Obesity is a prevalent problem today in the United States, millions of Americans are eating unhealthy fast foods and living sedentary lifestyles because working at an office takes up 8-12 hours of the day. Even if you are skinny and look trim you may still have high body fat percentage. That’s because a lot of body fat is “visceral fat,” it is fat that is deep inside your body and insulates your internal organs. Visceral fat has important functional and regulatory roles for the human body but in excess amounts it can be detrimental to ones health. Having too much fat can cause a variety of problems and being over weight is linked to diseases such as: diabetes, heart disease, liver and gall problems and cancer. As a general rule, if you want to lose belly fat naturally and safely, you will need to come up with a plan that involves a sensible diet and exercise regimen.
Lets face facts, most of us are probably in one of these or both categories: we eat more food than we need to and / or we eat junk calories and processed foods that are unhealthy for our body. Having a sensible and healthy diet is a must have for losing weight and getting a flatter stomach. Also how you plan your meals can affect your metabolism and the amount of weight you lose.
One strategy to lose weight is to break up your meals into 5 or 6 mini meals a day as opposed to 3 large meals a day. Doing this will help control your appetite and get you in the habit of eating less. Also, it takes energy to digest food so the eating more meals more frequently will result in more calories being burned just to process your food. Changing your eating habits from 3 meals a day to 5-6 will also have the added effect of changing your metabolism and making it faster. This is beneficial in terms of weight loss because a faster metabolism means you will burn more calories throughout the day.
What you eat is as important as how you eat, certain foods will help you weight more easily than others. It is recommend that you try to eat a diet high in whole grains, fish, fruits and vegetables if possible. In contrast, foods high in saturated fat, such as red meat, and refined sugars, such as candies or anything with high fructose corn syrup are bad for weight loss. Another essential diet tip when trying to lose belly fat is to drink lots of water. Drinking more water during meals is essential because studies have shown that people feel more full when they take water with their meals, thereby decreasing the amount of food they actually eat. Besides make you feel fuller longer, water affects the liver and your metabolism and assists the body in burning excess fat faster. Another rule to drinking and dieting is to be careful not to drink in to many calories. It’s very easy to consume lots of calories from beer, shakes and sodas. In general avoid alcohol and high calorie junk drinks when possible because the calories and ultimate fat you can gain from these beverages can add up. For most people cutting off their favorite drinks, especially alchohol is unrealistic. So a good tip is to avoid them during the work week and then consume alcohol or enjoyable drinks over the weekend with friends in moderation.
Practically speaking, the other half of the lose belly fat equation is exercise. You won’t be able to burn enough calories or get nice looking abs unless you are willing to put in some physical effort and become more active. In terms of exercise there are a variety of options that a person can choose between resistance training with weights and doing cardio. Weight training is an excellent way to build muscle mass, lose weight and stay healthy. If possible try to incorporate weight training into your regimen and exercise all major muscle groups with exercises such as bench press, shoulder press and squats. The goal is to gain more muscle mass on your body. Muscle takes more calories to maintain and burns more energy so if you have more muscle, the calories you consume will be burned more quickly and overall you will burn more calories through out the day.
Doing cardio and aerobic exercises are also important to losing belly fat. They are a great way to tone your body and burn fat. Doing cardio consistently, three to four times a week for at least 15 minutes will help to keep your heart rate up and your metabolism burning. Depending on what you feel like doing you can jog, get on a treadmill, do a Norditrack, bike, hike or even walk. Consistency is key when doing cardio, the worst thing you can do is do cardio hap haphazardly or just once a week, you will not see much benefit.
Most experts say that in terms of exercise, doing a combination of weight training and cardio is best to keep you body in shape. Your goal is to be healthier and more tone and you should not go to extremes like say working out and bulking up until you are a walking truck, or doing cardio constantly to the point where your are just skinny and boney. It is important that you do what you feel comfortable with and find a routine that energizes you and makes you feel healthy. Whether you do cardio, weight training or a combination of both it is important to always incorporate abdominal exercises into your routine to lose belly fat and trim your waist. So work in sets of sit ups, crunches and leg raises to tone up your stomach and get those six pack abs showing.
Losing belly fat takes a lot of commitment but the most important thing to bear in mind is that it is really about getting in the habit of being more conscious of what you eat and making an effort to be active, to compensate for sitting in the office all day. Start small in terms of diet or exercise. Pay attention to the food you eat and start for example with your grains, don’t eat white breads or bagels and substitute with whole grain toast. Pick a favorite fruit or salad and eat that with your meals or after meals as a snack. In terms of exercise do simple ones first like push ups, sit ups, chin ups and walking to get your body used to moving around more. Gradually as you feel better you can refine your dieting and add more exercises to your routine to get that waistline down. This a general statement and not true for everyone, but people tend to feel better about themselves if they look trim and healthy and there can be many emotional benefits to having great looking abs and a slim waistline. So keep in mind, if you want to lose belly fat naturally nothing beats a reasonable diet and proper exercise.
