat as the day wears on.

Avoid fad diets. Some of these like Atkins have proven to be bad for health in the long term. It is quite easy to lose fat by eating relatively normally.

A good mix would be 50% protein, 30% carbohydrates, 20% fat or 40% protein, 40% carbohydrate, 20% fat. There is no need to follow what you eat and count calories religiously because it can become rather tiring.

Tip: Remember, do not exercise too much, it is not advisable to try and lose fat too quickly. Losing fat too quickly may represent health problems. It is safer to lose fat steadily over a period of time.

Cardiovascular Exercise

A strict diet should be complemented with an exercise program consisting of regular cardiovascular exercise. Depending on how much excess fat you have and how fast you want lose the belly fat, your aerobic exercise program should vary to meet your individual circumstance.

Tip: Remember, exercise is a great way to lose fat all over. It is impossible to spot reduce fat. When you lose fat, it will come off from all parts of the body.

Abdominal exercise

Because the belly fat is often very stubborn, it is highly recommended that you stimulate the fat loss with different types of exercises. Exercising the abdominal muscles is a great way to lose the stubborn belly fat because muscle helps increase the rate of metabolism - the process of fat loss.

Different abdominal exercises

• Sit-ups - these are the most common. You start from a seating position and then fall back gently until you are almost in a lying flat position and then moving back up to a seating position. This represents one complete sit-up. You should do about 3 or 4 sets of 12.

• Crunches - These are a great way to alternate between sit-ups.

• Obliques - Do side bends or leg ups while lying on your side (for both sides of course). This works the side abdominal muscles. This will firm up the side of your waist and get rid of the love handles.

Doing weights

Lifting weights is a great way to lose fat. In fact, for many, it is more fun way to lose fat because many enjoy going to the gym an interacting with others.

A lot of women are apprehensive when it comes to doing weights because they fear it will bulk them up. However, this is far from the truth. To develop a bulky physique, it requires lifting extremely heavy weights with a lot of dedication and a diet to match. Those with bulky physiques eat substantially more calories than they expend in order to bulk up.

There are light weights available for women to lift. Make sure you exercise all parts of the body to ensure a symmetrical physique. Also, do some compound exercises that require use of several muscle groups at once. These will accentuate fat loss.