Secrets to Losing Belly Fat

Are you ready to get a tight, toned stomach? No matter how far you have to go to get that washboard tummy that you’ve always dreamed of, believe it or not, it is a possibility!

There are some simple workout and diet rules that will help you lose belly fat to get the flat stomach that you’ve been jealous of on those cover models. Whether you’re young, old, male or female, these tips will work for you.

Understanding your weight and what causes belly fat is just as important as the hard work that you’re going to do to get rid of it. If you can combine these tips with a diet plan, your goal for a flat stomach will be more attainable.

If you’re on the fence about whether to commit to this kind of rigorous program, remember that those of us with stomach area fat are the most likely to have serious health problems like heart attacks and diabetes. You’re risking your life by carrying around all of those extra pounds!

Secrets to Losing Belly Fat

So here are some of the best diet and lifestyle changes that you can make immediately that will help you lose belly fat and keep it off.

Stop Drinking

While this can be an unpopular option, if you’re able to stop drinking all together, you’re guaranteed to lose weight. I promise you, there aren’t any good options out there, no matter what you’ve read. If you drink beer, it is full of calories.

If you drink wine, the problem is probably sugar. And if you drink liquor, you’re probably mixing it with a sugary soda which is awful for you. And while you’re out drinking, you’re probably making poor food choices as well, right? Bar food isn’t good for anyone trying to lose weight. This is obvious, but your decision making process may seem a little cloudy after a couple of adult beverages.

If you can’t stop drinking all together, that’s ok. Make sure you aren’t drinking every day, and set a limit before you go out so that you know how many drinks and calories you’re going to consume. As with anything from shopping to eating to drinking- if you make a plan in advance, you’re more likely to stick with it.

Renovate the Contents of Your Kitchen

One of the first things you’re going to have to do, no matter how sad it may be, is that you need to get the junk food out of your home. If it’s around you, you’re going to eat it, no matter what your best intentions are. Get rid of anything that has a lot of sugar and bad fat in it. Get rid of your chips, cookies, ice cream. Yes, I know. All of your favorites, you’re thinking to yourself. But this is absolutely imperative to getting the kind of body that you want.

If the bad foods are in your pantry, in a moment of weakness, you’ll grab them. If you’re hungry and only have healthy foods lying around, you’re either not going to snack at all, or you’re forced to make a healthy decision! So be smart about what is laying around in your house.

There are tasty snacks out there that won’t ruin your diet, so search them out and stock up. Get in the habit of using fruits and vegetables as more of your snacks throughout the day, so that if you do have a snack in the evening, it’s balanced out with all the good stuff you ate all day.

Carbs- Fat’s Best Friend

You’ve probably heard about or tried, the Atkins Diet. While it is a little hard to cut all the carbohydrates out of your diet, it is also completely unrealistic, which is why most people who tried it saw no results, or saw drastic fat loss but then gained it all back. Some people even gained back more pounds than they had lost, leaving them HEAVIER in the end!

While that plan may not have worked, cutting your carbs though is a good idea. Get rid of the carbs in your home that have refined flour in them, these are the bad carbs that make you gain weight. Get rid of white bread, white crackers, and white pastas. Get rid of doughnuts and other fatty diet killers. Besides adding fat to your diet, these kinds of foods make you bloated and kill your blood sugar.

There are carbs that you SHOULD feature prominently in your diet, like veggies and fruits. You can also enjoy wheat carbohydrates, like wheat bread, wheat crackers, or brown rice. Eat sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes.

The Paleo Plan

The Paleo diet has become super popular this year, and it basically has you eating like a cave man. If it would have been around in prehistoric times, that’s what you want to eat. Meats, vegetables, and fruits are all allowed. Stop eating processed foods. Anything that is packaged and frozen, meant to be a quick meal, where you can’t understand the ingredients on the label is bad. Cook at home using the basic ingredients above and you can’t go wrong.

Stop Snacking!

Stop giving into your cravings, especially those midnight snacks. Because you’re going to sleep immediately after snacking, your body doesn’t have much of a chance to work any of those added calories off. You don’t want to spike your blood sugar right before bed, which will get your metabolism moving, to just crash later on in the night. Besides wreaking havoc on your diet, it will also cause disruptive sleep.

Calories from sugar before bed almost immediately turn into extra pounds on your waistline. And causing your metabolism to spike will only cause your appetite to be rocky in the long run. Stop snacking, midnight eating, and emotional eating. There are also ways to change your lifestyle that can help you lose weight. Most of these you may not even considered.

Lights Out

Make sure all the lights are out when you go to bed. Who knows why, but research has proven that individuals who sleep in the dark gain less weight.

Exercise

Ok it’s obvious that to get a toned tummy, you’re going to need to work out. But doing a million crunches per day will do almost nothing to get you to your goal- you need to get active and burn that fat off your body by working up a sweat.

If you don’t know where to start, get online, get a video, join a gym, grab a friend for a walk, or hire a personal trainer. Exercise will have an immediate effect on your body, and you will start to feel a new sense of energy daily. It will help you build muscle, which is great because muscles are constantly burning fat!

While you can do sit ups, they will get your stomach muscles toned on the inside, meanwhile, you’ll still have that ugly layer of fat on the outside, which is what you’re really trying to get rid of, right? Do weight training and cardio workouts to really get your blood pumping. Besides being great for your belly and overall weight loss, it will decrease your risk for heart disease and many other health problems.

So work out, and work out often. The more times per week that you make time to exercise, the better for your goal of a tighter stomach. If you can work out every day for a short period of time, great, but at least get 3-5 workouts in per week. You have to work out long enough to get your heart rate up.

Intensive workouts will make the most difference in your weight loss and tummy conditioning, so push yourself as hard as you can. The people who see the best results are the ones that combine a bunch of different workouts together and never focus on just one style of exercise or body area. This is also great to keep you interested so that you don’t burn out.

Vary your exercises, and you’ll lose the belly fat and gain muscle fast. Don’t say you don’t have time to exercise. Get up earlier, stay up later, or actually leave your desk during lunch and get moving. Doing something is better than doing nothing, so whatever you can do is a step in the right direction.

Don’t Starve Yourself

Look, while it may seem simple to just not eat, and think that the weight is going to drop off, it simply isn’t true. You need to eat to be able to get rid of fat. You need energy to power you through your workouts, and you need to fuel your muscles to lose fat. If you starve yourself, your metabolism will virtually stop, your body will go into a mode of defense, and it will literally hoard all of that fat as a protection mechanism. Your brain may be telling you not eating will help you lose weight, but your body isn’t going to get that message.

The Health Benefits

The health benefits associated with these lifestyle changes are shocking. You name an illness, and you can basically assume your chances of suffering from it are less if you are of a proper weight. And don’t use the excuse that being overweight runs in your family, because it simply isn’t the case. Kids that have fat parents who wind up fat are overweight because they inherited the EATING HABITS- not the genes.

Belly fat is extremely dangerous to your health. Your organs need to work harder to keep you going, and people who are overweight have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and often suffer from diabetes.

Wake Up!!

There is only one reason why you’re heavier than you want to be right now- and that’s because you used to be healthier than you are right now. Sure, it gets harder to maintain your weight as you age, but you’re less healthy than you were when you were a kid. You’re more sedentary, you make poor meal choices, and you eat when you’re not supposed to. You’ve become lazy. When you were little, you only ate when you were fed- at meal times. You weren’t allowed to snack whenever you felt like it. You ate the healthy meal that was made for you, and you were told you couldn’t eat the unhealthy stuff that you begged for. And you went outside and had playtime. A lot of playtime.

These are all notions that adults don’t ascribe to anymore, but you need to get back into that mindset. People who are of healthy weights, the ones that have the tight toned stomach that you want, probably behave more like the kids we just described. Get back into that habit!

In summary, you can lose weight; you can get that tight, toned tummy that you desire. It is going to take some hard work, a lot of dedication, and setting rules for yourself that you can’t allow yourself to break. You need to take back your youthful ways and focus on these food and lifestyle tips to get your stomach back into the shape that you so much desire.

You need to combine a healthy diet with a regular, intense workout plan to get into the shape that you want. As mentioned, if you don’t know where to start, get a book, hire a trainer, or just show up at a gym. You will naturally figure it out! While it won’t happen overnight, if you commit to the program and to your health, your entire body will feel better because of it. As you get started, you’ll see your energy level increase, and your hunger will even reduce because your hormones will adjust to the program. A combination of diet with exercise is where it’s at to get a toned stomach.

And remember, no matter how overweight you are or what your age, it is never too late to get on the right path to better health and a more toned midsection. There is no place to go but up if you’re at the bottom, and even the loss of just a few pounds can dramatically increase your health and longevity. You owe it to yourself and your family to lose the weight that you can as soon as possible.

Have you tried to lose your belly fat? What worked/ didn’t work for you? What were your results? Share your thoughts with us!

Source idealbite.com