One of the hardest things for me to do is shed and lose belly fat around my waistline and get those six pack abs. Everybody wants to look as good as they can but no matter what we do, no matter how many sit-ups, crunches and diet and weight loss gimmicks we try, we never seem to be able to achieve the perfect body that we want. Looking as good as you can is important for self esteem and a lot of people get frustrated while trying to lose belly fat and weight. It’s an extra confidence booster when you go out to know that you are looking slim and fit. While there are a lot of exercises and diets you can try, I’ll outline below guidelines that are must haves to any plan on how to lose belly fat and flatten your stomach.
One of the first things you want to consider is changing your eating habits. For starters, never skip breakfast because studies have consistently shown that people who skip breakfast tend to get hungrier during the day and just end up eating bigger lunches and dinners to compensate. Also skipping breakfast forces your body to change it’s metabolism to slow down, so not only do you end up eating more, but you also burn off less calories and store more fat. The best way to start the morning is to have a heavy breakfast to get you fueled and ready for the rest of the day. Also as the day progresses consider eating more meals in smaller portions. The reason you want to do this is to keep your metabolism running and burning food consistantly. When food is being digested 20% – 30% of the calories are burned up just during digestion. Eating in smaller portions will result in more calories burnt for digestion and will also have the added effect of preventing over eating.
Getting in the habit of being conscious of what you eat is equally important has how you eat. One thing you must change is to make sure you always drink water with your meals. Water is calorie free and helps to keep your liver and other organs regulated, which produces hormones that aid in digestion. Also water will keep you feeling more full. Make sure you get lots of fiber so your meals should contain a healthy amount of fruits and vegetables. Nuts are also a great source of fiber and also have proteins. Carbs are generally bad for losing weight and fighting a fat stomach, so try to reduce the amount of unnessecary carbohydrates from your diet. As often as possible stay away from while bread and refined sugars and eat whole grains. Stay away from junk food and refined sugars as well. Meat is great for losing weight as long as it is lean and low in animal fat. this means for example chick cutlet sandwiches are great but burgers on the other hand, bad. If you drink milk or dairy products try products derived from skim or 2% fat milk as opposed to whole milk.
Try to become more active and seriously consider strength training exercises to build more muscle on your body. In order to get a flat abs it’s not enough just to diet, exercise is probably needed. Your abs will not start to show unless you have low body fat and to achieve that you will need to hit the gym and work out. Strength training of some sort that works the entire body is recommended to build up muscle. More muscle means that you will burn more calories throughout the day and more fat. Good muscle mass will help to eliminante the amount of fat on your body because muscle takes more calories to maintain so your body will have to burn more of the food you eat to maintain it, or it will wither away. If you are a man you will want to do core exercises that work out the entire body with moderately heavy to heavy weights in sets of 4-5 with 3-8 reps intensely. If you are a woman you will want to do core exercises but with much lighter weights and more reps, 15-20 to tone your body, unless you want to start bulking up.
Lastly the most important ingredient to the question of how to lose belly fat and to losing weight is having the right attitude and staying motivated because there is not magic pill or diet or one shot solution that will help you to lose weight over night. Attaining a lean body with great looking abs is long term goal and more about getting in the habit of eating healthy and staying fit. Weigh yourself regularly but do not become obsessed with how you look or how much you weight. Remind yourself that this is a long term goal and that if you stick to a healthy diet and keep to your exercise regimen you will shed the fat. If you have friends who you can work out with that helps a lot because it’s easier to stick to your workouts and diets if you have friends or company with similar habits.
