It's been called the spare tire or the jelly roll. It's where every extra ounce of fat vacations. The stomach is seemingly the last place our body wants to rid itself of fat. The number one complaint that I hear from my personal training clients is that cannot banish belly fat.
We have all heard the myth of spot reduction. You cannot do stomach crunches and expectt the belly fat to disappear. There is only 1 concrete and absolute way that stomach fat can leave your body for good- a regular exercise and nutrition program.
Here are 5 tips to banish the belly fat:
1) Eat 5-6 small meals throughout the day. Each meal should contain one serving of protein and one serving of carbs. The first meal should be eaten within an hour after waking and each meal thereafter should be every 2-3 hours. Be sure to include plenty of veggies and other fibrous foods in your menu.
2) Drink lots of water to keep the body hydrated. Unsweetened tea or herbal tea is good as well. Keep coffee to a minimum and completely get rid of sodas.
3) Rest properly. This means taking at least 24-48 hours of rest between strength training the same muscles, and it also means getting at least 7-8 hours of sleep per night. Lastly, it means taking 1-2 days off from exercising per week. Rest is not a luxury. It is a necessity.
4) Cardio should be done at different intensity levels and different session lengths. Consider doing a low intensity/long session, a high intensity/short session and a few medium intensity/medium length sessions per week. Spice up your activities! Try Salsa dancing or ride your bike on your favorite trail.
5) Strength train each muscle 1-3 times per week. You should lift a proper weight and perform the proper amount of sets/reps for your strength training method. Do not focus on just the abdominal muscles. You should strength train the entire body for maximum results. And ladies, you should lift heavy weights too! Do not be afraid of bulking up or looking masculine. It's very hard for women to look muscular.
All of the above things combined will banish the belly fat. Keep up the good work and be patient.
Are you tired of carrying that extra weight around your middle? Well, here are some tips that can help you quickly lose weight and inches off that potbelly. That's right, there may be a way for you to have a flatter stomach without doing those dreaded crunches. Here are some things that can positively impact your midriff, helping you lose pounds and inches without even breaking a sweat.
Belly Fat Busting Tip #1
Increase your protein and decrease your carbohydrates. Increasing the amount of lean protein you eat and reducing carbs can deliver a one-two punch right to the belly! You see, carbohydrate tend to increase your insulin level, which can slow down your metabolism. Since the body can only metabolize just so much carbohydrates at once, the rest is converted to sugar and then turned into body fat.
Of course, increasing your protein doesn't mean overeating. Just have 3-4 oz of lean protein with every meal… yes, even breakfast… and eat the protein first. This kicks your metabolism up a few notches as your body must work harder and expend more energy to digest protein. Throw in an extra helping of vegetables to add more fiber and moisture to your digestive process, and that should keep things moving along nicely. This is the first step to quick weight loss around your belly.
Belly Fat Busting Tip #2
Reduce your alcohol consumption. I know, for some of you this may be asking a lot, but it can make a huge difference to your waistline. While alcohol provides no nutrients whatsoever, each gram of alcohol contains 7 calories. And 100% of the calories you consume through alcohol is stored as fat! That means every alcoholic beverage you consume-- whether it's a few drinks per day or a few drinks per week-- is converted to fat, usually around the belly.
Now, you don't have to give up all libations in order to bust your belly fat, but cutting back to just one or two drinks a couple of times a week will pay huge dividends to your belly fat busting account.
Belly Fat Busting Tip #3
When it comes to junk-food… pick two and you're through! To bust your belly fat, you must become the master of your junk food domain! That means pick one salty junk food item, and one sweet junk food item to keep in your house. The rest of that junk food will simply have to go. Then give yourself only one meal per week during which you will eat a small amount of your chosen salty snack food, and one meal per week for your sweet snack food.
Here's an example. Once a week for dinner I give myself 7-large, restaurant style, plain nacho chips along with fat-free refried beans, 1oz of reduced-fat, grated cheddar cheese, 5 oz of boneless, skinless chicken breast strips seasoned with packaged taco seasoning, some shredded lettuce, and all the Salsa I can eat. Add to that, colorful napkins and Celia Cruz on the CD player… and my wife and I enjoy a weekly, guilt-free, Latin Fiesta!
I have my fatty, snack-food chips every week, yet it doesn't add an inch to my waistline. Why? Well, for one thing, I set the amount of this snack-food to a moderate level. In this case, 7-chips, which contains 140 calories and 7 grams of fat. Plus, I incorporated this snack-food into a fun and tasty high-protein meal. The fat-free, refried beans are protein, and so are the reduced-fat cheese and chicken. The shredded lettuce and salsa (tomatoes) are high-grade catabolic foods -- foods that burn up more calories to digest, than they actually supply when eaten.
My weekly sweet snack is a large pancake and syrup on Saturday mornings. I have it along with 3 strips of turkey bacon and a scrambled egg. Of course, it could be anything sweet that you enjoy. A slice of apple pie a la mode, a candy bar… you name it. But again, eat it only once a week with a specific meal, and in moderation. Have your sweet snack as dessert at the end of a high protein meal that includes high-grade catabolic vegetables such as Broccoli, carrots, spinach, sweet potato, zucchini, or tomatoes. Since your metabolism increases 30% above it's resting level to burn protein… and the catabolic foods burn up their own calories as well as some of the calories from any other food you eat along with it… there's a good chance most of the calories from your moderate junk-food snack will be burned while your body is digesting the protein & catabolic foods that make up the bulk of your meal. Having a junk-food snack only two times per week with a specific meal, will play a major role in busting your belly fat and trimming inches from your waistline.
Belly Fat Busting Tip #4
Exercise is another way to bust belly fat… but that doesn't mean you have to do those dreaded crunches or go work out at the gym. Personally, I dislike structured exercise with a passion. And I seriously considered omitting exercise from this article altogether.
Although I am going to mention exercise, this is all I'm going to say about it. If you like structured exercise such as walking on a treadmill, going to an aerobics class, etc., then go for it. A half hour to 45 minutes, three times a week will certainly help bust your belly fat.
However, if that kind of exercise is unpalatable to you, then do what I do. I give myself a couple of projects to do around the house every week. Clean out the garage, hand-wash the car, sweep and hose the patio, do some work in the yard, etc… any activity that will keep you moving, reaching, bending, pulling, and contracting your muscles for 30-45 minutes is EXERCISE! The added benefit is instead of just having a sweaty body and some burned calories to show for it… you'll also have a clean patio, a shiny car, a beautiful garden, and a neatly organized closet to boot. :o)
The point I'm making is, housework counts, yard work counts, garage & closet clean up work counts as EXERCISE as far as your body is concerned. Just schedule 1-2 of these kinds of physical projects every week shortly after eating a meal rich in catabolic/fat burning foods, and your results could far out-strip that of the poor schmoe working out down at the gym. You see, any physical exercise you engage in after eating catabolic foods will continue boosting your metabolism and burning calories at a faster rate during, and for several hours AFTER exercising.
Rest assured, the exercise you engage in doing physical projects will burn lots of extra calories and bust more belly fat than you can shake a stick at. Of course, your aerobics instructor down at the gym may not give you credit for it, but your metabolism will certainly add it to your balance sheet by burning more calories, losing more weight, and firming & toning your muscles.
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Lynn Vandyke has sinced written about articles on various topics from Personal Desktop, Fitness and Health. Lynn VanDyke is a certified nutritionist and master personal trainer. If you would like to train with Lynn, please check out her Online Personal Training programs at